"ucha? ducha? Manu! Welcome to Mexico." (Part 4)

Days 4, 5 (Saturday, Sunday): We dreaded the final hours. There were unused gym shorts to be repacked, last helpings of beans and rice to be savored, overpriced souvenirs to be conned into purchasing. I still had not told Nico my true feelings. With so much unfinished business, Manu and I vowed to rage through our last night in paradise.

raging (okay, fine, just kidding. sort of.)

We had our last supper at the Mexican restaurant in the resort. We had a delicious thick tortilla soup, salad (fortunately, the salad was at a bar, so we had a taste of our familiar endless buffet), and an assortment of desserts after the enchiladas/burritos/more beans and rice. Manu became excited over the bread basket, and I was excited about the chips with different salsas. The restaurant staff grew frustrated by our lack of gustatory sense, and the novelty of our existence (i.e., Manu's proficiency in Spanish) soon wore off.

The raging continued onto the beach, through our own makeshift photo shoot. It's always been a dream of mine to be famous (no, not rich, and no, not successful, just famous). We thought we'd play famous on the dark beach.

It didn't last that long.

There was a marketplace on the opposite end of the resort. People took trolleys, but we thought it would be a nice enough night to walk. By the time we got to the marketplace, we were sweating and had each incurred about 6-8 mosquito bites. We walked through the gates like gallant victors, having triumphed over the Caribbean like true heroes.

And that's when I saw him. Nico was wearing a pale blue shirt and khaki shorts, a nice change from his usual maroon uniform. He was browsing the beaded chokers and necklaces. I thought he might be getting something for his girlfriend, which simultaneously devastated and intrigued me. I had just browsed the jewelry, but walked back over as if I had just discovered the beads.

Manu grunted loudly in exasperation as she saw me inch closer and closer to him, flipping my hair and tilting my head even more dramatically. She walked over to me and whispered, "Ruch, he's with a guy."

I looked back over, and suddenly realized a man standing two inches away from him. I had not noticed him before. Manu continued, "Sorry, Ruch, but I think they're even matching."

They were both wearing hues of blue with light pants, and there seemed to be an all too familiar sense of comfort  between them. It was worse than sexual tension; it was sexual ease, the period of calm following giddy, initial excitement and tension. The sight was disabling. I could actually feel my already weak knees go even weaker.

Spell was broken. Time to return to America.

Before heading to bed, we made one pit stop at the bar, but since my capacity and willingness to rage had been corroded by the reality of Nico's inclinations and of my own lethargy, exacerbated by a broken heart/spirit/youth and the Mayan massage, we neglected sangria and margaritas and just munched on roasted almonds while we (Manu) carried on a conversation with the bar tenders and waiters. After a half hour, I turned to her, yawning, hopeless, lips covered in salt. "Dude, wanna go up and pack? I might be able to catch the beginning of Sword in the Stone, again."



Waving adios



The morning was painful. There were lots of forms to sign, lots of thoughts to process, and above all, I was afraid to miss the opportunity to get free breakfast. I ultimately used my older sister authority to force Manu to put croissants and Nutella packets in my purse while I checked out. There was no napkin or paper plates, so we had naked, flaky breakfast pastries piled next to our passports and sunglasses and mini jar of Vaseline.

I was too tired to cry, but too sad to sleep. We were at the airport, back in our faded yoga pants and scrub shirts and glasses. We dreaded leaving Tulum, leaving unrequited loves and unrelenting waves and unsuspecting plates of rice, but knew it was time to return to the rat race, back onto our hamster wheels, back to the Sisyphean realities undermining our American delusions of ambition and success and "the future."

My sister interrupted my thoughts. "Rucha, I'm really craving a burrito. As soon as we go back, I'm going to Chipotle."

"ucha? ducha? Manu! Welcome to Mexico." (Part 2)

Day 1 (Wednesday) continued: As I slept soundly on the way from the airport to our resort, my sister chatted away with the driver. I woke up to a discussion on the Empire State Building, feigned interest for 12 seconds, and went back to sleep. Finally, after I had almost exhausted my reserves of dreams (I had gone through purple shark attacks, tornadoes, old boyfriends turned into lepers), we reached the resort. I was too afraid to be excited, for fear of another line or delay. Someone helped us down from the shuttle and took our bags, and we proceeded to a large, open lobby, peppered with tables laden with fruit and waiters bearing sparkling wine.

And my initial instincts were correct--there was a small line to check in, as a large British family of about 16 had spread themselves out by the counter, utilizing all of the clerks at the desk. I ran up to one of the waiters to grab some hors d'oeuvres, found that they all had fish in them, and then skulked back to the line.

