Entering Mexico was easy enough on the US side. Well in Mexico we had to pay a lot of different fees, wait a lot and run around from window to window. Very disorganized. I understand it has improved in the last few years. Anyhow, after three hours it wa done and we set off on our Mexican adventure!. We had decided on trying to get on a bit before stopping for the night. We had good maps and had the route well planned out.

Ten minutes in, still in Matamaros, on a relatively quiet street as we were waiting for a red light we heard a siren, the police was behind us motioning for us to pull over. Three policemen approached our window, all three spoke excellent English but they were not very clear about why we were stopped, there seemed to be some disagreement amongst them on that particular detail. Eventually we managed to grasp that they claimed that we had run a red light, which we couldnt have done as we were standing just by the stop of the light and there were no lights behind us that we could have run. But they refused to budge and said we had to go to the police station. They had already asked for our permits and held on to those. They claimed that standard procedure was  for them  to take the permits and then we could come the next day to the police station and pay a fine and gt them back. Naive as we were we were dumbfounded and wondered what we had missed? No one had mentioned this whole ‘police station next day’ thing’. We said we couldn’t do that, gesturing to our son who was clearly tired and hot and  we needed to get to our hotel. The chief of the three policemen lit up and said, that he had a great solution and that they were willing to help, seeing as we were in such a predicament…. If we just pay the fine now in cash, we could get our driver’s license back and be on our merry way! The fine however, was, he claimed in the not so little mount of 400 us dollars. Our immediate reaction was to laugh which was of course dumb, but come on, a fine of 400 Us, cash. yeah, right. He got very angry and very red and said that we had to wait till tomorrow then. At this point we understood that this whole incident was not about any red light but about money. We said that we did not have that kind of money (and thankfully we had hidden the bulk of our cash and credit cards and were able to show him an almost empty wallet) and we asked him for a reasonable amount. After another twenty or so minutes of discussions, back and forth between us and them and amongst themselves, he offered us 50 dollars.Take it or leave it. At this point our son was crying, he was red and hot, and we were annoyed as hell, so we paid and left. All in all it took an hour at which point we were pretty damn dismayed by our first encounter with the locals, but we tried to laugh it off as a funny anecdote to add to our travel stories.

A few hours later we rolled into the town of Tampico where we had booked a room at Hampton Inn. It had gotten dark and we were more than ready for bed. Just as we saw the sign fro the hotel, we heard it again. police sirens. We stopped, four policemen swaggered up and said we had driven too close to the car ahead. We asked what on earth that meant and he said one must always drive twenty meters behind the driver in front. Ok…and how do you make sure of that we asked? His reaply was that he had seen us do it and we needn’t argue. He asked for our drivers license and we had no chocie but to hand it over. Again, the same story, he would hold on to the permit until the next day when we could pick them up and pay a fine of USD 100. Or…..this guy was quicker to get to the point, we could pay 50 now and get on with it. We offered twenty at which point he got all red faced and angry and starting shouting. We paid fifty and left, seriously dejected and disgusted, So much for welcoming and friendly.

The next day the same thing happened twice. Another 50 usd. We had had enough, not only did these stops take a long time,  they were very unpleasant, hot and uncomfortable, and at this point we were already out 200 bucks. At the hotel on our second night we made photo copies made of our license. On the third day when we were stopped, we handed the policemen a paper copy only, and when,as expected, got all hot and bothered, we simply sat silently, looking all sad and stupid,  gesturing that we didn’t understand We said two things only ‘ No hablo espanol’ and ‘No speak English. After two hours, during which they at least let us get out of the car and feed our son and stretch our legs we were sent on our way. We left two very disappointed and angry policemen behind.

The fourth day we were not stopped, not once. Happy day! But on the fifth day the morning started with half an hour of silent treatment on our part as we waited for the policeman (who pulled us over for driving to slow this time) to understand that we were not going to pay. We smiled and simply sat there and waited and waited. He went to get back up, but no one could get the stupid foreigners to understand and when they finally tired of all the various ways they had tried to get us to apu up, they got angry for real and we started to feel threatened, so when they started getting menacing, ie pointedly touching their guns, pulling a gun out of its holster, we gave them 50 dollars and were let go. Our brilliant plan didn’t work this time and instead of just feeling annoyed and cheated, we were feeling uncomfortable and frankly, unsafe, It is difficult describing the hostility and the righteousness that the policemen exhibited across the board; we were there to give them our money, plain and simple, and we we didn’t when we didn’t it was our fault.

