Day 4

I finally managed to get some extra rest today. I woke up at 9am to find that the Germans had returned to the hostel at some point in the middle of the night. They were still asleep and looked tattered from the night before. I honestly don’t think they ever should have left Germany; I’m sure many ecstasy-filled techno parties awaited them there. On my right, I noticed that Francisco was not in his bed, so I assumed he was at his sunrise. 

I got ready as quickly as I could because Sandrina had the scooter until 2pm today. She had wanted us to be ready to leave by 9:30 or 10. After brushing my teeth, I made my way downstairs to find Sandrina having breakfast while chatting up some other people. She offered me some roaches to eat and told me they were a great source of protein. This woman is such a character – I never know what awaits me when I see her. 

In terms of more normal food, she also informed me about a woman who sells freshly squeezed orange juice to the hostel every morning. It’s 50 pesos for a small half-litre jug. She had bought some yesterday and offered it to me. It was so delicious! She encouraged me to drink more because she knew I hadn’t really had breakfast yet. I didn’t want to eat because I felt like I would waste precious time that we could use to get to the beaches, so we packed up.

On the stairs, I ran into a frazzled Francisco. He had all of his stuff with him because it was his last day. He was headed on a boat cruise around the Bahias. He had just had a job interview from 9-10 that went well, but was now running late to his cruise. He told me he’d talk to me when he gets back.

We both headed out to the scooter to find Sandrina in a panic. She had opened up her seat bin and there was no helmet. She insisted that someone had stolen the helmet and that she was upset that she’d have to pay for it. I told her that it was too bad, but that, in the meantime, she could use an abandoned helmet I had seen on top of the lockers in our room. Her face lit up. That was her helmet! She had left it there and forgotten. Francisco left on his way to the boat. 

We grabbed her helmet and debated who would have to wear it. Neither of us wanted to since it was so hot inside of it. Eventually, though, she succumbed because she was going to be driving. I tied my sunhat on and put on a breezy long-sleeve white shirt. I couldn’t risk more sun exposure since I was already crispy in spots.

We shoved all of our things into the seat bin and began our journey to Maguey Beach. Sandrina had scootered there yesterday and loved it. At first, I was a little weary to be getting on the back of a scooter with a 77 year old, but she drove it with ease. 

We took the same route that Francisco and I walked yesterday. I knew it was a beautiful road but yesterday’s trekking made it a lot harder to appreciate the beauty. With the wind blowing in my hair, life was nice, and beauty was easier to spot. The parts of the road that were made of cobblestones also made it a bit harder to appreciate the beauty because it felt like you were getting a concussion going over them. Making things worse was the fact that Mexico didn’t upkeep their roads: when some stones fell out, they weren’t replaced. That meant that every so often, Sandrina would pull a sharp turn to avoid a crater in the Earth. 

Maguey was the beach just one over from Cacaluta, but it was significantly more developed. It had restaurants and lots of tourists. It also had many more tour boats going in and out. Sandrina liked it, though, because she could get a Cocktel de Camaron, her favorite food, on the beach. 

So to get some lounge chairs and a sun umbrella, Sandrina ordered a shrimp cocktail and a beer. We put our stuff down and headed for the water. 

We swam in there for an hour before I got tired. The water was nice and there were adorable little, round, translucent, white fish jumping all around us. You could hear little bubbles behind you, look over, and see fishies! As nice as it was, I had to swim out soon. I could feel my skin burning again exactly where my scalp meets my forehead, and the water smelled of petrol every time a boat zipped by. Sandrina yelled at all of the boats in Spanish for getting too close to her while she swam. She also taught me all about the different types of boats and their parts. When I got tired, I told her I was going to shore. She said she was going to stay in and keep training her knee – a testament to her strength at 77. 

Eventually she got out to join me and we finished our food. I insisted I pay since she had covered the cost of the scooter. She told me that was nonsense because she was going to be using the scooter with or without me. 

The very rotund Mexican waitress asked us how we had brought the scooter down the steep and windy road to the beach. Sandrina told her she simply drove it. The waitress gasped and said she must be much braver than her because she would never dare drive down the serpentines. She then asked Sandrina what kind of model she had bought and Sandrina explained that it was a rental. The waitress laughed even more and told her she must be crazy to be taking a rental down here. 

We ran into the old French couple from Toulouse that was staying at our hostel here. They had arrived by cab. We spoke briefly before realizing we needed to make our way back to the scooter rental shop, so as to not be charged a late fee. 

Our way back was also incredibly nice. Sandrina told me she had filled up on gas yesterday and that the tank was still full. When she rented the scooter, the gas was on ¾ of a tank, so she told me she would see if she could get us more time on the scooter by playing that card. 

When we got to the city, Sandrina had no idea where she had rented the scooter from. To be fair, there are a number of scooter rental shops, so it’s really easy to get confused. As a result, we circled around the same roundabouts many times trying to find the right shop. With minutes to spare, we did find the place.

Another thing that impeded the efficiency of the journey was the fact that Huatulco lacked traffic signs. There was no rhyme or reason to how and when people drove. You simply had to be aggressive and follow the crowd. If the light was red, but everyone seemed to be driving through, then we did the same. Sometimes people moved on red and sometimes they moved on green, so we really couldn't comprehend rules of the road.

When we finally found the rental place, a pleasant lady greeted us and chatted with Sandrina about the gas situation. In exchange for the extra gas, we could have the scooter for an extra hour. When Sandrina asked her if a red light maybe means go in Mexico, the lady explained that there are only 3 traffic lights in all of Huatulco. Out of the 3, two are broken. The locals just know which one is functional and they abide accordingly. Essentially, the one traffic light that does work dictates the entirety of the traffic rules. If you notice that people are stopped at that one, then you automatically assume that you need to go at your dysfunctional traffic light, regardless of if it's red, yellow or green.  

With this in mind, Sandrina took me to the yacht club, the fishing pier and finally through every single street in town, so that I could really get a sense of La Crucecita. It was really lovely. I saw a really pretty flower shop where locals bought bouquets for each other. It was next to a small bakery. There was a great sense of community between the little shops. 

I had mentioned to Sandrina earlier in the day that Francisco had really wanted a coconut on the beach yesterday but we couldn’t find any. She didn’t forget this because, as soon as she saw a roadside coconut sales stand, she pulled over and told me to get one to make Francisco jealous, so I did! I got on the back of the scooter, coconut in tow. The traffic was hectic, and we couldn’t figure out the traffic signals. Mexicans would sometimes go on a red light and sometimes stop on a green light, but it was never consistent. We had to just follow the crowd and do our best. This meant that, occasionally, Sandrina would scream at me to stick out either my left or right arm. She told me that, no matter what though, I had to make sure I didn’t lose the coconut.

We made it back to town again, but we had forgotten which shop we had to return the scooter to again. Another tour around the city later, we had it. 

We walked back to our hostel to find Chris sitting there and having a meal. We chatted a bit about our day and Sandrina somehow got to telling me and Chris that she attended the Oscars as the date of the Costume Designer of the movie Evita. The designer didn’t win the Oscar that year, but told her that he had won anyways because he had her on her arm. 

Chris asked her if she knew any other famous people. What a stupid question to ask Sandrina; as if there was any possibility she would say no. 

She said of course and proceeded to tell us about the time she got invited by a friend to Diana Ross, the lead singer of the Supremes, Thanksgiving Party. Sandrina struggled to remember the Diana’s name, but Chris jogged her memory when she mentioned the Supremes. She said her friend told her to whip up some tortillas as soon as she landed from her plane and bring them to a dinner. She was exhausted but did so, and nearly fainted when Diana opened the door with her massive afro. Diana was an amazing host because she noticed Sandrina’s exhaustion and sent her up to a room in her Beverly Hills mansion to let her sleep off her jetlag.

I’m going to be honest. I don’t know if these stories are true. They sound farfetched, and Sandrina does have a knack for bragging, but I don’t want to completely discredit them. For all I know, they could be real. 

As for Chris, he has a strange demeanour, which I think stems from his depression. He doesn’t really react to anything, but I couldn’t figure out if that was because this story sounded so out-there, or because he just was constantly that way. He told stories of his own from his travels to over 90 countries, which he afforded by teaching at international English schools throughout the world. 

Sandrina got caught up in another panic when she told Chris and I that she planned on making her way to Guatemala along the coast of Mexico. Christ informed her that that was a bad idea since the land border guards on the coast had a bad reputation for making trouble for foreigners and asking for bribes. He told her it would be better to go inland, into Chiapas, towards San Cristobal, and cross the border from there. She panicked and began looking into her options. Not many places were available because it was the start of Easter Week for the Mexicans. The prices of available places were exorbitant. 

I’m not exaggerating when I say that Sandrina dragged me and Chris into spending the next 5 hours devising a plan for her to get across safely and cheaply. She had so many criteria that this was practically impossible. She wanted to go along the coast for as far as possible. She refused to take a bus longer than 5 hours. And she wanted it to be cheap. 

There was a bus to San Cristobal directly but it took 9 hours. The accommodations there had also gone up a bit in price. Eventually, I discovered that she could go to Arriaga, which was still on the coast in Chiapas in 7 hours, then take a 3 hour bus to San Cristobal, and finally cross into Guatemala from that inland border. She was very grateful. 