I was almost at the tipping point (no, seriously, I was about to keel over from hunger) when it was finally our turn to check in. Silently cursing the British, (I never participated in the royal wedding euphoria) Manu and I moved up to the counter and slammed our sweaty, shaking hands down on the cool marble.

We filled out some forms and signed by arbitrary x's. The clerk asked us if we would like a welcome drink, and then, taking note of our haggard, frail appearances, snapped his fingers and asked the man to his left to quickly bring us drinks.

And that is when I met the love of my life.

Nicolas was sandy-haired, tan, and had eager, kind eyes. He brought out two flutes that seemed to contain liquid rubies, and smiled compassionately as we glugged them down like senile men in an Irish pub. He showed us the map of the resort, where we could go for snacks at 2 in the morning, where we could go for tourist-targeted markets that lured with shiny objects (I speak from experience). Enamored of his soft eyes, I asked him where he was from, and he told us about his education in Spain and his internships abroad and the further I fell into a trance, the less I listened to his own history.



I called him, "Nico."



I felt a pang in my stomach. I initially thought it was love, but then remembered how hungry I was. Nico could wait. My sister and I rushed back to the hotel, excited to finally change out of our sweats and get dinner. The hotel room was immaculate, the mini bar was free, and we had a balcony overlooking the ocean. To assert her presence as an artist, our maid had created an elephant out of the towel--stuck on googly eyes. 

Once the shock of towel animals wore off, we went to dinner. The amount of fruit had no parallel (except, perhaps, the fruit bowl in our home), the desserts were bountiless, and there were 12 types of salsa for our chips.



This past weekend, Hurricane Irene ravaged the northeastern coast of the United States. Two weeks ago, Manu and I ravaged the buffet at Gran Bahia Principe, the diluvial effects of our hunger destroying any semblance of civility or politesse.







8:02 pm



8:08 pm

My sister and I fell into a food coma that first night. My Facebook status the next morning was something to the effect of: "passed out first night in Cancun! WOO HOO PARTY!! lol. tee hee."

God forgives white lies.

"ucha? ducha? Manu! Welcome to Mexico." (Part 1)

There are several types of vacation. There's spring break, which equally exhausts as it relaxes, as bebidas (sounds classier in Spanish) and boys (or girls, depending upon your perspective) seem finite, available only to those in the most dire of situations (enter, Fordham College at Lincoln Center); there's the family vacation, which comforts and stabilizes (Monopoly is more centering than yogilates), as everyone remembers how much they love the idea of a traveling family band (before coming home and conveniently forgetting these aspirations); and then, there's the sisters vacation, which is a delicate and comfortable balance of both.

My sister and I are still quite brown (we have suffered a caste downgrade) from a recent four day trip to Tulum, Mexico. The entire month of July seemed to have passed by without pause; between 12-hour work days and failed attempts to give up coffee, the heart of summer seemed to have slipped from my fingers. And so, to celebrate my sister's academic success and the end of one significant stage in her childhood, and, on the flipside, to mourn a senescence increasingly consuming me, we took off, conveniently ignoring raging pieces in the Times about drug wars and gang violence.

Day 1/2 (Tuesday): I had slept very little on Tuesday night, the night before our departure. I came home from work very late, started packing, stopped packing to peruse Facebook, started packing, stopped packing again to Skype with a friend (who I see frequently; the necessity of a 1 AM video chat 8 hours before my flight is questionable). I then spent about an hour transferring the contents of our sunblock into an empty 3-oz lotion bottle in order to avoid checking in bags.

1:27 AM
Last minute projects tend to fare well

Day 1 (Wednesday): By the time my sister and I started posting on each other's walls from inside our adjacent bedrooms, we decided it was time to give up packing and go to bed. Around 6 the next morning, we threw everything, including the new bottle of sunblock, into an already overstretched suitcase, prayed that it would not burst, and reassured our father that we slept about 8 or 9 hours and were 100% prepared for our Mexican adventure. I made some corny joke about warlords and my mother almost had a coronary, but while she was swooning, we slipped out and were happily en route to Newark Airport.




the new face of Jihad

 

It was the one morning that Route 17 had no traffic, so we reached the airport in less time than it took to eat the omelets our mother had made (for good luck). There was no line at security, and the only usual delay we experienced was Manu's getting stopped and checked in a separate, roped off section of the airport. We had each gone through the full body scan, but the officers must have seen something other than gum wrappers and pen caps in my sister's pockets. Convinced that she was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden et al, the guards enforced special protocol to ensure my sister was not a danger. She was just short of being interrogated. My cackling on the side was of little assurance, and while I was allowed to pass by, Manu had to wait for several minutes. Once the TSA confirmed my sister's connection to Al Qaeda as nonexistent (well, almost), she was allowed to join me in our two hour wait at the gate, sitting among all the other ever so prepared early birds. My sister complained about being violated as I listened to "Somebody to Love" on repeat.