Just a couple of hours after that we approached what looked like a makeshift road block. Sand bags, bumpers and and road block had been erected on both sides of the road. Approximately ten navy were standing on each side of the block under umbrellas. It was scorching hot outside and just pulling down the window heated the car to an unbearable degree. The navy motioned that we open all windows, they asked for our passports and drivers licence this time, and started going through them looking solemnly at us. They all had machine guns. Eventually one of the guys told us to roll down the window by our son. He motioned for us to do this with his gun and we felt like we had no choice. He then put his and in the window and placed in our son. I got extremely angry and shouted at him to take his hand away, he and his friends laughed and sneered at us, clearly amused at recognizing our fear. They looked at our papers again, opened the boot of the car, looked around, and eventually motioned for us to go. Not one of them smiled or showed any signs of friendliness, rather they were laughing at us, pointing at us and acting like we were hysterically funny. It was, to put it mildly, extremely unpleasant. Touching our son, waving machine guns around was too much. As we pulled away, we were shaking, I was crying. My husband was so angry he could barely focus on the road. Bribes and corruption are one thing. To touch another person’s child, to intimidate a family for fun, to laugh and belittle, all whilst showing off your weapons, is just so disgusting and so flamboyantly disregardful of the sanctity of children. They showed no respect, no understanding of but sheer pleasure in demeaning us and seeing our fear.

We drove on in silence to the Quinta Real Villa Hermosa, hotel we had planned to enjoy, but which we now just viewed as a safe place away from the harassment.. As it were we did not enjoy the hotel. At the restaurant we paid in cash and made sure we got a receipt. The next morning as we were checking out we were presented with a check for what we had had as well as a twenty dollar tip. As we had already paid we had most certainly not added an additional tip. Us questioning the bill, led to a huge fight with this, supposedly five star, hotel which was  refusing to budge. Basically they tried to steal from us and then refused to back down. The manager screamed at us and it was plain awful. We decided to just leave and leave it at that and later we did a chargeback on our credit card, showing their receipt and naturally the hotels payment claim was denied.

Our Mexico trip was failing big time. We were tired and exhausted and generally sad.. What the fuck, you know. At this point we figured we had two more days of driving ahead. We had planned to spend the final night at the Hacienda Uyamon. We figured we deserved a luxury break, and besides it was low season and not that expensive (but still expensive mind you). The pictures on their site were gorgeous and it looked like heaven! Well, it was quite ok, but it could have been so much more.

Off or our final day of driving. As we neared the rental we had booked in Merida we were approaching a stop light when a taxi suddenly stopped in front of us. No cars ahead, he just hit the breaks. NAturally we ever so slightly touched the rear of his car. The driver proceeded to get out of the car, angrily shouting that we had purposely rear ended him.. Yes, we had touched him, the tiny bump that happens when someone stands on the break for no goddamn reason in in the middle of an empty road. Too tired to argue we showed him our insurance papers and said they would deal with whatever the problem was. His car was a mess all over, barely holding together as it was, and our little bump had not made a difference, but he angrily made it out like we had caused all this damage to his car (even the front, side and roof damage,damage somehow….). More arguing ensured on his part, he wouldn’t listen to any amount of reasoning. And then the money demands started and people started butting in, everyone was angry at us, the stupid foreigners, who had not done any damage yet offered all our insurance information and had not raised our voices not doen anything wrong, But we were apparently the baddest guys of all. To make a long story short, after half an hour of theatrical arguing no one was angry anymore when the cab driver had received fifty dollars. Amazing, the anger just disappeared, poof,  and the oh so angry taxi driver even shook our hands and smiled. Amazing isn’t it what money does? All this, an elaborate staged made up rear ending, just to rip us off. Again, wtf?