When I went upstairs to shower, I got a break from Sandrina. When I got out of the shower, she had left me a care package for my skin on my bed. She had picked some aloe vera leaves from the road and cut them in half for me, and she had even bought me an after-sun gel, sunscreen, and a pair of flowy orange linen pants. She had noticed that, though I was trying to cover up my skin during our journey today, I hadn’t had anything to cover my legs with since I had only brought shorts, so she fixed that for me. 

I thanked her when I saw her, but she brushed it off as though it was nothing. She said I deserved it because I was champagne bottle of a girl – bubbly and happiness-bringing. I really appreciated the kind words, and my skin desperately needed the things as it was burnt to a crisp. As my sister described it, it looked like I had done brown contouring with makeup. 

I encountered the chronically dissatisfied Germans in our shared room and they greeted me briefly. We all knew we weren’t getting along. 

Then came Jim. Jim was brought in by Maribel, our hostel receptionist. He had wild hair, a long beard and a completely unbuttoned shirt. He looked about 55 with his leathery, sun-burnt skin. He was a chatterbox. He was blabbing to Maribel about his journey from Zipolite, who brushed him off with a quick “no English”. As soon as she was gone, Jim started asking me questions about the town. He was full of the same vigour and excitement an 8-year-old boy has. He smiled so big.

When I told him I was from Vancouver, he told me he was also from BC, near Nelson. I had been to Nelson and Castlegar two years ago and liked it. He clarified that he was from a place called New Denver, a super small town where he would often go days without seeing anyone. I understood how difficult that must have been for a guy like Jim who has boundless energy, and the obvious need for socializing. 

I asked what brought him to Mexico and a lengthy story ensued. Jim has been an electrician for his whole life. He started working for Tec, a mining company, a while ago because they pay really well. The job is tough work, though. He works on some industrial electric projects at a metal smelter. 

One of the metals at the smelter at his facility was lead. Tec had improperly stored the lead and it had piled up. When they went to smelter it again, there was a spill in November of 2022. (Just to clarify how sneaky these corporations are, I had never heard of this spill). Lead had leaked into the water supply in Trail, which would not be the first time something toxic had happened to Trail. 

Anyways, Jim and his buddies were monitored for heavy metal levels periodically. The allowable lead level was 25. Jim’s climbed from 38 to 55 in a matter of days, so they transferred him to a different project. No use. A week or so later, his levels remained at 55 and he was laid off. Being the positive guy he is, he said it was the universe making a decision for him. Now that he had no job, he was off to Mexico.

He had had a really rough year. At the start of it, he had sold his own house at the same time as buying another. His own house sale went fine, but the house he had bought had fallen through – the owner had opted to go with a bigger offer that came in at the last minute. Jim was effectively rendered homeless. He bought a trailer and moved it to a friend’s lake property, where he has lived since. His trailer’s heating system was starting to fail him around the same time the heavy metal issue was coming about, so he opted to leave everything and head out to warmer places. He had been travelling Mexico since December of 2022. 

With all this crap he had endured, he was constantly elated. He was the epitome of how looks can be deceiving. He looked homeless, but he had travelled the entire world – including a Monk meditation retreat in Thailand and a solo 7000 kilometer journey through India on a motorcycle. He came off as incredibly happy-go-lucky, but he had endured so much pain. 

He excitedly showed off his two jerry-rigged travel essentials to me. One was a portable little fan; the other, a small reading light. He bumbled with joy. 

Francisco came in and asked me if I wanted to have dinner again, so I wished Jim all the best and went off into town for some tacos. Francisco has the appetite of an anorexic-ant, so he decided that he wasn’t hungry enough for tacos. I persuaded him to get churros with me instead. 

Churros are genuinely what I come to Mexico for. They are so good. I’m convinced there’s some psychological component to them because I used to eat them as a small kid on trips to San Diego. 

We wandered until we found a churros stand in the town square and it didn’t disappoint. They were so good, in fact, that I ordered an extra portion.

On our walk, I asked Francisco how sunrise had been. He rolled his eyes with a coy chuckle and said he didn’t go. He said his alarm rang at 4, he woke up, thought about things for a while, and realized he didn’t want to go for his own sake. He said he realized he wanted to go only because that’s what all of his friends were saying he should do. He, himself, had no desire to trek to see a sunrise at 4am. He praised me for being self-aware enough to opt out of the sunrise trek well in advance. 

When we got back to the hostel, I finished helping a panicked Sandrina confirm her bookings and things. With that, it was time for bed. 

Day 3

Today I woke up at 8am. Once again, earlier than expected, but my own fault. I was convinced I was going to burst my bladder. I think this blisteringly hot weather does something to your body. You're dehydrated during the day time, so you drink fluids to keep up. Then, at night, when the temperature drops to something bearable, your body has an excess of fluids it doesn't know what to do with.

At least, this is my theory for why I was so desperate to go pee. 

Though groggy, it was really nice to catch Ele. She was packing for her bus and getting ready to head over to her next spot, San Jose del Pacifico. We had a brief giggle over the grandma in the room who was snoring before she left to make her way to the fruit stand. She needed to buy some groceries before heading on her way since this San Jose was in the middle of the jungle, in the mountains, and didn't have an easily-accessible grocery store. This is also when I noticed Marc meditating in his bed. This was a long ordeal. He was in the same criss-cross position with his eyes closed for a good while. 

I had a breakfast date with my two friends from last night, who, as I would find out during our meal, were named Christina and Sandrina. Christina is the middle-aged lady from Switzerland and Sandrina is the 77-year-old grandma from Murcia. Around 9am, we had some Haferflocken, or oatmeal, and chatted again. Sandrina led the show, as yesterday. I think because Christina's English is so limited, she doesn't really have a choice but to smile and nod. At some point, Ele joined to tell us how cheaply she had bought all of her fruits at the stand. She gave me a few final instructions for where I should go in the town before heading to her Collectivo.

After leaving, she texted me a long list of restaurants, stores, landmarks and whatnot, and let me know to contact her if I need anything. I think this was a demonstration of Ele's high-strungedness. I guess I partly empathize with her because I have been the same way. Imagine going on a trip and thinking about making sure some girl you met at a hostel just yesterday is prepared for her journey. It's maternal. Now, maybe I'm speaking with some North American prejudice, but I don't think it's common to care and offer that kind of help to a stranger. I think Ele's history has just made her a very good caretaker of others, whilst putting herself last.

As she left, we also saw Marc leave. He was off to a gay, nudist colony somewhere down the bay. This finally confirmed his sexual orientation. I knew he was far too nice to be straight. He gave me the directions to the Croatian-owned motorcycle rental shack and told me the Brazilian guy might want to come with me to split the cost. I asked Marc if he happened to know the Brazilian guy's name and he said Francisco. Awesome. 

Marc's backpack seemed bigger than Ele's which is saying something because hers was already a massive 60-litre capacity. Christina discussed how she wished she had brought a backpack since it seemed more practical, but all of the decent ones were terribly expensive. I told her that I had found my 30-litre Gregory backpack for 10$ on marketplace, which she was amazed by. She asked me to bring it down to show her, so I did. She asked how big my other bag was and audibly gasped when I told her there was no other bag. This was it. I had nearly 3 months worth of clothing, toiletries and life in 30-litres.

Meanwhile I realized that I had left the Brazilian guy completely abandoned. He came downstairs to look for me and he was ready to go. He had a significant backpack with him and hiking shoes on. I briefly felt like I was not as prepared as him for what was to be a brief walk to the beach, but, in my rush, didn't second-guess myself. 

Armed with my flipflops and half a litre of water, we set out to this amazing beach called Cacaluta. 

This was a horrendous experience. We trekked over roadside hills for an hour and half in the blistering heat. I thought I was going to faint. Francisco assured me that he had enough water for the both of us, but that didn't change things. He had been cheated by Ele, who called this trek a stroll. 

We had no choice but to continue and we knew that it would get better. Eventually, we'd be in the jungle and that would be shade from the heat. 

Francisco was a fairly dark Brazilian guy, but he was applying SPF 50 sunscreen rather religiously. I made fun of him for it, but he told me the sun  in Latin America is really strong. Then he offered me some sunscreen. Stupid pride I just can't hide forced me to tell him that I had the strongest skin ever and that I couldn't burn. This proved untrue. 

By the time we had gotten to the entrance of the jungle, I was already lobster-red. We started walking along a lagoon filled with crocodiles and eventually made it to this magical, elevated gazebo in the middle of the jungle with a view of greenery on all sides. We sat for a while to rehydrate and continued on our path soon after. We passed signs warning us of anteaters on our path, which Francisco assured me were incredibly docile and friendly creatures. 

Eventually, we could smell the ocean. It felt like victory. We exited onto a truly beautiful beach. At the entrance, there was a blonde gringo lady camping in a tent, but other than her, we couldn't see anyone. It made sense that a beach that required so much walking would only have westerners at it. Mexicans aren't crazy enough to make gruelling treks when they have an abundance of beaches. 

