It was fun, but boy was it hot.

In the market in Puerto Vallarta, past the garlic and the dried chiles and just at the bin of overripe mangoes and papayas, there was a smell, really a musk, so disconcerting and memory soaked I had to stop in my tracks to process the experience. I don't even know what the exact memories were, just a full body sort of deja vu, entirely provoked by the smell.

The rest of the trip was mostly unremarkable. Funny how that works. It was nice to be a family hanging out, instead of a family just trying to get all the day-to-day crap done. The hub drank a few too many beers and got a rip-roaring sunburn. I got to play in the ocean with Kyra. We were stunned by how expensive it all was, slapped in the face by the value of the US dollar. I didn't have access to the Internet, so managed to not think about work for several days in a row.

PV is not the Mexico I am in love with, though. Similar, but not the place I used to escape to in my 20s, living in a palapa with a Zapotecan family, reading and swimming and sleeping and beating back my workaholism. I don't really think that Mexico still exists.