THE MAGIC OF YUCATÁN'S MARKETPLACE AND CUISINE

 

If you've traveled to Mexico, you know Mexican food has more flare than just a bite at Taco Bell or a mere plate of enchiladas, rice, and beans. On Mexico's dueling coasts, one is bombarded with a potpourri of seafood, from shrimp and lobster to delectable fresh fish—bonito, dorado, albacore—the likes you've never tasted elsewhere. And in the country's vast interior, every city and pueblo boasts their own local ingredients, depending on what is grown or hunted nearby, using unique herbs, spicy peppers, and recipes from centuries back. Mexican food, especially in Mexico, is a wondrous jolt to the senses.

MAYA AND THE YUCATÁN

Nowhere is the food of Mexico more unique than on the Yucatán Peninsula where the Maya culture reigns. Though inland and other coastal areas employ the triumvirate of corn (maize), beans, and squash, paying homage to Aztec culture, these are also basic foods on the Peninsula. Because the Yucatán was a land apart for centuries, a near sovereign nation, even after the Spanish invasion until the 1700s it carried on in the Maya tradition, employing its own unique set of condiments, plants and vegetables given the region's bountiful resources. Vanilla, cacao, salt, achiote, allspice, a plethora of unique fruits, and as everywhere else in Mexico, chiles, brought in through trade with the Antilles.

Geography played a part in the exclusion of Yucatecan food from foods elsewhere in the country. At one time considered an island, and finally known to be a peninsula, it remained distanced from mainland Mexico by rugged terrain and vast jungles. So thick were they that when Spanish conquistadores led by Cortes went searching for a supposed city of gold (near Mexico's southern border) they rode within one hundred kilometers of the pyramid site Palenque, having no clue they had passed near the outskirts of one of the Maya's greatest ceremonial centers. 

YUCATECAN FOOD—A WORLD APART

Because of its solitaire status, Yucatecan food is not considered to be Mexican food, and Yucatecans will proudly tell you so. As the 19th century progressed, it became easier for wealthy Peninsula locals to travel to Cuba or even Europe rather than to mainland Mexico, so limited was the transportation in between. With newly acquired status as the world's main supplier of henequen, the material used for the popular Panama hat, Merida's fortunes grew, ushering in a new privileged class. The city had a European vibe rather than Mexican. With a trans-Atlantic port at Progreso, twenty miles from Merida, goods were carried  to and from the European continent, and the population grew accustomed to not only European fashions but new flavors and spices, amplifying the evolution of Yucatecan cooking.

THE MARKETPLACE

Inventive cooking techniques fall on the broad shoulders of a proud and inventive people who defined a different type of cooking from that of their inland neighbors: the Maya, who have inhabited the Peninsula for millennia. In the past forty years, famous chefs have visited the region to learn more about the distinctive fare developed by them.  In Mexico and the Yucatán, the beginning of every meal begins with a trip to the local market or mercado—be it the tiniest of pueblos or a thriving city like Merida, capitol of Yucatán. The bustling, thriving Merida mercado covers 156,000 square feet and boasts over two thousand vendors, serving one hundred thousand customers daily. 

The original market consisted of vendors selling on the steps of government buildings in the main zocalo in the 1700s. Eventually it moved to its present location in 1949, and was named after Mayor Lucas de Galvez. Everything from fruits, nuts, meats, fish, vegetables, pots and pans, utensils and knives, hammocks, clothing, poultry, pets, machinery and more is sold, beginning daily at 5 a.m.

 

YUCATECAN STAPLES

The basis for Yucatecan cooking consists of four staples: Recados, the curries of Mexico—exotic blends of spices made into paste or powder and used to flavor savory dishes; beans in some shape or form; salsas to add a piquant jolt to the food, and pork lard, which is flavorful, their form of an oil, and not as toxic as one might think.

In cooking, the Maya often smoke foods, either as a preservative or flavoring, in chiles, meat and fish. Underground "ovens" are used, or p'bil, where the meat is covered in banana leaves, dropped into a pit and cooked for hours on end. Barbacoas are used, a rack above a fire, for roasting, and of course steaming in pots or directly placed in hot ashes is also common.

FAVORITE DISHES

Some of my favorite Yucatecan dishes are cochinita pibil—pork marinated with achiote and wrapped in banana leaves, then put into a pit for hours (known also as pulled pork); salbutes—hand-sized tortillas with shredded turkey and cabbage, pickled onion on top, and avocado slice; grilled chicken marinated in achiote and sour oranges; and one I long to taste—Pavo and relleno negro—wild turkey stuffed with chopped sausage, chicken livers and a hardboiled egg in a black relleno sauce. That is yet to come.

According to food maven Martha Stewart, Yucatecan food may be the world's first fusion cuisine. Makes me hungry just thinking about it!

For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. My first book, a travel memoir titled Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya is available on Amazon, as is Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, which is a journalistic overview of the 2012 calendar phenomenon. Books two and three of my Wheels Up cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival and Tulum Takedown are also available on Amazon. Subscribe above to keep up to date with further blogs on Mexico and the Maya and the Yucatán.