There were two banana leaf huts to provide shade, and two rocky islands in the near-distance in the water. We walked to one of the huts to, in fact, discover 3 Mexicans: A guy with some cross tattoos on his face and two girls about our age. They were making ceviche, which made me so envious because I love ceviche and also because I had nearly died on this walk. They had music playing and the vibe felt really great, so we occupied the picnic table beside them in the hut. 

Francisco talked to them a bit in Spanish and they explained to us that Cacaluta was a sacred beach because it was shaped like a heart and because of some local lore. It was really cool. As the guy talked, Francisco applied another layer of sunscreen and told me he was going into the water. The guy stopped him and said he can't go in for at least 15 minutes because he just applied sunscreen and that might be harmful to the turtles on the beach. Apparently there were many and they laid their eggs on this beach. Francisco explained that he had some ocean-safe sunscreen and the Mexican guy reluctantly agreed to let him in. 

It was really peculiar to me that a guy with crosses on his face was concerned about the well-being of turtles, but it made him complex in my character book. We went into the water and had an incredible time refreshing ourselves. The water in Huatulco is always the perfect temperature -- never too cold to get in, but still cool enough to be revitalizing. 

With the sweat washed off, we headed back to the hut. Francisco offered me one of his granola bars which I gladly accepted. He also offered me his sunscreen again which I now did accept because my skin was red, in pain, and had funny tan-lines from my shirt.

I laid in the shade and listened to Francisco tell me about his hatred of London, a boring city that was always grey. I told him I felt the same way about Vancouver, but didn't know what to do about it. He told me it was hard because we both felt like we had no alternatives. Even though he was from Brazil, he said he couldn't live there. Sao Paolo was far too dangerous to actually live in, but the lifestyle suited him more. He was debating going to Australia to live as a rancher for a bit. His family owned a ranch of four thousand cattle in Brazil and he enjoyed his time there so much that he thought it might be his calling to do it somewhere else in the world. 

He was strikingly similar to me. He had also studied a broad Liberal Arts subject at the University of Edinburgh and didn't really know how to use his degree. He also hated Indian food because it was too spicy. 

Around this time, one of the girls in the hut came to offer us each a ceviche tostada. This gesture made the entire walk worth it for me. These tostadas were so tasty that I cannot put it into words. Even better, Francisco had seen the Mexicans add small, orange peppers to the ceviche, which he knew to be super spicy. He passed his tostada onto me without hesitation and I scarfed it down equivalently fast. The peppers definitely weren't mild, but the tostada as a whole was a very tolerable level of heat. 

We spent the next 4 hours sleeping in the shade, enjoying the beach and speaking with the Mexicans. They gave us a bunch of tips and suggestions for where to go and what to do. They also taught me something really cool in terms of the Mexican Spanish. Apparently, the Spanish word for "fart" is "pedo". Somehow, specifically in Mexico, "pedo" has morphed into a word for anything and everything. If you forget a word, you can fill in for it with "pedo". If you think a guy is super cool, you can say he's a "pedo" with a happy tone of voice. If you think a guy sucks, you can say what a "pedo" with a dismissive or annoyed tone. If you are looking for a thing you can't quite remember the word for, you can fill it in with "pedo". Pedo is a one size fits all word. 

We decided to go back before sundown so that the jungle wouldn't get too dark. On our way, we saw the most incredible blue bird. It was sky blue and had a nice blue mohawk to go with its outfit. It sang a beautiful song and three new of its friends appeared shortly after to accompany it as it flew away.

Francisco told me that the Mexican guy from the beach had told him there was a beautiful beach to see the sunrise over a cliff on. He was thinking of going tomorrow and I was invited. I told him I wouldn't be there simply because the sunrise is too early for me to get up, especially after today's trek. He said he didn't blame me. It was during this conversation that I noticed that he was about to step on a scorpion. I squealed about it and tugged at his sleeve. He stopped and moved out of the way just in time. The scorpion was small and black with white legs. 

I took a photo to show my sister who is an animal encyclopedia and she told me that the one we had seen was really not dangerous at all. So much for bragging about a near-death experience. 

We got to town just as the sun set and decided to go straight to the taco place everyone had praised. Alvelu was a small hole in the wall with a small selection of fish tacos. We had come for the octopus but they were sold out, so we ordered one of each of the fish, shrimp and Oaxaca beef. The tacos were pricier than mine from yesterday which made sense because we were in the city centre. They were big and really tasty. I got my order with agua fresca. The father of the father-son business asked me if "guanabana" was ok for agua fresca. I honestly didn't understand what fruit he was talking about, but it sounded similar to "guava", which I do like, so I said sure. 

What I got tasted like a cross between guava and pineapple. It had some chunks floating around and it was really refreshing. Francisco liked it so much that he got himself one after me. I asked him what fruit it was and he said he didn't know the English name.

I googled it to find that it was a soursop. I hadn't had soursop before this, but it was a really great fruit. Seeing my excitement, the father and son brought out a whole soursop fruit for me to see it in its original state. It was way bigger than it looked on Google and it was spiky and green. I poked it to find that it was mushy. As we went to pay, the guys asked Francisco to ask me if I'd like to try the actual fruit. They were going to cut it up anyways, so if I wanted, I could have a piece. I beamed with joy as I accepted the offer. 

The father walked over and simply pulled a piece off -- the same way that you would break a bun in half. The mushiness of the fruit made it so you didn't have to peel it. It was segmented inside and I would suck up each piece and separate it from the really hard seed in the centre. This was an amazing experience. 

We decided to go and get churros, but couldn't find any on our way back to the hostel. We got there only for a minute to drop our things off since we both needed more water and wanted some beer. So we went to Oxxo and bought our drinks. We were going to drink them in the hammocks at the hostel. 

Back at the hostel, I realized I was red. Completely red. Every part of my body was sore and my face hurt to scrunch. This was a bad burn. I sent my friends photos and they laughed. Francisco said he told me so, but lent me his sunscreen and after sun gel anyways.

We got upstairs to the hammocks where Sandrina was hanging out already. Francisco was still debating if he should go to the sunrise. 3 new people at our hostel, a Dutch guy and 2 German girls, introduced themselves. They were only staying for two days, but I could already sense that we were not going to get along. Something about them emanated Eurotrash vibes. They were non-ironically listening to Techno and had a pack of cigarettes. Sandrina asked them to not smoke and they scoffed. 

They were stereotypical Germans. The kind of Germans that people make fun of trying to get into Berghain. They thrive in negativity. They complained about Huatulco, how boring of a town it was, and how they wish they hadn't come. I couldn't understand why they had booked two nights if they felt so strongly. 

When they asked about what we did, Francisco told them and explained his dilemma of the sunrise. They said he absolutely had to go -- that was a unmissable tick for his checklist, according to them. Francisco set his alarm to 4am and joked about getting 4 hours of sleep.

The Germans went downstairs to smoke their cigarettes and Francisco and I talked to Sandrina. She told us she was widowed. The love of her life, a guy named Luis, died of a stroke at 52. She was 41 when it happened, but she never overcame it. She said she had boyfriends after because "boyfriends are easy to replace, but a best friend is not", but never loved again. What Luis had that swept her off her feet was something she referred to as "oomph". 

When she first met him, she was unimpressed by his lack of muscle and his drooped shoulders, but she perked up when he told her he had a red sports car. At the time in Spain, those were very rare and hard to come by. He asked if she'd like to see it and she said yes. When she got outside, he showed her a red, convertible Citroën deux Chevaux. He had added eyelashes to the headlights and put a canvas roof on it. She was unimpressed, but he was charming and funny with the way he approached it, so she gave him a chance. They were married for 8 years, part of which were long-distance because he was a lawyer in Madrid and she was a sailing instructor in La Manga, before he died. She loved him lots. 

She concluded her story before a tear left her eye and asked us why we walked to the beach instead of taking a scooter. Francisco said he liked walking, but I said I didn't know why we had done the walk. She said I was one of her kind and told me she had rented a scooter for 2 days. She said there was an even better beach beyond Cacaluta that I could hitch a ride to with her if I wanted. I could be her "paqueta", which I think means "package" literally, but refers to your scooter passenger in Spain. I was more than happy to do that. After all, Francisco was going to see the sunrise, which I had no interest in, and my only other option was the Germans. Hard pass. To be fair, the Mormons had invited me to go to a resort with them tomorrow, but that sounded boring. 

Scooter adventure with abuela it is!

Day 2

Today started at 6am with a massive disruption in my sleep. Someone's alarm was ringing, but they weren't turning it off. I was too groggy to get up and say anything so I drifted in and out of consciousness until the incessant noise finally let up. A few hours later, I actually got up and got ready for my day. 

I didn't have much in mind, but knew I had a few leftover errands to run. I still didn't have sandals and knew very well that acquiring some was a major priority. Walking around last night in my Nikes was a foot sauna, so I was going to make sure that this was my last day of sweaty feet. I also needed to stop at Oxxo to reload my Mexican sim card and buy water. I was parched. 

Perhaps because I was in San Jose del Cabo this December, I wasn't fully prepared for how hot Huatulco is. San Jose actually cools down at night. It cools down so much so, in fact, that you have to put on a fleece jacket every night. Huatulco is not like this. It is significantly warmer during the day and it only becomes tolerably hot at night. Essentially, in Huatulco, you don't catch a break. You just stay toasty all the time. I assume that, for this reason, I am horribly thirsty all the time, but especially was last night. And thirst is a rare thing for me; I like to think of myself as a camel, but no, I desperately needed water. Of course, you can't drink the tap water here, so you have to have some bottled. And last night, I didn't buy any, so I simply prayed I don't shrivel and die of thirst through the night. Anyways, I didn't, but water needed to be bought.

