a beach kind of guy?

When I moved to Mexico, I thought I knew exactly where I wanted to spend my retirement.


On the beach.


I love the water.  If I had retired in Oregon. I would have lived in Pacific City or some other non-tourist beach town.


The Mexico beach is pleasant in my little fishing village.  Sun.  Sand.  Sea.  Enough scenery to fill an Ansel Adams library.


But Melaque is not paradise.  The mosquitoes are everywhere.  Especially, the pesky Aedes aegypti ankle biters that carry yellow and dengue fevers in the fluids they so willingly swap with us.  And bite they do.  I just killed two while writing that sentence.


Top them off with hellish summer weather and the lack of any cultural stimulation, and the pleasantness loses a bit of its shine.


In the balance, I still like being on the beach.  But I have found myself getting a bit restless.  When I travel, I audition new places as the next place Mr. Cotton may set up shop.


That is why my ears perked up at the bloggers' conference when I overheard someone say: "They are beach people.  Not city people."


Beach people and city people.  I had never thought of the distinction before.  Even though I instinctively knew I gravitated toward the beach.  But I was soon to discover -- with the first two cities we visited in Yucatán -- that there is a difference.

Not surprisingly, Mérida is populated by city people expatriates.  It is known as "the Paris of Mexico."  The comparison is a bit generous.  Much in the same way as Tulane's boast to be "the Harvard of the south."


But I can see the reason for the nickname.  The city takes an almost Gallic pride in its heritage as the provincial capital of Yucatán -- an area that was effectively independent of Mexican government control for well over a century.


Its streets are more Left Bank than Champs-Élysées.  But the place has the feel of well-placed monumental buildings and boulevardier-occupied parks.  The Parque Principal that ties together the cathedral, municipal buildings, and arcaded cafés is a perfect example.  Almost as if Georges-Eugène Haussmann stopped by for a little tinkering.


The expatriates who live there reflect the same sensibilities.  They are a social lot.  Resuscitating old colonial homes.  Moving from art gallery openings to theatrical readings to lunches with the ladies.  And purchasing books in glorious book stores.


It is the echo of a world that would be easily recognized by people from Manhattan, Denver, or San Francisco.  What some call "urban lite."


The congestion of narrow streets, bustling sidewalks, and crowded stores are merely the energy that fuels the city folk's dreams of the good life.

If Mérida is the Yucatán capital for city people, Progreso is the beach people capital.  Or, at least the symbol of the beach people.


The town is only a half hour drive north of Mérida.  But it is a world away from anything that could be called urban.  Lite or otherwise,


With a population of 35,000, it feels more like a large village.  And it was once far more than that.


It is still a container port.  But it was once Yucatán's commercial window on the world.  All of that henequen produced at Hacienda Yaxcopoil had to find a route to Europe -- and Progreso was the launching port.  When the henequen stopped, so did a lot of the port's business.


You can still see one of the remnants of the era: the world's longest stone pier jutting out into the Gulf.  A pier that now serves as a route to disgorge American tourists from cruise ships into Oxxo stores where they are bewildered to discover clerks speaking Spanish and who are unable to provide the tourist with dollars in change for the purchase of a bottle of water with a twenty-dollar bill.


You can see the pier in the background of the photograph at the top of this post.


The beach at Progreso is its money-maker.  A place where urban dwellers can come for a day or a weekend and then leave.  In the not-too-distant past, the first families (by that, I mean the ones with lots of Spanish blood and even more money) of Mérida would spend the summer -- in their impressive beach houses.  The rich now find other playgrounds to cool their blood.  But the not-so-rich continue to show up.


Islagringo and I arrived on a Sunday afternoon.  The beach was alive with young families.  Young women in string bikinis.  Young men fresh from the gym in their Speedos.  All enjoying Progreso's impressive new malecon.


But the bustle was temporary.  Once the sun gave its nightly sunset performance over the Gulf, the town shut down. 


I mean -- really shut down.  We had trouble finding a place to eat dinner.  The only entrainment available was an illegally parked car playing techno-house music for three teenagers on the beach.


It is no secret I am a beach person.  The same with Islagringo.  Our beaches are a bit different -- his on the Caribbean; mine on the Pacific.


But we enjoy the same things.  The peace.  The scenic beauty.  The water.  We tend to be contemplative people rather than a social lot.


And that is certainly true for Progreso.  We heard from several sources that the villages on each side of the town -- Chuburna to the west, Chicxulub to the east -- do not care for each other, and they are not very fond of Progreso, either.


I know that model.  Melaque is between La Manzanilla and Barra de Navidad.  And we seem to be rivals right up there with the Yankees and Red Sox.


I am not certain what my friend meant by "beach people" and "city people."  But I know from my experience the terms aptly describe the tension I have felt in finding a place to live in retirement.


I love the peace of the beach.  It is the perfect writing site.  And I have learned to abide the weather -- most of the year.


But I miss the cultural urban life.  The restaurants.  The concerts.  The museums.  The social blob slothing from party to party.


This trip has helped me focus on what I need -- to live the overly-examined life.


But that can wait -- because we need to finish up talking about our Yucatán adventure.


Before I leave, though, let me show you this bonus photograph.  At the east end of the Progreso malecon is an amazing art deco house I can only assume was once occupied by one of Mérida's fine old families.  It now appears to stand derelict.


We will come back to it.  Some day in the future.  And maybe I will find out a little more about the place by then.


Until then -- enjoy!