THE MAYA EXPLORER WHO BOUGHT THE CHICHEN ITZA PYRAMIDS

 

Few explorers can live up to the image of Edward Herbert Thompson. Made notorious after dredging Chichen Itza's sacred cenote in 1904, Thompson's dashing and dramatic exploits lasted more than three decades.

Born in Massachusetts in 1856, he followed in the footsteps of the Yucatán's first known explorers, John Lloyd Stephens and artist Frederick Catherwood who co-authored Incidents of Travel in Yucatán. Shortly after publication of this instant 1843 bestseller, the Caste War of Yucatán broke out limiting access to the peninsula's finest pyramid sites, closing borders to all but indigenous Maya for 60 years.

Thompson, appointed archeological consul to the Yucatán in 1895, was one of the first explorers to tread the land after the war began. His work as an anthropologist began in 1879 when he published a highly unscientific article for Popular Mechanic, titled "Atlantis: Not a Myth," which attempted to link Socrates' lost continent with the rediscovered Maya. Though he later disclaimed his outlandish theory, the article gained him notoriety and attracted the attention of the American Antiquarian Society, whose vice-president lobbied the senate to appoint Thompson as American consul to Mexico.

YUCATÁN CONSUL

As the youngest consul ever, Thompson's post included the Mexican states of Yucatán and Campache which he used as jumping off spots for further pyramid exploration. With his wife Henrietta and their two-month old daughter, they headed south in 1895.

He passed several months in Merida where he began the process of befriending local Maya, so to better study their legends, psychology and language. He traveled widely in those early months, trekking to all known ancient cities—well over one hundred—to familiarize himself with the ruins and the lay of the land. He learned to travel light, unlike other explorers, and adapted his ways to the Maya way of life.

Although his adventures would leave a physical mark on the man—an encounter with a poison trap in the jungle left him lame in one leg—his archeological fame soared. He was known for two coups: his first, the purchase of 100 square miles of Chichen Itza which included the ruins and a Spanish plantation house, through the auspices of Chicago meat packing magnate, Allison Armour. When the Mexican government finally caught wind of the sale, they negated the transaction, but allowed him to camp out on the premises. During his excavations, he used Chichen Itza's famous "Nunnery" as bedroom and office.

SACRED CENOTE AT CHICHEN ITZA

But the height of his fame came from his second coup: dredging the cenote at Chichen Itza. From his earliest excursion to the site, he admitted he had an uncanny draw to the sacred cenote and his initial interest was further spurred on as he read texts and documents about it. As all but three Maya codices or paperback books had been destroyed by fire by a Spanish bishop, Diego de Landa, in the early 1500s, little information on the early Maya existed.

After his destruction of the written Mayan language, along with countless statues and religious artifacts, the king of Spain ordered de Landa to write a history of the Maya and their culture. Thompson read de Landa's account of the Chichen Itza cenote which explained that during times of drought or strife, priests and commoners made pilgrimages to the cenote to appease the gods they believed lived in the water's depths. De Landa's account stated maidens and captive warriors were thrown into the well as sacrifices. He also added it was customary for ornaments, household items, and gold to also be thrown in to appease the gods by commoners and hierarchy alike.

Thompson took the priest's account as fact and implemented a plan to dive the cenote. For this he needed to invent a diving apparatus. He headed back to the US to solicit funds, then traveled to Boston where he took deep sea diving lessons for two months. While in Boston he developed a dredging bucket with steel cables, a derrick and a 30-foot swinging boom for the project. He had it crated up and shipped it all south.

Within weeks he was training local Maya to assist him in what everyone considered to be a maniac's misadventure. After setting up his materials, he dredged through thick silt for a month, coming up empty. At last he pulled an unrecognizable mucky substance to the surface. He dried it and attempted to burn it, discovering it was Maya incense, or copal, used in religious ceremonies. With this discovery, he knew he was on the brink of a major finding.

TREASURE HUNT

Two days later his efforts were rewarded. Piece after piece of long-awaited treasure was dredged up. Thompson succeeded in bringing forth vases, ornaments, and obsidian knives. But the large bucket on his equipment kept dropping items, and he knew to better search the cenote he'd have to dive it himself. In the States he'd been introduced to a Greek diver. He enlisted the man's talents and two weeks later they had rigged up waterproof canvas outfits with 30-pound copper helmets and plate glass goggles and air valves. The two dove into the cenote and pulled up amazing treasures—figures representing Maya gods, gold discs, jade, and the clincher—human skeletons.

Thompson's discovery put the Maya back on the world explorers' map. He had proof that humans had been sacrificed at Chichen Itza. Young women had been hurled by priests into a dismal pool as offerings to their gods, and now the explorer had the skeletal remains to prove it.