So I made my way to Oxxo and bought some water and reloaded my sim card. I now had data, which meant I could actually get around and have my location tracked by my friends through the Life360 app. I also bought water and some of those Mexican electrolyte drinks to replenish the relentless sweating I was enduring. 

Earlier in the day, I had asked my hostel receptionist where I could buy sandals and she told me about a massive supermarket just up the road. I followed her directions and made it to Soriana, which is like a Walmart. It has everything ever -- medicine, housewares, clothes, food, and more. I love supermarkets like these, but since I grew up in Downtown Vancouver, I rarely got to experience this mega-market vibe. Practically-speaking, though, these markets are the best places to end up on vacation. You can get everything you need in one place. And that's what I did. I got my sandals, and some basic groceries to nibble when I wasn't in the mood for tacos. 

Loaded with the basics, I thought about what my next steps should be. I had walked by some cool places on the way to the grocery store and thought about visiting them, but I now had chicken thighs in my bag, which I wasn't sure would survive a whole day of walking through the 33-degree weather. So I opted to go back to the hostel to leave my groceries in the fridge and change into my sandals. I would decide where to go from there. 

As I walked out of the Supermarket, I found a very authentic taco shack. It was a series of pots and pans placed on the rocky side of the road. They had erected a make-shift roof by placing a tarp on 2 sticks. The spot had a significant line-up of Mexicans, and a clear price board propped against a rock. I decided to wait since the taco prices were very cheap and I had to try them for myself. I ordered 4 tacos for 40 pesos and an agua fresca. (Agua frescas and churros are the reasons I love Mexico.) I took the tacos to go since the plastic chairs by the road were taken. 

When I got back, I put my groceries into the lukewarm refrigerator and opened up my taco box. They were so good. So so so good. It was a shame the shack was a fair walk away because I would have otherwise gone back for more. The only thing that confused me was that my agua fresca was served to me in a plastic bag. I found this out because a girl who had greeted me a few times in the shared bedroom told me so when she saw the confusion on my face. 

She asked me how I was and what I was doing for the rest of the day. She looked Mexican because she was tan and short, and she spoke with an accent that was kind of Spanish. She was very chatty -- chattier than me, which is saying something. As we spoke, she explained to me that she was on her 3rd month of solo-traveling the entirety of Mexico for the second time. She was from Toulouse, France, but had a Mexican boyfriend over there and had done a Mexican exchange program with her university in 2020. She loved the country and had essentially adopted a new family in her university exchange city of Leon. She liked Toulouse, but had a rough time with her schooling there. She studied Engineering Physics and had struggled with bouts of depression during her degree which forced her to extend her time in school. 

During her 2020 trip, the pandemic broke out and her school forced her to return to France, though she didn't want to. When she completed her degree, she decided to take a year off before starting to work. Her plan was to see as much of Mexico as reasonably possible as a solo woman. Through her, I found out a lot about Mexico. Michocan, for example, is a beautiful state, but you can't safely go there, according to her research. 

We talked for a while about why we decided to travel. I told her about my job being draining and how I was here to remind myself that there truly is something bigger and better than the soul-sucking 9-5 grind. She said she was here because she didn't want to wallow in the misery and depression that consumes her in France. She had been travelling since January of this year, but had recently decided that she was extending her trip. Initially, she had planned to return at the beginning of May, but that date was set so that she could make it to her boyfriend's graduation. During her travels, she realized that there was no reason to set her plans around another person, especially if the future is uncertain and they may not be together forever. So, she decided to do what she wanted, which was stay in Mexico for as long as possible, and her boyfriend was either going to accept it or not. (From everything she said, their relationship was rocky anyways).

She asked me if I had slept well because she hadn't. Apparently the same culprits whose alarm was ringing for ages in the morning had caused a ruckus around 2:30am. They stumbled drunkenly into the shared dorms and rummaged through their belongings for half an hour, which caused a lot of people to wake up. I told her I wasn't among them, but that I had been pissed off by the 6am alarm.

The French girl told me that she was feeling a little odd. She is a big planner and she had planned the entirety of her trip out ahead of time, but decided to change plans last minute when this other French guy at the hostel, Marc, told her about San Jose del Pacifico. This was a secluded mountain town, without even a grocery store, but it was renowned as a place to find yourself. After Googling it myself, I found out that "finding yourself" meant that it was the magic mushroom capital of Mexico. The French girl said she didn't take drugs, but wanted to experience the hiking. She was so big into hiking that she had walked an average of 25km a day since her trip began. She said she believed she did these long walks to escape her reality, which I also thought, but admired her introspection. 

She didn't want to change her plans, but when a hostel became available, she decided she was off. Coincidentally, she had just ticked every checkbox on her Huatulco to-do list, so she was a little lost as to what she was to do next. She had lots of anxiety and guilt when she didn't have a plan because it made her feel unproductive. However, she was on this trip to escape those negative feelings and go-with-the-flow more, so she was proud of herself for doing this. 

She knew she needed a bus ticket to San Jose, so she asked if I wanted to come with her to ask the prices. I figured this was a great idea because I also needed a bus ticket for a few days from now and thought that going with a Spanish-speaker would be handy.

We started walking and got to a weird shack in one of the streets. This was the bus station, according to my French friend. But I knew this wasn't it. I had seen the bus station on my walk to the supermarket so I asked her about the discrepancy. She laughed and said I must be a millionaire if I was planning on booking the ADO bus from the fancy bus station. We were at something called a "collectivo", a privately-owned van transport. She had travelled the entirety of Mexico in collectivos and explained to me that, though slightly more crammed, they are completely safe and significantly cheaper than ADO. 

She got her ticket to San Jose and found out that my ticket to Oaxaca City would be 300 in the collectivo. ADO bus was 550, so it was nearly half the price. I looked at the vans and they looked fine. I figured an overnight bus would never be comfortable, so it didn't really matter how fancy it was. I wanted to think things through first, so didn't buy my ticket right away. 

My new friend asked if I wanted to go to the nearest beach for a quick dip and I said sure. It was so hot and humid that I was constantly sticky, so some salt water would be perfect.

On our way there, we proceeded to a pastry shop where we got some treats for the beach. As we passed a fruit and vegetable stand, my friend told me to I should buy my vegetables here because they're better and cheaper than the supermarket. Good advice; I'd probably heed it in the future. 

Walking to the beach was about 20 minutes. On the way, we saw an iguana run across our road. An iguana running is the funniest thing I've ever seen. They wobble, but go very fast. I couldn't stop laughing. We also saw a guy selling coconuts from the back of his pickup. Another guy sold agua frescas in large Gatorade coolers. This was very cool. Compared to the rest of the places I had been in Mexico, Huatulco had a more authentic feel. 

I got excited every time I saw a family on a scooter. A rotund mom, dad and toddler would all be on a vespa together. This was amazing to me. But more than that, it looked like joy. Really, if I could think of an iteration of joy, it would be three people smiling as they swerve cobblestone streets on a scooter. 

Anyways, we made it to the beach only to find a massive Princess Cruise ship docked there. The water was kind of dirty -- there was a lot of algae, but that lined up with the word my friend had gotten from Marc at the hostel. He said some current had brought some algae for the day and it had impaired his snorkeling excursion. 

In her swimsuit, I noticed my friend had some burn marks on her upper boob. I asked how she got them. She told me they were, in fact, scars from her cutting herself. I never know how to react to things like that, but I figured now was a good time to ask her name. After all, I knew all of her relationship troubles, her mental struggles and we were sleeping in the same room, but I didn't know her name. Ele, short for Elenore. Cool. 

On the subject of depression, Ele told me she might breakup with her boyfriend because he has been depressed for 3 years. She said she knows what it's like, but doesn't respect that he doesn't do anything to help himself. She had been terribly depressed during an internship in Switzerland. Every weekend, she would hike to escape, but one weekend, she walked 42km into the wilderness and couldn't find her way back. She ended up having to sleep in the middle of the mountains and simply kept walking for another two days until she appeared in a completely different town. After that, she decided she had to do something to pull herself out of her depression, and apparently managed. 

It was time for a swim after that. Despite the algae, it was refreshing and nice. A little Mexican girl swam up to us and made us watch her swim. She was 8 years old and her name was Alicia. She was so communicative and happy to show us her diving skills. She asked Ele if I spoke Spanish and Ele told her a little. The girl told me she knows a little English and told me "my mom is thirsty". For some reason, that was her sentence and she was proud of it. She was adorable.

When some jetski instructors seemed to get too close to our towels and things, me and Ele left the water and packed up. We got back to the hostel where we met a 75-year-old French couple, also from Toulouse. They were really chatty, but they knew no English. I mostly listened to them complain about French politics and costs of living with Ele since I couldn't contribute much. 

At some point, during that convo, a boy came and sat next to me. He said he couldn't speak French, but just didn't want to sit alone. He was Brazilian, but visiting from London, where he had moved when he was 13. He hated London, and came to Latin America every chance he could. He had a similar story to mine - he quit his job, and went to South America. 