The flight was relatively harmless. I was initially stressed about my drink choice, as flying is the only time I allow myself to go "buck wild" and have soda or canned juice. I finally settled on apple juice, but then also finished my sister's Ginger Ale (the grass is always greener).

We stopped over in Charlotte, NC. I paid no heed to my sister's words of caution and turned on my Blackberry, and immediately saw a flurry of emails from work, the very emails that had driven the decision to emigrate (albeit temporarily). I continued to make phone calls until I was forced to turn off my phone, after which I was able to cherish an untapped, unique disconnection from the world.

After what seemed an eternity, a labyrinth of terrorist accusations, Bieber fever, and Mott's canned juice, we finally reached Mexico. The air in the airport was hot and heavy, and there was an odd smell of steel. Just as I felt in the Dominican Republic, I felt as if I were in India. Conflicting emotions of estrangement and home strangled our sensibilities, and we had to convince ourselves we had not just booked an all-inclusive resort in our grandmother's home.



  

We turned a corner to find a 10 foot bodacious model bearing Coronas on a poster welcoming us to the country. My sister turned to me. "Bienvenidos." I smiled. We were here. Our vacation had begun. In a few minutes, I would be sunbathing on the beach, falling asleep to the sound of the waves and the potency of the mojitos.



immigration reform, please, so I can get to the beach ASAP



My sister poked me. "Is that line for us?"

There were about 1000 people in front of us. The sound of the waves seemed to have been nothing but earwax rubbing against the cilia in my ears. We were on line at immigration for over an hour, behind a couple in their 50s who seemed to be on their honeymoon (seriously, PDA is so last season), and in front of a 5 year old Chinese boy who kept ramming his suitcase into my ankles.



before MargaritaVille

By the time we finally stepped on Mexican soil (concrete), it was almost 5. We had been awake and anxious for more than 12 hours, running on 4-hour sleep and my mother's delicious omelets. We found the driver of our shuttle, and after he carried on a conversation with my sister in Spanish, during which he frequently referred to me as the 14-year old, he finally divulged the estimated time to our hotel--one hour. Without a word, I turned around and walked back to MargaritaVille, the bar immediately outside the airport doors, and bought a small, overpriced margarita. "Don't judge me," I told my sister. "Sometimes, you just need it."

I slept soundly on the way to our hotel.

after MargaritaVille

PTSD (post tropical stress disorder)

In the Dominican Republic, we measured time by hunger and by the position of the sun. Therefore, it was always time to eat, and it was always either "too hot" or "most likely after 5." The clocks in the room were 30 minutes too fast (as per our careless estimations), and the man who crooned with his acoustic guitar below us would play with equal fortitude at 6 in the morning and 6 in the evening. Time didn't stop, but it was playing hide and seek.

The four of us were half-expecting (half-hoping for) a cliché week filled with fountains (kegs) of wine (Presidente light), boys (the heterosexual kind) emitting arbitrary, indistinct loud noises, and lots of unabated (threatening) sun. All of our dreams came true (and I'm 7 shades too dark for my own caste).

On our first night, we had found a group of equally excited (aesthetically pleasing) spring breakers taking full advantage of the open bar. We decided to engage them in discussion and before we had ordered more banana mama's, there was a charged and aggressive argument about the welfare state and "crackhead Medicaid recipients." We soon decided we were tired from the long plane journey, and retired to our rooms. When we awoke the next day we were completely refreshed, and after blaming away the world's problems on Republican college students, we reneged cliché spring break and decided to simply indulge in the timeless, drunken stupor created in the convergence of blue ocean, burning sand, languid stillness.

And we indulged in unlimited sushi.

As Americans, we felt completely at home. At the VIP pool, which had exclusive shot and cocktail recipes, teasing garden burgers that rendered our appetites insatiable, and beds with canopys randomly planted on white sand, there were two flags proudly waving in the coquettish Dominican zephyrs: the American flag and the Canadian flag. There was no display of national pride, nor was there a thought to include any of the other countries from which visitors hailed (all over western Europe, Australia, and parts of South Asia). While we would have otherwise cared enough to ask why these two countries were arbitrarily given VIP designation (no, really, Canada?), we were in a constant state of soporific overheating and overeating, and cared only to giggle and take a picture or two before falling sleep on a plate of French fries.

In the evenings, after we ravaged the buffet three or four times (we used bread as chasers), we would sit by the poolside bar with all the other youth, though before making new friends (our move to renege cliché spring break soon conceded to curious new shipments of people), we would sit wide-legged, our hands on our stomachs, in our ever so attractive means of digesting our fourth dinners.