Ironically, Thompson's score threatened to jeopardize his standing in the archeological community as it was later discovered he had sent many of the dredged artifacts secretly in diplomatic pouches to the Peabody in Boston where most remain to this day, far from the Yucatán. But such was Thompson's stature that even this revelation did not diminish his professional standing, when all was said and done.

HOW THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT

Thompson also discovered how the Maya built the pyramids. Near Chichen Itza he found shallow quarries with worked veins of sascab, the lime gravel mixture the Maya used as mortar. Scattered around the area he found hammer stones of calcite, pecking stones of flint, and smoothing stones that were most likely used to produce flat surfaces on walls. Even though ancient Maya craftsmen had no metal tools, his discovery of the quarry and tool remnants assisted scientists in determining how the Maya created the pyramids without the use of metal. Thompson also found chisels of nephrite, a less valuable source of jade, and as a test, he used one to carve his own name onto an ancient stone to prove it could be done.

Thompson went on to discover an ancient Maya 'date' stone, later named the Tablet of the Initial Series, which served in deciphering dates of Chichen Itza's classic period for cryptographers. His exploits were those of an intrepid explorer. His continued determination throughout his near 40-year tenure in the Yucatán helped unravel the secrets of a great civilization.

After his explorations were wrapped up, Thompson wrote People of the Serpent in 1932 detailing his time exploring in the Yucatán.  He died in 1935 in New Jersey. 

After writing this article I was approached by great grandchildren of Edward Herbert Thompson and communicated with them about their great grandfather. It was thrilling, to know that his relatives still live in Piste, the small community adjacent to Chichen Itza. 

For more information on my writing, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. My first book, a travel memoir titled Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya is available on Amazon, as is Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, which is a journalistic overview of the 2012 calendar phenomenon. Books two and three of my Wheels Up cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival and Tulum Takedown are also available on Amazon. Subscribe above to keep up to date with further blogs on Mexico and the Maya and the Yucatán.

RUNNING FROM THE STORM—A HURRICANE TALE

 

With Hurricane Delta and Tropical Depression Gamma recently hitting Cancun, I was reminded of my own evacuation from nearby Puerto Morelos during Hurricane Wilma in 2005, mere weeks after devastating Hurricane Katrina pummeled New Orleans.

"Hotel Eden is closed," Nety, the owner of the no-frills cement block structure said. "No rooms. We're evacuating our employees. Puerto Morelos could be point zero—again."

"But I have a reservation. Eden made it through Gilberto in 1988," I protested, well aware I might as well be talking to the whistling wind outside. "You know it can take a hit and you're four blocks from the beach. Wilma's surge will never come this far. We can't stay in our house—it's on the water, and we don't want to leave the area. It's always hard to get back after a storm." 

She shook her head. "Too risky, plus the mangroves behind us could rise a meter or two."

Where to go? It was 8 a.m. on October 21. Our house was on the ocean in Puerto Morelos south of Cancun and although we'd braved out Hurricane Emily in July, a category four storm, Emily had been dry with little rain and not expected to hit Puerto Morelos. Wilma, by contrast, was dropping lots of rain on the Caymans three hundred miles south as it lumbered slowly north at three mph. It wasn't expected to reach Cancun until late that night. But if we had to go to Cancun for shelter, we'd have to leave soon to find a hotel still taking guests. In Cancun, hurricanes were serious business and evacuations were issued well in advance, especially when tourists were concerned.

DECISION TIME

"Gotta head out. Eden's closed," I told Paul, my husband, as I rounded up the cat, my laptop, a few days' clothes, food, and water, after my failed trip. "Once you're done, we'll leave." Paul had been busy for days making the house hurricane ready—boarding windows with plywood, tying palm trees to each other, hoping they wouldn't break off when winds reached top force. When you live on the beach during hurricane season, "oceanfront" takes on a whole new meaning.

This storm had gone from an mediocre category one to a life-threatening cat five overnight. It would become the fastest strengthening storm on record, with top sustained winds increasing to 105 mph in just 24-hours. The waves had just started to hit our beefy twelve-foot above and twelve-foot below ground seawall, set back 120 feet from the tide line. It was decision time. Hurricane Wilma was the twentieth named storm of the season, the worst hurricane on record to date. Lower in barometric pressure at 882 millibars than 1988's deadly Hurricane Gilberto, another cat five that also hit the Yucatán Peninsula. The year 2005 was shaping up as the year with the most hurricanes in history. We were at "W" in October, and the official season wouldn't end until December 1.

Our drive into Cancun, complicated by fast, careless drivers, showed us that others were departing the coast just as we were, looking for safety within the confines of the city. After finding no vacancy at four hotels, we located a bunker style 40-room structure on Lopez Portillo,  Hotel Avenida Cancun, with one room left. We snatched it up. A teeny bathroom window was the only place daylight peeked in and that was just fine. Less possibility of shattering glass.

We snuck in our eight-year-old milagro gato, or miracle cat as the vet had named him. No cat lives in the jungle for eight years, he'd said. But Max, outdoor-indoor kitty, did, avoiding snakes, dogs, whatever else was lying in wait for a tender morsel of fresh feline. 