He asked if I had plans for tomorrow and I said no. Ele had told him about a beach a short ways away. It required a little walk through the jungle, but it was secluded and beautiful, and I could join him if I wanted to. Of course I did, so we made plans for the next day. He said he was a pretty chill guy, so we could sleep in and go whenever. His energy was almost too Zen. He had the demeanour of a person meditating with their eyes open. This was ok by me -- I had enough spunk for the both of us. 

He asked if I knew any places to grab food after for dinner, which he adamantly clarified would obviously not be a date. I laughed and proposed the place Marc had told me about yesterday. It was a seafood taco place with amazing octopus tacos. We had a plan. 

Marc came down to pack up some of his kitchen items. He had spent the day on a rented motorcycle. He had rented it from a Croatian guy in Huatulco, and encouraged me to do the same as I would probably get a discount for speaking the same language. This Croatian guy told Marc he was looking for a Mexican wife so that he could get papers to stay here. 

As the sunset, I decided to go upstairs to the hammocks on the rooftop to phone my sister and tell her about my day. 

I noticed a message from the Mormons telling me that they were so glad they met me and hope to take me to dinner one more time before I go. I said we could definitely make plans. They agreed and offered to take me snorkeling on Friday and to a resort on Wednesday. I told them I'd take them up on snorkeling, but that resorts weren't my thing. 

The hammocks were occupied. There was a very old grandma in one and a middle-aged woman in the other. They were speaking French so I greeted them. They invited me to speak with them, which I did, but it was a struggle at points because of language barriers. It seemed the middle-aged lady didn't understand English or French very well. From what I could gather, she was from just outside of Bern, Switzerland. She was full of middle-aged lady energy. They have this undeniably stokedness with everything, which I'm sure is related to the hormone fluctuations. She barely understood what I said but she genuinely laughed and smiled at all of it. 

She was in Mexico on a brief detour from Guatemala. She had recently gotten a divorce from her shitty husband and he had sold their family home to split the estate. Instead of staying in Switzerland, she quit her job because she could feel something calling her to Guatemala, a place she had never been. So she booked a flight and left. She only had one daughter who was studying abroad anyways, so she had no reason to stay. She had been in Guatemala for 3 months, and decided to take a look at Mexico since it was close. She liked it, but she was still going back to Guatemala in a few days. She couldn't stop talking about the colors of South America. She loved the colors. Switzerland was grey. 

The grandma was a whole other special case. She was staying in a shared dorm with a bunch of kids because she liked the company. She was from Murcia, Spain, and she was 77 years old. She was in Mexico for 3 months because she didn't believe in travelling for any less than 3 months. She spoke fluent English, German, French, Spanish and Dutch. English and French because she had been in boarding schools in the UK and France as a kid; and German and Dutch because most of her clients were from Germany and Holland. She had worked as a sailing instructor in Murcia for most of her life, but had retired at 55 to live off of her family's trust fund.

Her father had been a Polish Jew who had made a fortune in shady diamond dealings in South Africa, where she was born. The family moved to Murcia, where her mother was from, soon thereafter. Meanwhile, her dad opened up a bunch of textile factories around the UK. She did what she wanted, and changed careers often. At one point, she finished a teaching degree in the UK. At another, she had her dad pay a large sum for her to be admitted to a program of viticulture in Spain. She was the first woman to complete it. She travelled around and sought happiness and eventually opted to open her sailing school. 

What brought her on this trip to Mexico was actually Belize. Her income was her family trust fund, but Spain took 20% off any trust fund income she brought into the country. To avoid this, she had set up a meeting with a lawyer in Belize. It was a tax paradise. Her goal was to move herself to Belize on paper to evade taxes, but continue practically living in Spain. There simply wasn't enough to do in Belize for 4 months, so she opted to go to Mexico. She would make her final stop Belize before returning to Spain. 

The Swiss lady encouraged her to check out Guatemala since it was on the way to Belize. The grandma was sold. She didn't much convincing to visit another country. 

We chatted for a while in what felt like a Mamma Mia movie moment. The Swiss lady mentioned how we were 3 generations brought together by the stars and I could feel it. The grandma proposed we all have breakfast together tomorrow. We agreed. I told them I had oatmeal and yogurt we could share. The Swiss lady didn't know what that was, so the grandma translated it to Haferflocken. The Swiss lady beemed with excitement. She hadn't had Haferflocken since she left Switzerland, but she loved it.

We bid each other good night and made our way to our beds.

It was a really special night under the stars, but it got too late to call my sister. I texted her that I would call her tomorrow and went to bed.

Day 1

Huatulco is a confusing place. It isn't really a town, a state or any single place. It's like an amalgamation of little villages on the shore of Oaxaca State. I found this out through a super helpful article on the internet. La Crucecita is the closet town to the airport and it has a hostel. It seems pretty safe. That's where I'm heading today.

My flight is early in the morning, and it's a whole 6 hours long. That seems excessive, but I guess I am going quite south. With the timezone difference, I will land at 4:30pm.

Landing in Huatulco is an experience. The airport consists of a series of hay huts. You have to walk across the tarmac to get to customs and it feels very third-world. But I like it. 

There is a gush of warmth and sticky humidity that covers you as the plane opens. It's 32*C. I see a sign that shows me a direction for "Authorized Taxis". I had read that the taxis here were pretty good in the sense that the fares were clearly listed and didn't require negotiation. This was only partly true.

There was a chart with prices at taxi counter and it had the price to La Crucecita listed as 190 pesos. At today's exchange rate, 190 pesos is around 11 USD. The story that follows is agonizing and dull, but I'm writing it this way to convey my feelings at the time: 

That price seemed fine, so I requested a taxi. He then informed me that the price of a taxi would be 500 pesos. I pointed at the screen behind him and asked why. He explained that 190 is the price of a shared taxi and 500 was the cost of going alone. I didn't mind going with others so I said I wanted to take the shared taxi. He told me that wasn't possible because he only had non-shared taxis available. I asked when a shared taxi would be available and he told me in 30 minutes, so I said I'll wait for it. He asked me to pay and I pulled out a US 20$ bill, expecting that he would give me something around 10$ back. He didn't take the money and informed me that the cost was 30$USD. I asked how that was possible when we had just agreed to 190 pesos, which clearly equals 10$. He told me the exchange rate was different at the airport and USD was going to cost me more. I was not interested in being a fool, so I left the counter. 

As I exited the airport a big lineup of local taxis waited. I inquired the price and he said 250 pesos. I asked why it was more expensive than the 190 of the authorizes taxis. So he said that he'd take me for 190. So 10USD it was. I was on my way in a rickety old cab with a cracked windshield and ripped up seats, but I wasn't being fooled as badly. 

I got to my hostel and paid the 70USD for 5 nights.

The place was surprisingly clean and neat. The only person in the communal bedroom at the time was a 50-someting year-old man. It wasn't the demographic I expected to see at a hostel, but I greeted him anyways. He's originally from New Jersey, but lives in Portland now. He doesn't work, and since him and his wife divorced, he's been traveling all around. He had been through the entirety of South America and was phenomenal at giving me a tip for every single destination I mentioned. He had even been to Cuba. I inquired how he did that as an American, and he explained that Americans can travel to Cuba if they fly from Canada. The issue, as it turns out, is not whether or not Cuba will let you in as an American, but rather whether or not the US will let you back without trouble. 

He explained to me that, while Clinton was in office, the relations between Cuba and the US were eased. You still couldn't catch a plane to Cuba from the US, but you weren't going to face any consequences for going through Canada. Then, he said, Bush got into office and the relations became incredibly strained again. Apparently, Americans who returned to the US with a Cuban passport stamp were being given hefty fines. This guy had a brand new passport, valid for 9 more years after his Cuba trip, so he asked the Cuban border authority to not stamp it. There was some miscommunication so it got stamped anyways. He says the stamp was the tiniest stamp, but it still worried him. In his case, he did manage to return to the US without issue. A few months later, he headed out to Asia and asked a Malaysian border guard to stamp right over the Cuban one, thereby hiding any evidence of his trip to Havana.

This man has traveled far and wide, but he carries with him an air of despair; I can sense he is tremendously depressed and terribly lonely. This is confirmed to me as we speak a little more. He says that, after his divorce, travel became an addiction for him and he can't stop now. He tells me I look like a young Sarah Silverman and follows it up with saying it isn't a bad thing. He then clarifies that he wasn't sure if it was my looks or my bubbly personality.  

We chatted for a while as I got settled. He told me that he had just been in Puerto Vallarta and was scheduled to fly back to Portland yesterday. But, upon checking the weather forecast in Oregon, he decided that he wasn't coming back to rain. So he ditched his Oregon flight and booked a new one to Huatulco instead. He had been here many times before and assured me the town was safe. I finally asked him his name and he said Chris. 

After our little chitchat, I thought about my top priority items. I needed to do a few things in the town right away. The first thing was getting some pesos. The second was buying sandals. I had shown up with only runners and it was far too hot. The third thing was adding credit to my Mexican sim card, which I still had with me since my Christmas trip. 

