The Cure For Boredom Is Curiosity

 

We’re off another adventure! I’m a little nervous though and I have no idea why. Maybe it’s just excitement, or the stress of wondering if I have covered all the bases. Staying in another country for four months is not quite the same as a one week or one month vacation where you move around all the time, but it will be so wonderful to be in a warm country during our frigid winter.

 

The house is booked – nothing extravagant, just a little two-bedroom, two-bathroom house in colonial Merida, on the Mayan side of Mexico. This is the side of Mexico where the water is that gorgeous aquamarine blue, clear and sparkling. We’re not right on the beach though. After contemplating a place in Progreso, a fishing town on a marvelous beach on the north coast of the peninsula, we decided that we might get bored there. Since we had passed through Merida several years ago and both liked it a lot, we felt that there might be more to do and see in a bigger city like Merida. We ended up getting a house right in Centro, the centre of town, and it is only a short drive to the beach at Progreso, so we will have the best of both worlds. We also have a dipping pool, which is quite large; at least it looks like it is in the picture.

 

But there are so many things to look after. The list seems endless…

1. Searching for flights
2. Booking flights
3. Searching sites for a house to rent at a decent price which had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a good location, a safe location, air conditioning, wifi, and a pool, all at a reasonable price.
4. Negotiating the house contract
5. Asking a million questions, which aren’t always clearly answered, before agreeing to the contract. Questions about the gas tank, pool cleaning, where we pay electricity and gas, garbage collection, water tanks and so on.
6. Researching car rentals
7. Booking car rental for four months
8. Printing out car rental confirmation, only to find the printer is out of ink!
9. Setting the printer to print only in black. Buying a new black ink cartridge, only to find that it wouldn’t work.
10. Calling the company only to be told that black won’t work if the colour cartridges aren’t replaced as well. Furious! What a rip-off. It is cheaper to buy a new printer than to replace cartridges. This has to change.
11. Getting the flu and an endless cough for over two weeks.
12. Missing Christmas get-togethers because I was sick.
13. Buying extra health insurance beyond the 65 days covered by our health insurance
14. Going shopping for colour cartridges and realizing the ink refills were $65 and I could buy a new printer for $49 but I had already bought the bloody black ink, so I bit the bullet and bought the coloured ink package.
15. Giving up on finishing my book before January, releasing a tremendous amount of stress I didn’t even realize I had put on myself.
16. Almost cancelling everything when I read that Merida has killer bees and scorpions and ants that eat your computer wires and that there is bacteria and salmonella on the meat, fruit and vegetables. Then we reminded ourselves that we have been in and lived in Mexico five times before and never once got bitten or sick! T says,“If it’s your time to go; it’s just your time.”
17. Then I started reading an amazingly detailed website called www.yucatanliving.com written by a Canadian couple living in Merida for the past seven years. What a wealth of information about Merida and the whole Yucatan Peninsula, and judging by comments from their readers, they would never go back to the now touristy Mayan Riviera after discovering wonderful Merida.
18. Ordering prescriptions for six months and then submitting receipts for approval to the health insurance company for the extended period.
19. Researching things to do in the area surrounding Merida and finding delightful surprises, like 6000 cenotes, hidden beaches, amazing caves, and ancient Mayan ruins.
20. Oh, and we have to go to the bank for currency exchange.
21. I almost forgot – we have to practice our Spanish too!

And then there are things like emptying some closets and drawers for the tenant in the house at home, and packing of course, packing light that is, and well, you know, the list goes on.

 

Fear and adventure may actually go hand in hand. Fear stimulates our senses and in so doing energizes are bodies and souls. Staying still doing the same thing over and over can be safe and comfortable, but it can also make us sad and depressed for seemingly no reason. Shaking things up once in awhile awakens the spirit and excites our being. There are so many famous quotes that fit this description…

 

“One of the gladdest moments of human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of routine, the cloak of many cares and the slavery of home, man feels once more happy.” –Richard Burton

 

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

 

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar that it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson

 

“Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure.” – Irving Wallace

 

“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Scott Cameron

 

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain

 

And one we truly love… The cure for boredom is curiosity. 

 

Right now we’re curious to see what we forgot to put on that “List”, but we’re even more curious to explore Merida and the Yucatan Peninsula.