WAITING FOR WILMA

We checked into the hotel around noon and watched bad tele-novelas until midnight. Occasionally the satellite allowed us a glimpse of CNN International and our future, but that was spotty at best. Mostly it was Mexican TV or nothing, until the electricity went out around 1 a.m. At three I awoke to howling winds. The hotel clerk, a no-nonsense dark-haired woman in her thirties named Nancy had told us the hotel was double-walled, a true bunker, and strong enough to take on a hurricane like Wilma. I felt secure. Paul's second sense had kicked in before we settled on where to park the car after discovering the hotel's lot was full. He chose a spot on a side street where he thought we'd be out of the line of fire if electric poles fell. (His intuition was trusty as ever—an electric pole crushed a car right across the street from ours). When we awoke on Friday, all was dark. With flashlight in hand I went down to the desk where fifteen or so other guests had gathered.

"What's happening with the hurricane?" I asked Nancy.

"No one knows. Our satellite is out and we think the eye is coming soon."

"But it's been hours," I said.

"It may have stalled out."

This is the worst case scenario in hurricane speak and everyone's fear. We later discovered Wilma had crawled across our peninsula for over sixty hours with sustained winds of 150 mph. Destruction in slow-mo, like being whirred inside a blender.

"Where is it now?"

"Maybe over Cozumel? No one knows," Nancy said. "The eye's grown to 35 miles wide. We just have to wait. Oh, and don't use the water; it's almost out."

Great. No electricity and now no water. I wished I'd showered before I hurried downstairs to check on the storm. I watched a perky woman dressed in pink shorts with matching Xcaret cap pull a stylish bag towards the boarded-up front doors where two men made space for her to slip through.

"Where's she going?"

"She thinks she's going to Playa but she'll get stuck in the road. Once you leave, you can't come back in. No in and out privileges," No-nonsense Nancy explained with a determined look.

I paid for another night and went back to the room to report hotel policy to Paul and let him know the restaurant was actually serving breakfast. We thought it best to eat while we still could. Then back up to the room to brood and wait in the dark, for hours. The winds continued to howl, then a strange calm—the eye. But at three miles an hour, it would take ten hours to pass over Cancun. Occasionally we heard crashing noises outside. We hunkered down, petted Max, who'd moved onto the bed with us, and waited.

Occasionally I'd venture into the dark hallway to ask other guests for info. We were all equally clueless. Was it over? What was happening? Had the eye passed? By the third day, always the same response—ask the manager.

No-nonsense Nancy reported that everyone thought the worst had passed. She was waiting for police to come and give a final report. Having lived in Mexico for way too long, I knew that police report could be slow in coming, if at all. I walked up to the boarded front windows and peaked through the slats. Remnants of metal signs were strewn everywhere, electric poles were broken off like toothpicks, trees were ripped up at their roots. Wilma had wreaked havoc. Back up to the room to make a decision—to venture out. We packed up Max and our belongings, retrieved the car and headed out Lopez Portillo, Cancun's crossroads—the line of demarcation between what tourists called Cancun and what locals knew it to be. 

As we crawled through areas with water up to our floorboards, we began to see hoards of people moving towards Chedraui Supermaket. The hurricane force winds had ripped a hole in the wall and looters were taking advantage by hauling off food, pampers, beer, soda. 

KEEP MOVING

"Gotta move fast through here," Paul said. "Could be a bad scene."

I later heard it was. Police arrived and fired shots into the air, one account, or another that reported shots were fired into the crowd. On Avenida Kabah we traveled two miles, only to be diverted by a water impasse. Back to Tulum Avenue, center of town, treacherously trying to avoid flood waters everywhere. Anyone who's ever been to Cancun knows a slight downpour can clog city streets for hours. Amplify that and we had 60 inches of water in three days to contend with. We crawled past once lovely Plaza las Americas Mall where half of Sears was blown out, the VIP theatre seriously damaged. Hospital of the Americas was wrecked and unsalvageable.

Down to Puerto Morelos, slowly, so slowly on Highway 307. I thought we'd made it until four miles north of Puerto Morelos. Mangroves had breached the highway and fast moving waters crossed the road at nearly three feet—impassable. Fifty cars sat on either side of the highway, facing north and south, playing the waiting game. Water comes in, then it goes out, doesn't it?

THE WAITING GAME

"How long do you think?" I asked the driver in the car ahead of us.

He gave me a tired look. "They say four or five hours till it goes down." 

I dragged my way back to the car and gave Paul the bad news. By then it would be nightfall. Now what?

"Should we try the hotel zone?" Paul asked. "All the tourists are gone."

"Okay, why not?" I was game.

