A Small Part of Mexico

Any verdant, tropical setting is a highlight in February. Beyond that, Mayan ruins, small hotels on Isla Mujeres, and time with my wife provided the key standouts.

The ability to indulge my fascination with grocery stores was nice, with mini supers galore, cheap cigarettes, etc. Even a Saturday morning trip to the Laundromat was a highlight.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

Buses in Cancun are cheap and provide an opportunity to escape the hotel atmosphere. Scooters on Isla Mujeres allow for the illusion of easy riding for the middle-aged fellow escaping winter and his kids.

It had two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living area, a bit of overkill for just my wife and I, but the rooms were clean, the staff delightfully pleasant, and the in-house restaurant fine, with an exquisite hand-carved bar (see picture). I would recommend this to folks traveling together or a family visiting Isla Mujeres.

It's a bit of a bizarre juxtaposition, this ruin in the midst of the hotel zone. And, as ruins go, it's not overly dramatic. Even so, it's worth a visit. I jumped on the bus early morning and traveled up Paseo Kukulcan... bus fare was cheap and I, stepping on the bus, found myself brushing up against another Mexico. Not the tourista paleness of hotels and beaches and lots of other people like me, but working people. Likely some of the folks who make the hotels comfortable for all of us.And on the bus you begin to realize how many hotels and resorts are jammed together here... but I digress. I de-bussed and crossed the paseo, paid my nominal admission fee and headed off down a trail to the ruins. Each step took me further from the shiny and polished into a quietude, broken by birdsong. After a short walk down the trail you come out into a clearing and the ruins.And it isn't the stunning grandeur of other ruins you'll find, but it is a concrete indication, a cypher, of the Mayan civilization that flourished here. I arrived early and spent almost an hour in solitude here. It was well worth the bus ride, well worth coming early to be alone and among the silent stones.

This was the first time in re-callable memory when I truly let go of work... no daily email checks, no instant messages to staff, no worries... (It helps to have competent people working with you, by the way. To let go means you trust them. It also means, I hope, that ego is relaxed enough that I no longer feel that it can't go on without me, odd thing, ego)...but I digress. No email, a willful attempt to banish all thoughts of work, and it worked. I spent languid hours on the beach, drinking the occasional Corona, reveling in blue sunlit skies.Letting go of work is an act of will for many of us. Cell phones beep, you've got mail... but there are few places better suited to working on the art of letting go than a beach in the tropics, while your co-workers huddle in the snow and slog through another day.