This is perhaps the "weirdest" blog entry I have ever made.
As I write, I am sitting here in an Internet Cafe. Not weird? Just wait.
The cafe is on the rickety second floor of a building, wherein the first floor is a restaurant-bar. The floor up here is made of barely-sufficient wooden planks, and it shakes each time someone walks hard anywhere in my vicinity. My keyboard is in Spanish(!), causing me many, many headaches along the way. Lots of mistakes, in fact.
The music in the background is a Mexican trio, and they play guitars and sing traditional, Spanish songs to the diners at the tables below. My computer sits at the edge of an overhang, in an open-air building, looking upon the busiest (main) street in town. I have two pina coladas, one on each side of the monitor, as it is - to my surprise! - a 2-for-1 happy hour right now. The Mexican trio is loud, though in tune, and the crowds in the street are huge. The restaurant entrepreneurs rush into the streeets, trying to wisk potential customers into their place of business for their evening meal. You bargain for your Internet time here, as you bargain for everything from a bottle of aspirin to a meal to a taxi ride.
I am in the Riviera Maya, in Mexico. Playa del Carmen, to be exact, on the Yucatan peninsula. I'm downtown, and the temperature is a balmy 80 degrees (at 8pm), still, as the place has just descended into darkness. The glorious ocean breeze reaches me, even here. The streets here are dirt, soon to be finished in a rustic cobblestone. The Detroit Pistons game, as well as an unknown, NHL playoff game, is on the TV, giving me a little taste of home. And best of all, in a country that is third-world by most standards, I am on a cable modem connection that is every bit as fast as that which I experience at home. The connection is fast, problem-free, and, oh yeah, it is costing me $2 per hour. And the drinks are the same price. What a bargain.
Yeah, Mexico is a place of horrific government controls (witness the fascism, police corruption, and lack of private property recognition), but the Lifestyle Nanny State is mostly invisible here. I am able to purchase, very cheaply, any prescription drug I please, on almost every street corner, without the decree of a licensed physician. What a concept! Nobody cares where, when, or how I drink, whether it be on the beach, in my hotel's fun swim-up bar, or while walking down main street. To hell with the Nanny State police, here, in this town.
I have no idea how or why there is cable modem available here, but I know it makes me very happy.
Time to go. Off to dinner, which means bargaining for yet another great meal of authentic, Mexican food, along with a few of those happy hour adult beverages. I like Mexico, and I could get addicted to this place as a reprieve from the madness of job and home.