We passed the green sign for the hotel zone lying at a forlorn angle on the side of the road. We had no clue as to what damages we'd see in one of the world's trendiest resorts. As we crept along, avoiding high water spots and rubble in the road, we were shocked at the wreckage, and we'd only ventured into the zone four or five kilometers. Almost every hotel window was blown out and large concrete columns lay on the ground blocking entrances. Walls had crumbled, street signs lay mangled on the roads. Trees were missing from a once lush landscape. Three hotel guards simply waved us off. One kind hotel manager extended us the use of his own unit, but without windows, electricity or water. We politely declined.

"We may as well see how the water is doing at Crococun Road," Paul said. The road was named for Crococun Crocodile Zoo, a well-known landmark between Cancun and Puerto Morelos, near where the water had breached the highway. Once there we could see the water was still too high for normal crossing. One entrepreneurial sort with a car carrier was carting vehicles across the watery divide for one hundred US dollars. We'd have gladly paid it, but were on the wrong side of the road and he had a healthy back-up of hopeful clients.

There was no other option except to sleep in the car that night with Max. Damp floorboards were filled with our clothes, a five gallon container of gasoline, food leftovers, an Electropura water bottle, and Max's kitty litter. Creature comforts.

THE GREAT DIVIDE

At 7 a.m. I awoke with the worst crick in my neck since my backpacking days. Paul was already up, mingling with other disgruntled travelers. Then I saw a high-axled vehicle and an idea came like a lightning bolt.

"Paul," I called, immediately awake. "I'm asking him if he'll cart us across. Us and Max."

I ran to the van, perched at the rolling water's edge. It was just a driver and one passenger in a large Suburban. His answer, "Of course."

"Get the cat!" I whooped! "And the computer! We're moving!"

I was in and out of the car in a flash and at the driver's door. He smiled and shook his head when I asked, "Can I please pay you?"

Across the great divide we went, slowly, watching others view our passage.

The Suburban dropped us at Crococun Road, about two miles further south on the highway, the back road to our house, or where we hoped our house would still be. As we gazed down the two-lane road with Max in tow, I gulped. The road was dry for a mere one thousand yards at best. Then— water. Serious water, streaming from the mangroves and racing across and down the blacktop.

"Let's start walking," Paul said. "What else are we gonna do? Go back to that water-logged car with gas fumes, wet floorboards, and Max's kitty litter? I don't think the water's that high."

Our decision was made. As we trudged to the water's edge, a gray SUV drove past, not only ignoring our requests for help but splashing us with mangrove water in his wake. Maybe disasters didn't bring out the best in everyone?

Moments later, along came a Puerto Morelos cab carrying two tourists. The driver rolled down his window as he munched on an apple and pulled to a stop next to us at the water's edge.

"Where are you going?" Paul asked.

"They," he smirked, pointing at the tourists in back, "have reservations at Secrets." Secrets is the new all-inclusive beach resort at the end of the three kilometer road we were on. I doubted the present state of the rooms and property would be up to the back seat tourists' standards.

"Are you driving there? Can we pay you to take us?" I asked.

"No, the water is too high. But it's even worse across from Pemex. I heard it's at least three feet high, all the way to the square."

"How is Puerto Morelos?"

"It's okay. Do you want a ride back to the crossroads?"

"But then what do we do? We'd still be stuck."

He shrugged, more interested in his apple than our future. "Wait for a big rig to take you to town?"

Since Casa Maya, our house, was a kilometer north of town, who knew how bad the roads would be? Would we be stranded trying to get there too?

CROCODILES 

I looked at Paul. "Let's walk."

"You'll be eaten by crocodiles," the driver taunted as he nibbled at the core. "They escaped from Crococun."

For a moment Paul and I shared a look. Urban legend or reality bite? "We have to walk," I said, thinking of soaked floorboards, Max's kitty litter box, and the status of our house...in that order.

"You ready?" Paul asked

"We have to see what's happened to our house," I yelled back at the taxista as we started slogging through knee-deep mangrove water.

"Follow the yellow line," Paul said, with Max's container perched high on his shoulder.

"Okay." I kicked off my plastic sandals, a dangerous move, and walked barefoot through murky brown water, trying to think good thoughts.

Forty minutes later we trudged to the edge of Secrets' hotel entrance where three guards and a civilian eyed us as though we were criminals casing the joint. Cat burglars?

"Can't walk on the road," I managed to gasp, thoroughly spent from our water escapade. "Too much water. Can we cut through to the beach? We live here, vescinos. Neighbors."

I could tell they were sizing us up. I was a mess; hadn't showered for three days and my rolled-up jeans were soaked above the knees. They could have turned me away just for lack of general hygiene. Paul, amazingly, didn't look that bad.

"I'll get a guard," the one in civilian clothes shot back. "He can escort you." Maybe it was the fashion police they were calling for?

We took baby steps with our sea legs, happy to be on dry land. At the beach. We smiled at the shy guard who let us out the gate. We were on our beach! Now, would we have a house? Or would Wilma have claimed another for her own?