I am going to make the rest of this story as short as I can, just writing about our Mexico experience angers me. We arrived at the rental, a house that looked beautiful on the website, that had great reviews and that we had paid a deposit for, only to discover that the house is as half the size they had claimed and it was so dirty we needed additional tetanus shots just to enter. W could not possibly live there. The floor was caked with dirt. The caretaker looked embarrassed and said she would return the next day with the manager and that if we could wait till then they would help us. It was late, we were tired and we couldn’t take our sonao hotel search at this hour, so we agreed. We stayed, but started by cleaning the bathroom and washing enough dishes to eat. Everything was disgusting. The pool was tiny, like a bathtub in the ground, and it reeked of chlorine. Our son, hot and clammy, desperately wanted in but we couldn’t let him. The next day the owner of the house arrived. An elegant woman in her forties, she arrived in a huge white Escalade, she was clutching a white chanel bag and reeked of money. She proceeded to tell us that we were racist pigs for insinuating that mexicans were dirt (which needless to say no one had claimed).  According to her the house was perfectly clean and exactly as agreed. We showed her how black our feet were after siply steppin on the floor. We showed her the toilet that didn’t flush, the leaky faucet, the grime in the microwave, we asked her f she would like to take a dip in the over chlorinated pool (with loose tiles), we showed her the grimy sheets, the dirty fridge. Nothing could persuade her, she just got angrier and angrier. She proceeded to claim that in Merida floors were cleaned one minute only to become dirty again the very next minute, due to traffic and dust. Lie after lie, stupid comment after stupid comment. She was rude and disdainful and basically told us racist pigs that we should shut up and listen to her because she knew best. She was the most awful person we had met. Shocked we stood there as she, backed by two red faced, embarrassed employees, went on and on. We realized arguing with her and trying to get them to clean and fix the place was not realistic. We gave up and said we would leave immediately, we just wanted our money back. At this another fight ensued. Not until we said we were leaving to get the police (yeah right, like we would ever do that in Mexico…) did she agree to pay back our money. She demanded payment for the night we did spend in the house.  The madwoman spewed out instructions in rapid Spanish to her employees who ran off to get the money. She returned with an old plastic bag with filthy bills and coins. It took us forever to count it but eventually we had the money. At this point we were , again, exhausted, our son was red from heat and crying, and everything was a mess. I had had enough and I told her exactly what I thought of her and her ‘business’ at which point she got into her car and backed right at me and my son whom I was a carrying, nearly missing as I jumped out of the way. Well that was another fun mexico experience.

That was it. We decided no more. Ten days in Mexico and we had had just two days without being stolen from and treated like shit. Two whole days without incidents. No more. We checked into the best hotel we could find, sanitized ourselves, had some wine and proceeded to plan our route back to the USA. Home Sweet home. All in all this was the single worst travel experience of our lives. In case anyone thinks we are inexperienced, spoiled newbies, let me assure you we have done road trips in South Africa, Pakistan, India, reece, traveled extensively in Russia and Europe and Asia. Never ever has any country or place been as bad as Mexico.

We want believe that our Mexico experience was bad luck, that Mexico can not be all bad.. Then again, it was not one incident, every single person we interacted with tried to overcharge, pay back too little change, or fuck us in some way or another.

Another example, we stayed in the Hilton Hermosa where there were ants in our room, all over the floor and hwre the vent had broken and water poured from the ceiling. well the hotel seemed weirded out when we ask for a new room. They seemed to find it very odd that we were not happy as clams with this room.

extra money, and they were not even good about it. maybe theyre used to egtting more than they shoud from americans, bu. oh, and just to top itof, the one emal we nejyed in merids gave us food poisoning. yay Mexico!. So we simply dre avck. looked at some must see stops on teh way and git the hel of that palce. I am suer teher ar enice poe in Mexico, I a sure not all cops ar ecorrupt, i a sure not all hotels try to steal, i ams utre not all hotels demand payment for rooms that leak, but we dod not experience a single nice thing in Mxcio.

So unelss oemoen can cnvine us otehrwise, we are focuing on the countrie sin teh world befroe we ever set our foot there agin.

