A Peso in the Laundry

Yesterday I returned from a lovely two-week trip to Yelapa (Jalisco, Mexico). This morning I started laundry. It's kind of boring, hauling towels in and out of the washer, folding shirts, sorting socks, and I was feeling a little bit listless. Already the moisture had been sucked out of my skin and hair, and my cell phone was ringing over and over.

And then I heard something rattling around in the dryer. I opened the door and smiled. It was a stray peso. Ah, perfect! I sat on my back step with a big cup of tea and took thirty minutes to travel back in my mind to Yelapa. Some of my favorite reflections include:

• Walking this river path in silence many mornings, contemplating how much I love solo travel because of the freedom and fearlessness and whimsy it evokes. Due to my daydreams, I never made it to to the waterfall that is at the end of this path, which is typically not hard to find...

• Salsa dancing on the roof of the Yelapa Yacht Club. (This is my kind of Yacht Club.)

• Meeting captivating people and forming instant bonds. At this point, we've just finished swimming in a waterfall, and we're about to continue our day-long journey through the jungle.

• Kayaking out, out, out into the Banderas Bay, where it was only me and the water taxis and the whales. I was adept at going out to sea, but my returns to shore were less than smooth. I never managed a graceful exit onto shore. In fact, I have some good scrapes on my hip. (Perhaps there's a metaphor here?)

• Watching my friend Donaldo cook whole red snapper in a frying pan, and then eating it with divine pleasure. This is possibly the best fish I've ever eaten! We spent over an hour walking around trying to buy fresh fish, because there was a big fiesta going on at the church in the village, and it was all spoken for. But we found this, and it was worth the effort.

• Welcoming my family at the end of the trip and watching the wonder in my kid's eyes as they embraced their new surroundings. 

• Oh, and regarding "my dog" Mukako, the one I mentioned in my last blog post? Well, he eventually fell in love with a blond mutt and abandoned me almost completely. Here, they are relaxing on the beach instead of protecting me. (I can't blame him. She's cute.)