Past one neighbor's house after another. Some total disasters, some not so bad, but in general, none were really good. Concrete rubble and collapsed walls everywhere. Many swimming pools had been swept away but had saved house foundations. That was the bottom line. If you had a foundation, the house could be saved. La Sirena Condos had not survived Gilberto in 1988, and had been rebuilt. Now, sadly, they had not survived Wilma. Our immediate neighbors to the north lost their pool, and then we saw Casa Maya! Our house was still standing and the seawall, that glorious structure, still stood! It had saved our house from the storm.

Both our side walls were sheered off midway, and the north wall had received tremendous damage. We'd heard the winds have ravaged Puerto Morelos for more than forty hours. Our wall was the cutoff for damages on the north, and I believe our koi pond's three-foot deep concrete foundation had been vital in saving Casa Maya.

AFTER THE STORM

Our beach stairs and gate had been swept away as had our beach palapa along with most of our coconut palms, though Paul's idea to tie some to the front door saved a few. We climbed carefully through the rubble of the side wall and up to our lawn. The 3/4 inch plywood boards over the windows and doors, held down by stainless steel bolts that could handle two thousand pounds of pressure, had all remained intact. Paul had tied the front door to a palm tree which still stood. He found a machete in the bodega—built in the shape of a pyramid it had sustained no damage—cut the rope, and we went inside the house. Aside from a couple of inches of water in the living room that had squeaked through under the doors and through mahogany windows, the house was in good shape. We'd weathered the storm. The house was livable. Hats off to our seawall which held up admirably during the worst storm on record, and hats off to Mother Nature, who hasn't lost a battle yet. 

To read about my further adventures living as an expat in Mexico, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, can be found on Amazon. Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, books one and two in my Wheels Up Mexico cartel trilogy, are also on Amazon. Check for more info on the author at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Subscribe to my blog above for more Mexico tales.

THE BIG SUR SUNSET—INSPIRATION TO THE BEAT GENERATION AND BEYOND

Is staying adventurous a state of mind? Probably.

I grew up a baby boomer and child of the Sixties. Experimentation was our rite of passage. We became flower children, world travelers, students of the universe. We turned on, tuned in, and famously dropped out. Eventually many boomers reversed position and joined the ranks of the daily grind, myself included. The media then re-named us yuppies.

Some stayed adventurous. You know who you are.

For me, travel has always been the key to holding on to my adventurous spirit, though Covid has put a leash on that for the time being.

Returning to the States after fifteen years living in Mexico, we settled down on the California coast. My husband and I bought a 1978 VW Westie and started trucking around California for fun. It was our third VW van. Paul had lived in our first Westie when he built our house on Maui. Now, years later, we found an exact replica of that long gone van, bought it, and named it Si Turtle. It was uncanny to find a duplicate, down to the electric lime green color. This one was different though: Paul installed a solar panel on top so we could plug in when we stopped for the night. We'd travel often to Big Sur, a magnetic draw for the Beat Generation's progressive thinkers: Jack Kerouac, Jack Cassidy, Allen Ginsburg, and the granddaddy of the movement, Henry Miller, who called Big Sur home from 1944 to 1962.

It's easy to see why the Beats couldn't get enough of the place. Layer after layer of mountains cascading down to the Pacific with Highway One streaming along in a series of breathtaking switchbacks. Your eyes can barely focus on the road—beauty attacks the senses. God help you if you're the one behind the wheel.

Maybe places—beautiful places—generate an adventurous spirit. In Big Sur I always feel I'm part of nature and part of the Big Sur beauty, the Beat Generation, and the hippie renaissance that spawned Esalan and gave us Nepenthe's, all rolled into one.

Big Sur's splendor-bending didn't end with the Beats. It was also an oasis to Joseph Campbell, Richard Brautigan, and gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson who just couldn't get enough.

Are they adventurous enough for you? I know I'm in.

HOW MOVING TO MEXICO KICKSTARTED MY WRITING CAREER

 

I became an author after writing a travel memoir about living as an expat in a fishing village on Mexican’s Caribbean coast south of Cancun, long before self-publishing was a thing. As a former journalist, writing came easily to me.

When my husband and I dropped out of San Francisco’s corporate world to move to Mexico, friends and family thought we were crazy. But we’d traveled to Mexico for years and had fallen in love with it. Once settled, I opened a bookstore in our pueblo, Puerto Morelos, and named it Alma Libre Libros—Free Spirit Books. I had a tale to tell.

Every year we returned to the States to buy more books during Mexico’s low season, summer and early fall months when tourism is light. One year during our annual buying spree I decided to attend a writers conference. I pitched publishers, agents, and editors. Nothing gelled.

AHA MOMENT 

At the conference, self-publishing guru Dan Poynter packed the room to overflow at all his lectures. He’d even developed an “E-Reader,” long before Amazon’s Kindle. We all know how that ended up, not with Dan! But his self-publishing ideas were innovative and hands on. He’d had good luck self-publishing his own books and had developed a solid formula, from formatting and cover design to sales and marketing. His book, The Self Publishing Manual, covered everything a newbie like me needed to know.