We met several groups of people over the next couple of days, and always ended a night of dancing (at the resort's own night club, Vibe), of rum & cokes (we were just trying to encourage the local industries), of excited chatter (about libertarianism or post-graduation) with games of flip cup at Blue Lagoon, which served burgers and fries and pitchers of Presidente (for the sake of the game). Sometimes, people would get a little competitive. Sometimes, there was flip cup drama between the various tables, which had been hauled together as makeshift flip cup fields. And most times, there was just endless, inocuous rounds of the game, bringing together kids from all colleges, all countries, all levels of membership (VIPs and the common Cheap Carribbean folk, alike) in a monolith of unassuming, joyful youth.

We may or may not have stolen a golf cart one night. We were feeling adventurous (though I decided to leave a cart full of fun and straight kids to go "walk off my bread").

The feeling of adventure lasted over the next few days. One day, the four of us headed on a river safari, where we traveled miles through rural villages and savage wildlife, stopping for freshly ground coffee and ripe pineapple, before stopping at the base of the forest. The guides joked about the severity of the excursion, for "only the strongest survive," as we put on our helmets and life vests. And our used, rental white tennis shoes, which we told were water shoes. They made squish sounds as we hiked on to the falls.

For the entire hike I thought I was going to die. Every time we were to climb up against a waterfall, against the hard current, amid rocks and icy water, I thought it was my last climb ever. I would close my eyes, and for half a second my life would pass before me, my mother's face, my jewelry alcove, my favorite burrito place. And then immediately I was kicked in the face by someone doggy paddling in front of me, and strong, sopping wet Dominican men without life vests or a helmet would easily pull me up (I don't know why I ever bothered with bicep curls).

Once we reached the top of the cliff, we would slide or jump down. Again, every time it was my turn to descend, I thought I would be the one exception who hits her head or breaks her elbow. I would close my eyes again, and try to pray to the Gods with whom I share a casual relationship (it would be complicated on Facebook), but as soon as I barely dipped into a meditative state, I was pushed into the water, and had the thrill of my life, all thoughts of my mother, God, and burritos drowned into the water surrounding me.

With scratches and bruises and popped shoulders, we embarked on a new adventure a couple of days after. We awoke at the crack of dawn to go ziplining. We again wore helmets and harnesses and sneakers, and our safety was joked about. Our guide taught us how to break in the zipline, and as I overcompensated (to save my life) I ended up pulling a muscle. We traversed the jungle like apes. As we slid across these hard ropes, we issued shrieks and hollers, falling back into our primal roots, needing nothing but the biting air and the lush green below.

The rest of the time was prolonged R&R, peppered with desperate attempts to stretch our stomachs to full capacity before returning to America, where it was unseemly to eat large plates of coleslaw between meals. We attended the VIP Welcome party (a farewell for us), with unlimited top shelf drinks, unlimited food (somehow this was different from the buffet), unlimited music and dancing. We started dancing with a group of 20 spring breakers from Maryland, but soon decided instead to dance with recently released cougars, who ended up having more fun that we could ever have.

On our last night, we treated ourselves to a fancy dinner at one of the VIP restaurants. The food was incredibly delicious, and uniquely displayed (the caesar salad was a head of lettuce with a 7-inch crouton). This time, the unlimited imbibements truly were wine and not Presidente. For a full two hours, we pretended to be classy and sophisticated. And as soon as we finished dinner, we played a 50-person game of flip cup on the ping pong tables.

The following day, I felt sick. I wasn't sure if my body was finally violently reacting to what I had put it through the past week, or if it had become dependent on explosive, volatile fun and was simply going through withdrawal. Regardless, we found ourselves sprawled lifelessly at the gate, awaiting our plane home. As if our physical pain was not enough, God/Allah/the jungle spirits/the Man on the Moon found it funny to send us off with music--the man who crooned at 5 in the morning was apparently homeward bound as well. For me, exclusively, (once a VIP, always a VIP) he played Eric Clapton and the Beatles. I almost vomited into his guitar case. My stomach had the capacity only to hold rice and beans, not self-proclaimed balding musicians.

Once home, I tried to reconnect myself. I turned on my blackberry, my phone. Each exploded with text messages, emails, Facebook notifications, and then froze and needed to be rebooted. I knew the time for the first time in one week. And I immediately felt late for something.

It's been two weeks since we've returned, and all we've felt is cold, sore (the pulled muscle was no joke), and incredibly rushed. Our bodies have not stopped protesting our vacation endeavors, but have not yet willed to acclimate to a reality of the gym, of commuting, of sobriety.

And we're still not used to limiting our food intake to three meals daily.