(On the beach in Cancun)
Fiftieth birthdays don’t roll around very often – once in a lifetime, last time I checked – so when my wife Irina’s fiftieth came along we decided to celebrate it in our favorite fashion: by traveling somewhere. Since her birthday falls in January and we live in a cold, wet, northern climate, our choice of destinations came down to A) cold and snow, such as a ski resort, or B) head somewhere sunny and warm. After a couple of straight months of leaden, dripping Seattle skies, and with neither of us being skiers, we chose option B more or less by default.
(Emporio hotel beachfront)
After selecting plan B, it became a choice between Hawaii or Mexico. We’d been to Hawaii once before a few years ago – a trip detailed on this site – and although we would both like to return sometime, the lure of the unknown and untried won out. Now I’ll be the first to admit that Mexico has never been very high on my list of longed-for travel destinations. We’ve all heard the stories of Mexican drug wars and cartels and don’t drink the water and don’t eat the food unless you want to spend your vacation sitting on the commode. Well, I’m as susceptible to gringo paranoia as anyone, so my resistance level to going south of the border was pretty high. Add in the fact that I’m not really one for laying around on the beach for a week getting drunk and neither is Irina, so why go to a tropical beach resort? We both like active travel, getting out, seeing the sights, interacting with the locals and soaking up as much culture and atmosphere as we can find.
(A variety of sunrises)