A few years ago we saw an episode of House Hunters International whoring a couple who bought astunning house in Merida, and being the avid house renovators that we are we fell in love with the architecture of the houses in this southern Mexican town on the Yucatan peninsula. We started learning more, watched all House Hunters International episodes of the area  (there are quite a few since this turns out to be a very popular spot for expats) and just tried to get a feel for it. Not having been to Mexico before the extent of our familiarity with Mexico was Mexican food in San Diego and some Mexican acquaintances. Finally we decided to go down and look for ourselves, we were ripe for an adventure! We did some serious research and began preparing for the, very long, road trip. We decided to drive from San Francisco to Merida and check out some to us unvisited places in the US on the way.

In order to drive to Mexico you need Mexican Insurance, a special government permit to bring the car into Mexico and you must take it out, back to the US, in order to not be fined. All of this is easily done online and there are plenty of resources which detail the procedure, so we won’t go into detail. We had our old Ford Escape thoroughly checked, tires fixed and started packing. In hindsight, we brought way too much stuff, then again we planned to rent a house and stay for several months or maybe even year. For once we were thorough and made sure we had warning triangles, tow lines, flashlights, hammer, water and a first aid kit. We updated our vaccinations and made sure our son was checked out and up to date on his shots. After all this was the first major trip we would take with our son and for the first time we had someone other than ourselves to worry about. Before we had our son we would just up and  go, nowadays we do more planning and research and think more about safety.

We planned to take it slow. We were going with our son, almost one and an eager stander upper/walker. We couldn’t expect him to sit in a car all day. So we drove whenever it was his nap time and when he was awake in the car I entertained him with toys and silly sounds. He grew tired and bored quite fast though sitting still, so we made frequent stops and let him walk it off. The US part of the trip was easy and familiar. After all we had already traversed the US a couple of times on road trips. This time we went down the beautiful route 1, enjoyed the stunning coastal scenery, Monterey, Wine yards and the palm treeesque scenery on the way. We stopped off in Santa Barbara to see if it was all that, but we found it just so, so. We stayed in Calabasas (it looks just like on TV), the Danish’ish town of Solvang for some Danish smorrebröd and then we headed to San Diego. I had lived in San Diego ten years earlier for a year, and boy has it grown and changed, it is much more charing now and more metropolitan! We went to the zoo, which was frankly a disappointmen.It felt dirty and uninspired. I have no idea what the hype is and there ar plenty of wonderful zoos in the world.

We then headed east as the plan was to head in through Brownsville. There are several places to cross but this seemed best based on our destination and on safety.(Please note that the safety warnings are different today so do check out current official recommendations if you do go). We like Texas and always have. No matter where you go people are friendly, stereotypically outgoing welcoming Americans, but for real, they are super friendly.. We checked out Corpus Christi and had the best guacamole in our lives in a small restaurant in Brownsville. And then, after a final night in the US we set of for Mexico. We were super excited, so many people rave about Mexico, they love the food, the people, the culture, everything and we couldn’t wait to experience it all! We found so many blogs with people describing Mexico as welcoming and friendly! We usually find things to like about all countries. After 20 plus years of travel we can not say that there are many places we didn’t like or wouldn’t care to return to. So with a plan to swim and enjoy the weather, eat well, meet nice people and perhaps discover a whole new world to explore, we set off to Mexico!

I kind of like that, ‘Hello world’, the automatically assigned first post topic of any WP blog. It’s nice, and severely optimistic. Now, I am not by any  means  a pessimist, but nor am I overly optimistic. Let’s call me sensibly optimistic. So I know the world will not see my words. Not yet anyway, which is kind of a good thing, since writing for oneself, as I have for years, is one thing, writing for others is another. Hopefully, the writing is not different, rather my attitude. You see opening up, sharing if you will, doesn’t come all that naturally to me. Feelings, of which I, like most of us,  have plenty of, were not shared too much in our family, unless we fought. Fighting seems somehow to be an acceptable form of showing feeling. I wonder why. Screaming and kicking and name calling, pounding your sister’s head against the stairs, anger between siblings and even parents, is just as much an open display of feelings, most noticeably hurt, as any display of affection or by softer means. Yet, opening up, for real, was not really our forte. Compliments, affirmation, showing affection was not, and is not, how we communicate, us siblings. Now that I have a child, I am working on it. I don’t want him to be a pent up, angry sod, so feelings are all over our house now a days. It turns out, however, that he is pretty level headed and not prone to either outbursts of anger nor screaming fits. Thankfully he has never been one of those kids that just fell over, face down, screaming and kicking when he didn’t get his way. As for showing affection, he rocks at it, he is generous with asserting his affections and always sweet. God, come to think of it, he is perfection, really.

