Vacation Among Neurotics

We started calculating when we realized that we’d become lost for the second time.  First, we’d found ourselves on highway 180 rather than 261, headed away from, rather than toward, Uxmal.   The second wrong turn took place in a village we’d attempted to drive through in order to cut over to 261,  which according to the map ran somewhat parallel-ish to the road we were on.  There was only one main road through the village and somehow we ended up on the wrong one.

We turned around and headed back to the City realizing that retracing our steps back to the point where the two major highways diverged might in our case save time. There was a fairly good chance that we would continue to ask directions of locals who would respond with a single pointed finger and, “yes, for Uxmal, take this road straight to the turnaround and loop around and head along Calle 15…”  or  “Don’t know anything about Uxmal, but male iguanas are the ones with the crest…” and we’d nod and drive in the direction of the finger.  We told the kids that we were turning around. They’d already had one day of virtually no food and issued quiet tolerant moans of acknowledgment.

We had gotten up early.  We’d had a plan. Skip breakfast at the hotel (it doesn’t  start until 8am) and drive to Hacienda Fancy pants - which the rough guide assured us would offer a reasonable breakfast in beautiful surroundings not far from Uxmal.  Continue to the ruins.  Stop at a different hacienda for lunch and a swim in a Cenotes.  It was a beautiful plan. 

We found the turn-off, and realized we’d only lost about 40 minutes in our collective wrong-turning.  We drove further and found the turn-off for the hacienda.  It was during this particularly lonely and wobegotten 8 kilometre stitch that I became convinced that the car would break down and we would be truly and completely fucked.  Budget rental car wasn’t going to send a crew to save us. At least not this week.  I fantasized about the tour buses  that would be arriving at Uxmal at 10:30 - the very buses we were eager to beat to the site. How you could sit on one, for example, and get to your destination without looking at 3 slightly contradictory maps.

It was after we got to the Hacienda - a bizarre sprawling swath of luxury in the middle of absofuckinglutely nowhere and the pudgy little man with a clipboard standing in the middle of the circular drive said “no reservation no breakfast” by which he meant if you are not spending the night,  and the kids started to look wan and we got back in the car and drove 2 kilometres before John had to stop and relieve himself in the underbrush that i thought: all inclusive for sure.

“Next vacation, I plan,” I said, as I handed him hand sanitizer. “No culture. No adventure. No independent thought.”  He smiled.  He actually smiled. It was a rueful little number, but it was enough.

We got to Uxmal. There were muffins there. Chocolate ones.  The kids felt like they’d died and gone to Starbucks. Our guide took just the 4 of us and for an hour and half, we had the sprawling ruins and wild stories virtually to ourselves - us, a few germans, and hundreds of male (and female) iguanas. The kids took photos and asked questions and ran their fingers along the cuttings in the stone and climbed the temples and had a glorious time.  The tour buses, spilling dozens of tourists onto the site, arrived just as we were leaving, and we got to the lunch Hacienda in good time for a lunch starring beer, margaritas, and abundant, perfectly decent food.