Feeling empowered by his part cheerleader, part evangelist message on the new world of self-publishing, I took the the bull by the horns and decided to just do it. My writing group had two experienced authors who vowed to assist in editing, and the book nearly wrote itself. After all, it was a slice of life tale—how I bought land, built a house, and moved lock, stock and barrel to a remote fishing village in southern Mexico. After the conference I got serious about writing my memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya.

PRE-PUBLICATION BLUES 

Back then formatting wasn’t done with a Word or Pages program. It was done by a typesetter—a human! Someone referred me and I went with their suggestion. In about four weeks that was handled. For the cover, since I was writing about life amidst the pyramids, Paul and I took to the road, and with camera and tripod in hand, headed to Tulum, one of the most picturesque of Maya pyramid sites. He got some great shots for the front cover, and for the back cover, the wooden dock of our picturesque pueblo, Puerto Morelos, served me well. 

I found a cover designer from Dan Poynter’s list of designers in his self-publishing manual and she came through nicely. After the typesetting was done and proofed, I was ready to print. I located a printer, signed on for a thousand copies, and voila! A book was born!

THE EDITING CONUNDRUM

After finishing that long awaited first draft, I suggest setting the book aside for a few days. Think on it, dream on it, then give it another pass. When you have your i’s dotted and all t’s are crossed, pass it off to your content editor (if you write fiction). At the very end, after the editor has marked it up like your 10th grade term paper and you’ve folded in changes and suggestions, with your editor’s blessing, pass it to a line editor or proof reader. Some authors incorporate Beta readers into the process, and their insights can be beneficial plus you earn their reader devotion by asking them to help you out

For formatting, since I’m not super tech savvy, I hired a formatter for both paperback and e-format. And for covers on my two fiction books, part of the Wheels Up Yucatán Thriller trilogy, an artist friend in Todos Santos, Baja California, Mexico, allowed me to use two pieces of art that worked out incredibly well. I’ve long been a fan of her work and asked if she would consider my use of her art for the cover. I was floored when she accepted. We worked out a trade agreement—my books for her art, a win-win all around. She sells the books in her gallery. I sent her artwork to a graphic artist to design the title, back cover, and spine.

THE PR DRILL

After publication, next up was public relations and marketing. In those days, one sent PR releases to

newspapers and magazines for review. I snagged several, including one in United Air’s inline flight magazine, and waited for orders to roll in. I had an email list of friends and family—a must—and that helped a lot. Word of mouth was my biggest advantage, and since we owned the bookstore, people knew the book was coming.

But those long ago days have changed. Now most sales are online through Amazon or Ingram Spark, Barnes & Noble, or Apple. And regarding getting a book prepared to publish, tech savvy indie authors format their own work, sometimes even their covers, though I’d advise against that. Professional designers produce a professional cover. 

THE NEXT STEP

Marketing, especially for indies, is a tough go and deserves a post of its own. I won’t go into it here, but be prepared to wear not only your writer’s cap but also a marketing cap if you want to see sales results. And find that lone brick and mortar bookstore in your town or city and ask them to carry

your book and host a book signing. Innovation, dedication, and consistency help, and networking is key. Get to know local writers and tap into the large community of writers worldwide through social media. Writers are no longer isolated, but part of a creative movement that stretches to all parts of the world. It’s an exciting time to write. Just look at it like this: Hemingway’s Paris cafe has gone global.

Happy writing! I continue to write, now penning a Mexico cartel trilogy, and I wrote a non-fiction book on the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed.

Check out my website www.jeaninekitchel.com for information on Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, books one and two in my Wheels Up Mexico cartel thriller trilogy. Sign up for future blog posts in the link above.

GRINGO MADNESS: ADVENTURES IN OPENING A BOOKSTORE IN MEXICO

 

Imagine transporting ten thousand used books from San Francisco to Puerto Morelos, Mexico, and then trying to clear customs without the proper paperwork. In September 1997 that was my first exposure to the world of owning and operating a bookstore in Mexico—Alma Libre Libros.

Yes, I eventually managed to clear customs. I can only believe that after three weeks of staring at two hundred boxes of books on their dock, some customs official decided to clear the deck and release them. Before leaving our nine to five jobs in San Francisco and making the move, we struggled with the protocol of how to bring the books in. Our contractor had lived there forever and at long last, we followed his advice. "Don't bother to go to the Mexican Consulate before you come down," he told me and my husband. "Just ship the books and see what happens. It's Mexico."

Although we could have received better advice, this wait and see attitude did do the trick. But clearing customs was only the beginning of the challenge to set up shop. We'd planned for years to be at this point in opening the store. Three years prior to moving we shopped for used books on weekends at garage sales, thrift shops, and Friends of the Library sales around San Francisco and even ran classified ads for books. We eventually ran out of space in our Half Moon Bay home and rented a Bekins Storage unit in nearby Redwood City to house them.