I loaded the map directions to the Oxxo, where I would load my sim and potentially buy some sandals, as well as the ScotiaBank ATM. Downstairs in my hostel, a grandma and grandpa played dominos. They spoke French and looked like hippies. It was endearing to see such old people living in a hostel.

As I began walking, a partly-drunk Englishman was trying to entice an American middle-aged couple to go and grab beers with his daughter and her boyfriend. I tuned in because I could hear English and stopped to hear all of his recommendations for food. 

I was noticeably a little creepy standing behind this group and obviously listening to them, so when they turned around to ask me what I wanted, I asked if I could accompany them to the restaurant they were headed to. They were very open to the idea! The British were going to the local pub to have beers, but the American couple wanted actual food, so they were going to a dinner place. I was quite hungry having gotten off the plane and decided to join the Americans for food. 

Mark, Billie and I made our way to Los Gallos, a restaurant that seemed typical of Huatulco because it was set in a shack with a hay roof. The Englishman spoke very highly of it. The menu was very traditional -- so traditional, in fact, that it was in Spanish only. Since I had gone straight to dinner, I hadn't managed to update my sim card, which consequently meant that I had no internet, and therefore no translator. 

In the little Spanish I did understand, I noticed that one thing on the menu was served on only Saturdays and Sundays. I thought it would be a shame to not try the special item on a Sunday, so I ordered it. When it arrived, it looked like a nice bowl of soup. The broth was fine - a standard Mexican tomato/pepper thing. I wasn't exactly expecting a soup, but figured it was a good thing I got one. The last time I had been in Mexico, I got a nasty travel bug and figured that a thoroughly simmered soup would probably be lowest on the list of things to get food poisoning from. But as I scooped with my spoon, I noticed some interesting chunks. They tasted horrible and had a variety of awful textures. Some were giggly, others were tensely chewy, and absolutely none of them tasted good. 

A local man explained to me in broken English that this was a soup made from the insides of a pig's stomach. Yum.

At least the atmosphere was better than the food. I got to know Mark and Billie, who were an absolutely lovely couple from Phoenix, Arizona. They were staying at an AirBnB on the beach owned by the Englishman, who had a cool story: He had come to Huatulco 2 years ago for a vacation and had never left. He had married a local woman who was a micro-famous singer in the town and now ran an AirBnB. His daughter from another marriage in the UK and her boyfriend were visiting Huatulco, as was the Englishman's mother. Mark and Billie had their own interesting story, though.

As I would find out, were on the first month of what they estimated to be a two to five year vacation around the world. They had taken out their Mexican residency permits, crossed the border and begun their journey through the country. They had been to Puerto Vallarta and La Paz already and were now in Huatulco for 3 weeks. 

A local man named Jorge started telling us about his family and eventually asked Mark and Billie if they had decided to do this trip as a retirement celebration. Indeed, they had recently retired, but there was more to their story. 

For 43 years of their lives, Mark and Billie had been members of a cult. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. The leader of their church called himself The Prophet and his word was directly from God. The Church dictated what they could wear, and how to live their lives. It also took 10% of their income. They estimated that to have added up to upwards of 750000$ over the course of their working careers. The Church also had an element of polygamy, and though never Mark and Billie were never polygamous, Billie did think she would eventually have to share Mark.

Mark had revelations about the problems with the Church 10 years ago. When he brought them up to Billie, though, she told him that he had been taken by Satan and distanced herself and the kids. After that, Mark stopped bringing anything up to Billie, but slowly put seeds of doubt into the kids' heads. Eventually, one of their daughters sent Billie an article from the Washington Post that explored how the Church had become one of the wealthiest entities in the US. The Federal Government was investigating them and had suspected their earnings to have been suspicious. 

Billie worked in banking and, after reading through a rabbit hole of information, came to Mark to devise a plan to leave. Soon thereafter, they did all leave the Church. Their family members speak of them as though they're dead because they consider them to have died a spiritual death. They believe Satan took them and that they won't get to be together in "the eternity". 

After that ordeal, Mark and Billie retired, sold their house and everything they owned, and decided to go on a journey of self-discovery. They said they hadn't ever drank or used bad words until the last 2 months, so this was some sort of awakening for them. 

For people who had gone through what they had, they were actually incredibly open-minded and happy. They asked me all about Europe and where they should travel on their 3-month Schengen Visa, and bought me the dinner to cover it. On the way back from dinner, they walked me to an ATM so that I could take out cash safely and then right to the door of my hostel, where they shared their YouTube channel with me. They invited me to see them for another dinner in a few days before I leave and praised me for what they called "the intriguing bravery of going on a journey through South America so young and alone."

Not a bad first day, I have to say. Not nearly as lonely and isolating as I had expected. 

Day 0

About 6 weeks ago, I quit my job on a sort of whim. I had been planning to quit for a while since it was becoming rather intolerable, but I hadn't planned the exact details of the resignation yet. As you may have construed, I was on the brink and didn't need much to send me over the edge. So, when my boss started to get snarky and rude, I opted to quit on the spot. I planned to work for 30 more days after the quit, as my contract had required, but my boss took great offence to hearing that I had applied to other jobs and effectively kicked me out. 

My instinct was to take a trip. Why not? I had no authority to request time off from anymore, so I was essentially free to do as I pleased. Vancouver was still as miserable as ever in the middle of February. The rain was relentless and the cold had not eased up. Additionally, I had saved up a bit of money from working this job for two years. It made sense to take a trip somewhere warm. 

I asked my roommate if he wanted to come and he was potentially interested. He took a look online at flights and found a steal -- 337$ roundtrip to a place in Mexico called Huatulco. Neither of us had ever heard of it, but, after checking out a map, we saw it was in the State of Oaxaca -- a place we had heard of. We mulled a travel strategy for the trip. We'd fly into Huatulco, on the water, have a week of lazy beach days, and then grab a bus to the actual city of Oaxaca, which is inland, to see the culture and whatnot. The plan wasn't set in stone, but it seemed like a good idea overall. We decided to sleep on it for a bit, while my roommate simultaneously sorted out his finances to see if he could afford the trip.

Soon thereafter, my roommate offered I come to his hometown of Calgary with him. I figured the change of scenery would be good for me and it seemed like a relaxing escape. I would live in his childhood home and my meals would be prepared by his family; then, I would go skiing at his family's vacation home in Banff. I estimated the whole thing to cost me a little over $80, the cost of the roundtrip flight ticket there. Accommodation and food were covered, and I guess skiing would be an extra cost. 

I arrived and everything was exactly as I had expected it to be. Living with his parents was a nice experience since their lifestyles were compatible with mine. It was thoroughly relaxing and reviving. I caught up on sleep and felt supremely recharged. I even hit the slopes one day and had a good time. At some point, I mentioned to my roommate that this trip was going well, so we should consider booking the Huatulco one. He said to give him a day so that he could consult with his parents about the trip. We set dates and I booked my one-way ticket that night to lock in the price that same night.

This was a good play because the next morning, my indecisive roommate consulted with his parents, got ready to book and found that the ticket had gone up to 1500$. Needless to say, he was no longer coming. 

Now I had a one-way, albeit refundable, ticket to this place I never even heard of a mere two weeks prior. Two small issues were: 1. I didn't like the date I was leaving. It was a month from now, which didn't make sense because it meant that I would have to pay to live in Vancouver for an extra month. Jobless, I have no reason to be in that city. Additionally, the weather is a huge factor for me. The misery that is Vancouver in the winter (and that does include February, March and even April) is intolerable. I'd much rather escape that as soon as possible. 2. What if I get a job between then and now? I had applied to quite a few and essentially felt like I would have to accept an offer if it came in. I'd lose the non-refundable portion of 100$, but that would probably make sense in the grand scheme of things.  

Anyways, our two-week trip felt slow, but in a good way. Time had been moving far too quickly for me up until that point. I had this random one-way ticket booked and was trying to make a plan for what to do. By the time we were back in Vancouver, I had a mere two weeks to sort things out. I'd either have to commit to quitting my job search and going on a long trip through South America, or accept a job and go back to the 9-5 grind, or cancel both the job and the trip and plan something third altogether. 

I've been struggling to understand why I felt like I had to go on an extended trip. Why couldn't I have simply committed to a little two-week sunshine getaway, as had been my initial plan with my roommate? I have introspected enough to come to determine that it probably had something to do with this irrational fatalistic dread that looms over me. Since I began working full-time, I have felt like I had incredibly limited time. Therefore, time is precious. Therefore, make the most of it. 

When you work 9-5, you tend to be chronically exhausted, so even your time off isn't used for enjoyment -- it's used for sustenance. Sometimes that sustenance takes the form of cooking myself a meal, sometimes it takes the form of cleaning my kitchen, and sometimes it takes the form of sleeping 13 consecutive hours. Regardless, the time off that comes with a full time job is not for enrichment -- it's for survival. You have the minimum you need to physically survive and you are nefariously stifled from getting any time beyond the bare minimum. Your body ages, and your soul dwindles. I know this best because I couldn't open my computer to write a single piece whilst working. I simply didn't have the stamina. 

So I guess that is where my dread stems from. I can't envision having 2-3 months to travel while employed. I can't envision being in a position where I don't have to get that time approved by some bureaucratic assembly of mediocre people. I can't envision having the energy to see new places while employed. I can envision going to a beach resort and being brain dead for 2 weeks every Christmas while employed. But I can't envision feeding my soul while employed. 

