Bye-bye Oaxaca!

Let's leave dancing!

Friends and family who've traveled with me over the years will tell you that I am the worst traveler in the world. The worst. That's why they all find it so funny ("weird," not "ha ha") that I love to travel so much and will go to great lengths to see new places and return to favorite spots over and over. (I think I know Rome better than I know New York at this point in my life.)

I have been physically ill on every mode of transport known to man since my family first drove from Baton Rouge to California when I was five years old. All of my travel companions have favorite stories that they never fail to rehash about my unfitness for moving through space and time, some of which are now semi-legendary. Just say the word "vomit" to my Dad and, much aggrieved, he'll be happy to relate how I once got carsick crossing the Mojave Desert and threw up down the back of his shirt when we were hours and hours away from civilization.

Then once I arrive somewhere, it takes me days (more and more of them as I get older) to adjust to my new surroundings and start enjoying myself. Looking back over my travel journals, I have to laugh at the predictability of my entries for the first 2 or 3 days I'm in a new place, even in Rome, as much as I love it there. "Why did I come?" or "I wish I was at home in my own bed" or "How many days before I can leave?" are phrases that repeat themselves ad infinitum.

But then the sense of awe and wonderment kicks in and I find myself marveling how I lived so many years not being in this place, interacting with these people, eating this food and seeing these colors. I am like a teenager falling in love all over again, and I drop all pretense at sophistication and become the callow teenage girl I was when I went to Paris and London by myself for the first time and began to see a world I'd only read about in books.

As the Wheel turns again, the journeys draw to their close. Because I'm lucky enough to have a life that I love and a wonderful home to return to, I'm usually ready to go back and begin processing all the new stimuli I've been exposed to. But the re-entry after a pilgrimage, and all travel is pilgrimage of a sort, is almost as difficult as the preparation and departure, both physically and mentally.

Today is our last day here in Oaxaca. I have many things still to post about, but that will come after I've returned to New York and have had time for reflection. We must now repack our bags, figure out if we have enough pesos to get out of Mexico, and begin making lists of all the things we didn't see this time but must see when we return.

Because, of course, Oaxaca is a place we have added to the list of those to return to, and we will be back. You can count on it!

Lost luggage

Half of this stuff didn't make it on time!

More than 30 years ago, I took my first trip overseas without my parents to do an LSU summer trip in London. I left from DC on Pan Am to Paris on an employee pass which meant I was traveling first class for about $50 each way but on a space available basis. We were told we could only bring one suitcase, so I bought the biggest one I could find and stuffed it full. This was long before I became famous among my friends for being a savvy packer. Eventually I learned to get by even on long trips with one carry-on bag, made easier by the fact that I was still thin enough to wear a large scarf as a skirt or even a dress. The above photo is evidence that I have regressed and am no longer a savvy packer, but I digress . . . .

Anyway, I got bumped from the flight to Paris, but Pan Am put me on a flight to London and then arranged for me to connect to a flight on Iran Air to Paris. What they forgot to tell me was that as I was traveling on an employee pass, I needed to go find someone to get my suitcase off the flight to Paris. Oh well. I got to Paris almost 36 hours after I began traveling, and there was no suitcase. It had remained on the original flight and continued on through the Middle East, eventually making its way to Tokyo. You can imagine my delight when, after a week in which I wore the same increasingly grubby beige pantsuit with some shirts I bought at a flea market, the bag arrived.

I've traveled a lot in the last 30-odd years and I've never had another bag get lost. So it was with much surprise and dismay that I stood in the tiny Oaxaca airport and watched the itty bitty carousel go around and around with no bag in sight. But this time it wasn't my fault. In fact, I think the bag was deliberately left in Mexico City because our flight was so crowded and I could see that the luggage compartment was quite full when we boarded. But until this morning when the bag arrived, I wasn't sure if it was actually lost or just delayed.

Oddly enough, I had a bizarre dream last night that my bag was on the plane but had a hole in it which caused all of my clothes and shoes to fall out and rain upon the city of Oaxaca.

Thus began my first real trip into the heart of Mexico.