I attended a weekend workshop at a community college on how to start a used bookstore, and decided to follow a tried and true formula—for the US at least—on how to realize our dream. We set up the store on a Buy-Sell-Trade basis which would allow readers to trade in used books for store credit. It would generate new titles, buck up inventory, and allow customers to read new books for little, if any, cost.

We learned what percent to have in hardback versus paperback; how much fiction to carry along with mystery, thrillers, sci-fi, metaphysics, art, hobbies—up to twenty genres. Living near San Francisco proved fortunate in that we found an eclectic, wide-ranging mix of titles and customers commented on our selection.

Thinking ahead we contacted our eventual landlord two years before the move and asked if there were any shops on the town zocalo that might be coming available. He soon advised that something was opening up. We started paying rent on shop space in January 1996 even though we knew we couldn't escape San Francisco till late 1997. But location is important. On that note, one might ask why Puerto Morelos? (Easy commute). And we liked the idea of facing the town square.

Our work was cut out for us soon after we arrived from our 4,500 drive from Northern California down to southern Mexico. We immediately began the process for our FM3, or working papers, through a notary. Although it took only three months for our immigration certification to be completed, it felt like a lifetime as at times we had to make daily trips to the notary's office in Cancun to give and retrieve information due to his failure to properly inform us on various procedures.

Meanwhile, the books sat in our yet unopened store. We had the walls painted a bright mustard yellow and the window trims painted Maya Azul, a lovely shade of turquoise that mirrored the color of the Caribbean Sea.

Our next trauma was having bookshelves made. We needed to accommodate both hardback and paperback and decided to go floor-to-ceiling in pine. As luck would have it, by the time our carpenter purchased the wood, torrential rains had railed for two weeks straight. It was now early December and we were chomping at the bit to start alphabetizing and sorting books, all ten thousand of them. As we alphabetized, the carpenter began to bring in shelves but told us not to stack books on them for two days to let the wood dry completely. We waited, then cut strips of cardboard and tacked it onto the shelves first—for safety's sake—in case the shelves were still damp.

After four tiresome days of alphabetical sorting, we began placing books on shelves. We were eager to see the fruits of our labors shelved on the beautiful new wood. We had begun early in the morning that day and pushed ourselves to finish putting all fiction in place, along with spy-thriller, another large section genre. Around six that night we were breaking for dinner and Paul happened to touch the cardboard under one section. To his horror it was soaked—lying in wait to reach our books. Nightmare on Elm Street! Like two maniacs who'd just seen Freddy Kruger, we tore our books off the shelves desperately trying to keep some semblance of order after all those days of sorting. Tension was high. Tourist season was upon us. We had bookshelves but they were unusable in the state they were in.   

So we did what any normal thinking person would do—early the next day we brought out hairdryers and began drying shelves like a shag haircut. When that didn't work, as soon as the sun made an appearance, Paul broke the shelves down and pulled them into the streets to dry the old-fashioned way—with solar power. We can only imagine what the locals were thinking—Crazy gringos! We dragged wet planks of wood into the street, at one point creating a traffic jam. Picture Laurel and Hardy. What a backwards way to begin a business! 

Since patience was neither of our virtues, the next week painfully dragged along. We cut more cardboard and re-tacked it to the shelves. A couple days later all our books were off the floor and on display. On December 20, just in time for winter solstice, we opened our doors. 

We were astounded at the goodwill we received on opening. Even though most of our books were in English, many locals read both Spanish and English. We immediately started trading books, requesting more Spanish language books along with German, French and Italian.

The next week we searched Cancun for a humidifier for the store. Equipped with a relative humidity indicator and now a dehumidifier, we managed to control the store humidity to the perfect temp for books—about fifty percent—as explained to us by the manager of Green Apple Books, San Francisco. Any more humidity and the pages don't retain their crispness, any less and the crowns of the books begin to crack and break.

In those days, summer travel wasn't a thing in the Riviera Maya, so we'd close shop and May through August—low season—we headed back to the States for more books, gathering around four thousand additional titles per buying spree. After the first couple years we were up to sixteen thousand books and began to offer new books on the Maya, Maya culture, pyramids, Latin fiction, ecology and the local environment, birds, mammals, fish, and guide books on the region.

We received many accolades as our reputation grew and were written up in numerous travel guides. We were one of six bookstores in the state of Quintana Roo, the only one with a cache of books so large, both in English and Spanish. My favorite write-up came from the Rough Guide to Mexico, stating we were "the largest English language bookstore from Mexico City to Guatemala." Our local customers came from as far away as Chetumal, and we were a common port stop for sailboats sailing down the Caribbean Coast. Though we no longer have the store, it's now in its third rendition, with owners Caleb and Nicole Moss. Twenty three years in business, and a true gem of Puerto Morelos.

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Check out my website http://www.jeaninekitchel.com for further adventures on life as an expat in Mexico, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are books two and three in the Wheels Up Yucatán thriller trilogy. Sign in above to keep up with my next tale from the Yucatán.