And why not enrich my soul some other way? I don't know. I wonder if I could simply stay in Vancouver with my lovely sister and fantastic friends and achieve the same enlightenments. But everyone on social media promotes this as being the golden method for growth, so I guess I have to try it too. 

With this mindset, I decided that now was the time. I was going to call off the job search and commit to an idea I had only ever vaguely considered -- touring South America. At this point, I had about 3 weeks until I was flying to Huatulco, which I figured was enough time to get everything in order in Vancouver and plan a big trip. I was going to see how I could hop through the continent and reawaken my soul that had been tamped by the vicious grip of the 9-5 life. 

So what did I do? Look at Chile. Why Chile? The country's shape has always intrigued me and it's been said that you can experience a lot of different things depending on where you go. So I found a 400$ one-way from Santiago to Vancouver for June 1st and I booked it. I took the next 3 days to devise a plan for the in between. 

In the meantime, I subletted my room and got my paperwork in order. 

I had now committed over 600$ to a 10-week trip I had not really thought about. If my boss hadn't rejected my 30-day resignation thing, I'd still be working the last bit of my contract, but here I was.

The reality of everything only hit me when I started to pack up my room for my subletter. That was also when the panic set in. Things were going well for me in Vancouver; I had some great relationships going. I could have easily stayed and played board games and applied to jobs and gone on a few tiny trips with my friends. I do not know why I am doing this alone. It is riddled with risks. I am a lone, non-intimidating woman in a series of foreign countries I know very little about. I have one backpack packed. I am in tears because something tells me this is a mistake. My life will not end with the beginning of a new job, but now I'm committed and invested. And also, take-off is in 12 hours. 

Meditations on Mindfulness in the West

It does not take much to be conscious of the popular terms of “Mindfulness” and “Meditation”. Living in North America would make it difficult to not be at least somewhat familiar with what they mean. They carry a mystical, exotic and most definitely Orientalist connotation and, for many laymen, they have clear and explicit ties to Buddhism. A quick Google search of either of the over-hyped terms and a plethora of videos, articles and other sources are at a person’s disposal – each one claiming to be more authentic and enlightening than the next. However, the sources quickly begin to sound redundant, flaunting their genuine ties to Buddhism and their nearly-magical abilities to cure any ailment. But can these resources even begin to deliver on their promises when they are set up on unrealistic and uninformed grounds? More importantly, can they even be labelled as or linked to Buddhism?

This paper will critically analyze how the terms have evolved to their modern meaning in the West and become a tool for profiteering, with little true remaining relation to Buddhism. The paper will also explain contextual factors of the mindfulness movement and meditation, as well as Buddhism, with an emphasis put on Tibetan Buddhism. The paper will conclude that, though mindfulness and meditation can be useful tools to individuals, the way in which they are marketed in the Capitalist West makes them inherently separate from the Buddhist tradition, risks harming the Buddhist tradition by eliminating the important components of dialogue and community, and carries potentially harmful political ramifications by pacifying individuals to believe their problems are a matter of perception, instead of a matter of socio-cultural barriers.

To begin, it is important define some of the terms essential to this paper and to establish the recent rise and popularity of self-help in the form of meditation and mindfulness. Defining mindfulness and meditation can be difficult due to the plethora of sources with varying thoughts on the terms and their differences, but for the purposes of this paper, I will try to provide an extrapolated definition of both: Meditation is the sort of umbrella term for a variety of consistent contemplative practices, one of which is mindfulness, or smarti (Mikulas, 2011). These practices can have different purposes and forms. Meditation in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition takes on 3 stages – listening, contemplating and meditating (Rinpoche et al., 1994). Meditation can take on insightful, calming, compassionate and empty purposes, for example (Lopez, 2018). The purposes of it can be for insight, awareness and focus, among others. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is a technique of focusing in which a practitioner attempts to notice his/her current sensations, thoughts and feelings without judging them. It is garnering an observation of 4 dimensions – your own body, own feelings, own mind and phenomena (Mikulas, 2011).

 

In the West, the Buddhist Modernist-linked concepts of mindfulness and meditation have garnered incredible popularity (Caless, 2019). They have become buzz-words popular with celebrities, many of whom claim their own lives have been bettered by beginning the practices. But what is Buddhist Modernism, this goliath standing behind the rise of meditation and modernism?

 

A global movement, Buddhist modernism was like a cultural fusion of Asian and Western Buddhist interests (Sharf, 2007). For the Asian Buddhists, many of whom were coming to terms with the major cultural changes in their homelands, the Western-based religious critiques resonated greatly. For the Western Buddhists, Buddhism served as a unique spiritual alternative to the more common Western Judeo-Christian options. This seems good and fine until it is considered that the Buddhism the Western audiences have grown to embrace is a form of Buddhism that has already undergone massive transformations as a result of Western influences that occurred in colonialized and globalized Asian Buddhist nations, like Sri Lanka and Japan (Lenoir and Vale, 1999). This Buddhism is attractive to the West because it was shaped largely by it, but this begs the question of is it really Buddhism? That will be answered later on in the paper.

 

Founders of Buddhist Modernism, like D.T. Suzuki, seem to condense Buddhism in a series of quick-fix solutions to modern problems. Suzuki introduced the concept of sudden enlightenment, or satori, based on his own admiration of William James, who believed that all religion should be about an unmediated experience with God (Sharf, 2007). Though not necessarily problematic, this idea stood in direct opposition to one of the 3 treasures of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha – the sangha, or community. This notion of Buddhism as a quick-fix solution to life’s problems via meditation became essentialized as the core of Buddhism (Sharf, 2007). It further got touted as a religion that was in line with modern scientific beliefs and could be adopted as a lifestyle, which suits each individual’s needs, as opposed to a structured religion (Prebish and Baumann, 2019). This is harmful because of the Buddhist components it excludes.

 

The ripple effects of Buddhist Modernism are undoubted. In the practices of clinical psychology and psychiatry, too, mindfulness and meditation have become remarkably popular (Chiesa and Malinowski, 2011). A search of the Indigo Website (2021), Canada’s most popular bookstore, yields over three thousand results for the keyword mindfulness and more than twenty-five thousand results for meditation. Clearly, they are relevant and important subjects in the lives of Canadians. Many of the books happen to be classified under the self-help section and tout ties to Buddhism as evidence for their authenticity and effectivity. They come with beautiful covers, often featuring mandalas or other distinctly stereotypical far-eastern Buddhist imagery. They also often come with exorbitant price tags, yet people buy them, and they have become an industry.

 

In fact, they have become so much so an industry that mindfulness and meditation are now worth nearly 2 billion US dollars, and they are not stopping (Caless, 2019). Forecasts predict the industry to grow by 11.4% each year, too. This is hardly surprising when it is considered that mindfulness has penetrated everything from Corporate America, even enjoying a stint at the World Economic Forum in Davos, to the US military, to public schools (Purser, 2020).

 

Keeping this information in mind makes it easy to see why modern mindfulness leaders, like Jon Kabat-Zinn, work in their industry. Leaders like him promote ideas of using meditation and mindfulness as tools to find peace within and escape the stresses caused by modern life. Kabat-Zinn himself believes that Western society suffers from an inability to focus and an intense system of circular thought (Purser, 2019). This “thinking disease”, as he calls it, leads him to claim that “entire society is suffering from attention deficit disorder – big time” (Kabat-Zinn, 2016).

Having established this cultural malaise, Kabat-Zinn, as well as other mindfulness advocates, advocate for a silent and internalized revolution – the kind that only individual mindfulness can inspire (Kabat-Zinn, 2016). Though on the surface a positive-seeming claim, this idea can be harmful in two ways: Firstly, the way the idea is marketed and the claims it makes to Buddhist-affiliations are inherently Orientalist and condescending. Secondly, the notion that an answer to a person’s troubles is within them enables harmful societal constructs and neoliberal capitalist structures to persist and become stronger. Rather than focusing on taking those down in unified and communitarian revolutionary ways, mindfulness and meditation perpetuate the problem and pacify the society.

 

Orientalism is a term coined by Edward Saïd to describe the commonly simplistic, exotified and stereotypical view of the East that the West has (Saïd, 1979). It also has relation to how the West views the East as a single entity, not recognizing the vast cultural differences between cultures there. This Orientalism can manifest in many ways, depending on the culture at hand (Snodgrass, 2003). Though Saïd’s writing focused predominantly on Middle Eastern cultures, and the West’s exotification of Arabia, his writings are still applicable to East Asia.

 

In terms of Buddhist-esque mindfulness and meditation marketed in the West, Orientalism shows itself often in imagery (Snodgrass, 2003). Linking stereotypical imagery like mandalas or the Buddha to books about mindfulness and meditation is not necessarily relevant to the topics at hand. Rather, that sort of imagery is linked to the resources to increase market-value, so that a layman feels the content provided comes from a reputable and genuine Buddhist source, when in actuality, it may have very little linkage to it. This is evidenced by a simple Google search of the “definition of mindfulness in Buddhism” (Google, 2021). Millions of results appear and overwhelm a reader – each one claiming it knows best. Some say that meditation is awareness of nothing, whereas mindfulness is awareness of something (Snodgrass, 2003). Others claim meditation is a way to get to mindfulness. Others tell you that mindfulness is a lifestyle that can be cultivated through practice. But which one is inherently Buddhist and which one is trust-worthy? It is essentially impossible to know.