Anyways, as much as I love talking about him, that is not what this is about. I do believe I have some stuff to share. As a kid I dreamed of working for the state department, traveling as a diplomat, having ‘important meetings’ or whatever it is that those diplomats do (my brother, who for a short period did work for them, asserted that they are nothing but cookie pushers, so I guess I lucked out in never being accepted into their ranks, not for not trying thogh). As I grew, however, I came to realize that I hate working a ‘real’ job. I hated being locked in, on a schedule, I especially hated doing, what I perceived, as mundane, meaningless tasks. No matter the level of the tasks, I experienced the same feeling of waste both as a summer intern as I did as  a manager. It just didn’t do it for me, in any way. I actually preferred all those years of waitressing through high school and university. At least what I did then was immediate and real and it didn’t ask that I hand over my mind on a plate. Waitressing sucks, my legs grew varicose veins deeper than Grand Canyon gorges and it was tiring, but it didn’t require loyalty or belief in a company, it didn’t require my all. I did my job and went home. Now the state department things never happened, all my language and political science studies came to no good. My career, if you will was short. I worked in venture capital, I did a couple of startups, I was gainfully employed at a major corporation, having been headhunted there. I quit after three months, realizing it was, to me, utterly meaningless and soul sucking.

As to work, I am a good worker, a hard worker and I appreciate working, it feels good, but I need to see a meaning, I need to achieve real results. So that’s why, after all my years of theoretical higher education set out flipping houses for  a few years. Initially my husband and I didn’t mean to flip our first house. We bought it out of love for the house. My husband and I both adore beautiful, especially old, houses. We dream of fixing them up, decorating them. The dream however stops there when teh fixing is done, then what? We lovingly restored it, exhausted we sat back, looked at the house and said, ‘let’s sell’. Within weeks we had found a second house. On it went from there. Those houses afforded us years of not working, (not not working, but not working paying jobs per se, because we always work on something, so it gave us years off the grind). We haven’t had real ‘live’ jobs in 15 years, and I will be the first to say that is a very, very good thing.

The stress, the worry about meeting costs, fretting over where to live, how to live and be, well that is the flip side of not fitting in to a ‘normal’ life, of not fitting inside the box. We went through that big time. Jumping ship, if you will, takes quite a lot of reconsidering of everything you knew to be true, and at least for me, a nice middle class Swede, with a regular degree, regular aspirations and expectations, just going off and saying eff it, was not expected by anyone and even though it suits me, it takes some adjusting mentally and it takes giving oneself a lot of permission, to be, well, different.

Today everything is different, by leaps and bounds the possibilities of how to make an income, how to travel, how to live are just so much greater and thus easier than when we departed the set route. Most importantly, different is much more acceptable. But I’ll cover that later. Let’s leave it at the hard work. It did pay off and we have through the years settled into a way of life that is uniquely ours, that suits us, that makes us happy. We no longer fret (as much), we no longer worry (as much), perhaps this is because we are older, or wiser, or simply because our businesses allow us a good, a little bit easier life. Finally, the work is paying off. Who knows, but I can honestly say that now, after years of slaving (and the slaving will probably continue, if we want to continue our lifestyle, but it will continue on our terms) we are where we want to be. In our lives that is. Right now we are in Sweden, and even though it is June, and it’s midsummer tomorrow, it fucking freezing with pouring rain. So location wise, we need a major improvement (which of course we are planning…)

As to feelings or opening up. I have no obligations to anyone or anything, but to myself. I truly believe I have something to say. I have learnt quite a bit over the years. It took a long time to realize and accept what I know now to be true. So if someone can learn from me, faster, easier and smoother than I did, why shouldn’t I help, if I can? Besides, it is fun writing, I enjoy it.

The picture is of our first major renovation: An 18th century farmhouse outside of Örebro, Sweden.