Mexico 2020:
Traveling COVID Style!
There's no sugar-coating it: 2020 has sucked in so many ways! Branelle and I have faired better than most (I refer to us as 1%ers with regard to COVID impact). Our jobs are COVID proof and our employers are awesome - we have a solid support structure to help out - we live in Texas, which is probably less affected by COVID regulations than just about anywhere - etc. The thing that's bothered me most (other than masks) has been the lack of travel options.
Towards the end of the year, I was starting to get stir crazy. I had been tracking the travel restrictions all year and was well aware of what was open and what wasn't. Mexico had opened for business to a degree in the summer, but Chichen Itza had remained closed. It's on our "100 Places" wall and I didn't want to go to Mexico without being able to check that one off. Finally, the Mexican Government opened it up to 3000 people a day. I worked backwards - I booked a tour to Chichen Itza first and then tackled the travel and accommodations. Our friends Kate and Titus joined us as they were about as stir crazy as we were.
I'll cover Chichen Itza and some of the other things we did in subsequent posts, but this is just a quick one to talk about traveling these days.
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| Kate's on a plane! (Say it like Samuel L. Jackson) |
Flying: Nel and I have done quite a bit of flying during the pandemic. It's actually kind of nice. The airports are fairly empty and some of the flights have been as well. There aren't really any special things going on other than the stuff they do for optics like plexiglass between the TSA agent checking your ID (you hand him stuff - are you kidding me with the plexi?).
The only downside to flying right now is the masks. There are other places around the globe that are open like Croatia and Turkey, but I don't really want to wear a mask for 10 hours. Our flight from Houston to Cancun was less then three, and there's a simple hack for the mask issue: EAT! Just eat the entire time. If you're eating they'll leave you alone. In Delta they won't give you soda for some reason (even the flight attendants don't know why) but they will give you snacks and in first class they hand you a big bag of all kinds of snacks. I just sit there and slow roll the consumption of the whole bag and breath freely for just about the entire flight. You can just sit there with a pretzel in your right hand for minutes without taking a bite and they won't say a word to you. We flew United to Mexico and they didn't give us as much food, but it was enough for me to drag it out - and they had soda!
Side note on the flights: Our flights both there and back were PACKED! Airlines are complete hypocrites. I don't want to hear a word about safety measures if you're just going to fill the plane for economics. Once you do that, pretty much everything else you do is pointless. (To be clear, I'm fine with them filling the planes, just don't act like handing me a soda or my three-year-old's mask not completely covering his nose is going to get people killed. It's idiotic.)
Masks: Mexico was very nearly a mask-free zone for tourists. It seems like the unwritten rule that's been adopted is that all of the locals who interact with tourists wear masks, but the tourists don't have to. It was wonderful, and way more satisfying than it should be. There was nowhere on our resort that required a mask (other than the medical office). They hit you with the hand sanitizer often, but that was about it.
Speaking of the resorts medical facilities - I had to put this in here because it's one of my favorite pictures from the entire trip. Kate was having some leg issues from the minute she got off the plane. She powered through our Chitchen Itza excursion, but it was taking a toll. She finally headed to the medical office to have it checked out and Nel went along for "support". The doctor gave Kate the obligatory shot in the ass, and Nel felt the need to document the procedure. The doctor thought it was pretty funny too.
Dining: Restaurants were the same as everywhere else - no masks required but the staff wore them. They didn't have tables blocked off or anything, but most places were fairly empty so it wouldn't have mattered anyway. They also didn't have the pointless rule about wearing a mask until you get to your table.
One interesting side note - there weren't many of those stickers on the floor like you see all over the place in the US telling you to stay 6 feet away from everyone else, but in the few places that did have them (like the airport) we noticed that they said to stay 5 feet away. Apparently COVID can only travel 5 feet as it nears the equator. 😉
OK - So that's it for the COVID stuff. In a way, being in Mexico was like taking a break from all the COVID-Crazies...and it was glorious. I'll cover the actual trip in future posts.
One more thing:
This is Nel thinking about work while on vacation...
This is Scott thinking about work (and actually working) while on vacation.....