 

Of course, that is not to say that all mindfulness and meditation resources are Orientalist or inherently malicious and misleading because they are not. The issue is that having so many that are exotifications of the Buddhist tradition causes an oversimplification and misrepresentation of a deeply-ingrained, over-two-thousand-year-old religion (Snodgrass, 2003).

 

Some would argue that this oversimplification of a religion is not intrinsically problematic. After all, every religion is read selectively, so picking and choosing certain parts is a given, especially in a religion like Buddhism that has such a rich canon (Sharf, 2015). Sometimes there is even a benefit to simplification – it makes the religion more approachable and appealing. Though parts of that may be true, it is not necessarily what is chosen that is the issue – it is what gets left behind.

 

It seems that Buddhism in the West has been concentrated and diluted at the same time. In one sense, a lot of the experiential gains that exist over a lifetime of practicing Buddhism have been essentialized into quick glimpses of nirvana that can be achieved in a mere session of meditation (Sharf, 2007). In another sense, a vast assortment of traditions and rituals, all incredibly pertinent to Buddhism, have been lost in the process of over-saturating meditation and mindfulness in the West and then sending it back to Asia to be exported to the West yet again (Farias and Wilkholm, 2015). That is not to say that mindfulness and meditation do not have a place in Buddhism. Of course, they have clear Buddhist roots (Sharf, 2015). Buddha himself became enlightened through meditating under the Bodhi tree. But meditation does not equal Buddhism. Additionally, the purpose and reason behind mindfulness and meditation can be very different (Dorjee, 2010). Rather than being a be-all-end-all destination of Buddhism, they are very much more a pitstop in a much greater journey.

 

Another issue with focusing on these inherently personal and individualistic components of Buddhism is that one of the religion’s three treasures can become lost – the religious community aspect, or sangha (Sharf, 2007). Losing, or lessening, this aspect carries with it a few harmful by-products: First, it can serve to promote a self-centered -and almost narcissistic- practicing of Buddhism, which starkly opposes some fundamental principles of the religion . Modernism, though attractive due to its removed nature from the confounds of traditional religion, is a double-edged sword, which can really stand in opposition to the traditional Buddhist religion (Farias and Wilkholm, 2015). Rather than considering oneself to be the center of the universe and focusing nearly-exclusively on self-centered problems, Buddhism strives to have followers transcend those tendencies and position themselves in a less-egocentric way. When the sangha component is disregarded, an ironic enlarging of those exact self-centric tendencies can appear (Sharf, 2007).

 

Secondly, the sangha provided a system of checks and balances within the Buddhist community (Sharf, 2007). These checks on Buddhist teachers often came from more senior members of the community. I imagine that this ensured a more objective and uniform teaching of Buddhism, which in turn promoted a more cohesive understanding of the religion among followers. With Buddhist Modernism being such a personal experience though, people seeking guidance on the religion are faced with a difficult task when trying to find it. Rather than knowing based on the community which teachers are qualified and effective at passing down religious guidance, finding the guidance sought becomes a confusing task. Often times, the teacher is chosen not for their proven guidance, but for their superficial marketability (Caless, 2019).

 

It is also interesting to note that, often times, the Buddhism that has become popular and mainstream in the West comes from Buddhist teachers who were controversial in their homelands (Prebish and Baumann, 2019). Insight meditation, one of the most popular forms of meditation in North America is based off of techniques established by Burmese meditation teachers who were criticized within their own communities for their propagation of attaining quick-fix experiential Buddhist states, like sotapatti (Sharf, 2007). This really is where the root of the issues faced by Buddhist Modernism begin.

 

This picking-and-choosing of parts of Buddhism risks creating sectarian and closed-off forms of the religion (Farias and Wilkholm, 2015). This is a problem that cuts at the very heart of Buddhism because, according to Professor Robert Sharf of Berkeley (2007), Buddhism “is a conversation about what it is to be a human being: why we suffer, how we can resolve our suffering, what works, what doesn’t, and so forth.” By forming various sects and parts, the ever-important dialogue and conversation between members of the sangha can be cut-off or narrowed and that is an intrinsically negative thing. Again, it is not that simplifying Buddhism is a bad thing, it is that it makes it difficult to have that conversation. Considering that conversation is such an intrinsic component of the religion, losing it would be devastating and simply non-Buddhist (Sharf, 2015).

 

This brings us to another issue when Buddhist Modernism is examined under the neoliberal Capitalist framework. To exist and survive in a Capitalist model, it is pertinent that people buy into a product or service. Rather than taking the cumbersome time and resources needed to educate oneself about a particular subject, it is much easier to walk into a bookstore and buy the book about Buddhism with the most Orientalist cover (Purser, 2020). This conveys a sense of authenticity, though in fact, the book could be very skewed and unrelated to Buddhism. Naturally, the extent to which this is the case varies from book to book. However, often times, the author of the book has little confirmable experience studying Buddhism, or simply refers to his/her writings as Buddhist though they are not, or very minimally Buddhist (Purser, 2019).

 

That issue aside, mindfulness has evolved to be a sort of tool of Capitalist structures to pacify the masses (Purser, 2020). Rather than recognizing grave injustices in society and addressing them through political and revolutionary tactics, people are convinced that their stresses and worries stem from themselves. If they can meditate and be mindful, they will feel at peace with their situations and no societal or structural changes will need to occur. Of course, this is not always true. In many situations, a person’s stress and difficulty stems from a societal impediment to their success: For example, a black man in the United States being marginalized and oppressed due to systemic barriers in the US to his employment. Naturally, these conditions would lead to a feeling of injustice and discontent.

 

If examined, many of these issues could be traced back to the perils of neoliberal capitalism (Purser, 2020). However, with the rise of meditation and mindfulness, rather than addressing those issues in a bold and external way, people are encouraged to deal with them in an internalized way. That is to say that that black man is encouraged to change his thinking and perception, instead of seeking social and structural justice. This can be highly problematic on a much grander scale and cause a form of perpetuation of injustice and stagnation of progress (Purser, 2019).

 

Obviously, this is not always the case. Mindfulness and meditation can serve important purposes and be of great benefit to many people. Some would argue that it is positive that even the slightest bit of Buddhism caught on in the West. Since it is still a relatively new concept here, it obviously cannot be full-fledged yet (Kirmayer, 2015). As well, it obviously needs to be malleable enough to get a foothold in a very different cultural environment, like North America.

 

It is well-known that religions have to adapt with changing times. Many Christian denominations have begun embracing LGBTQ members into their churches (Jenkins, 2002). Even a mere decade ago, this notion would have been unfathomable. In medieval Japan, Buddhism had to undergo changes to catch on as a popular religion. Among these changes were the single practice movements of Jodo Shinsu and Nichiren (Sharf, 2007). Translation, too, tends to be a changing force in religions. In China, when parts of the originally Sanskrit Buddhist scripture were translated, certain words were translated to terms that would be more easily adopted and integrated into the culture of the times (Sharf, 2007). 

 

In the 1970s, there was a reformation within the Protestant Church (Jenkins, 2002). It was conducted because the church was losing members who were disillusioned by strict and rigid customs and traditions. This reformation made True Christianity “a matter of the heart: the personal experience of the divine, a private relationship between an individual and God.” (Sharf, 2007). It gradually evolved to become socially acceptable to proclaim oneself to be a Christian despite not going to Church on Sundays, for example. Perhaps Buddhism in the West is on a similar course.

 

To answer the lingering question of is the mindfulness and meditation movement inherently Buddhist: That is debatable. In some ways it is because it stems from clearly Buddhist ideals, though the amount to which it does tend to be over-emphasized. (Additionally, it often tends to falsely link practices to Buddhism when they in fact have no relation.) (Kirmayer, 2015; Dorjee, 2010). In other ways, it is not because it squashes the ability for conversation and community. In my opinion, the West’s take on Buddhism is the way it is because it is convenient for a society that is too lazy to pester itself with traditions and rituals and community dialogue. This is unfortunate and misleading. I, therefore, would not consider the mindfulness and meditation movements Buddhist.

 

I think there is great merit to why so many of the teachers popular in the West were criticized for providing quick-fixes to their followers. I also think that religion is a lifelong journey and practice. Picking and choosing what works for you and discarding what does not takes away from that experience and makes it much less enlightening than it could be.

 

I would say that the next time you see a White person draped in expensive silk scarves telling you that Buddhism, and mindfulness, and meditation, is a lifestyle choice that saved them from their depression, take a step back and examine whether or not they stand to gain the money they need to finance their soul-searching trips to Cambodia from selling you that vision in a self-help book. Actually, be mindful of how you spend your money and meditate on if that sort of expenditure is actually going to cure your own anxiety or only make it worse.

 

Of course, all things change with time. Maybe a more genuine and holistic embracing of Buddhism is to come in the West – no one can say for sure. What can be said with certainty is that mindfulness and meditation only scratch the surface of a very complex and beautiful religion.