The Untaken Road

For all travel updates I have a new website!! Please go to www.theuntakenroad.com, a series of women's voices across the open road of America!

Troncones: What a Happy Ending. ; )

The sun licked off the remaining droplets of water on my stomach with a sizzling kiss. I was now dry, ready, to return home.

I deftly packed up my bikinis (pretty much my entire wardrobe of the week) and left the Present Moment retreat at high noon. Valerie left with me calmly ready to embark down the dusty road back to civilization. After our flight from Ixtapa, we had a five hour layover in Mexico City, an amount of time that would normally drive us mad and prompt a reckless purchase of luxe airline lounge passes or a taxi into town. However, the Present Moment Retreat had changed us. The two most Type A girls had learned to chill. The airport would surely have a bar and a burrito stand right? Tequila and tacos? We needed nothing more.

Troncones was an idyllic vacation, although not in the traditional White Chameleon travel sense. Instead of racing down undiscovered paths or challenging the locals to duels of whiskey shots, the days were mostly spent within 100 meters, internally navigating the soul and calming the mind. After enough days here one realizes the outside world, including its societal pressures and materialistic pursuits, do not matter. All that is important is the constant pull of the ocean toward shore. (and the papaya glazed Mahi Mahi...us Californians cannot ever let food slip in priority).

After the girls arrived, I nervously expected San Francisco to come roaring back to me: the work, the pressure, the gossip, the sheer frivolousness that can be city life. But as soon as Monica, Ali, and Valerie stepped foot in Troncones, they transformed just as I had. The usual ‘who is doing who’ conversations ceased. No one was interested in discussing the color selection of this season’s Tod’s handbags. And most importantly, any desire to run or explore instantly died Like me, all they wanted to do was slip into swimsuits and plop.

As we leisurely plopped, diligently yoged,and gracefully sipped our ocean side ginger cucumber elixirs, the rest of the world seemed to be entering Armageddon: Volcanic ash and travel paralysis in Europe, another earthquake in Mexico, and the Goldman Sachs fraud in the US. Not to mention the tragic news about Sandra Bullock’s cheating husband.

But to us, the sunshine drunks, none of this mattered. Our little world of morning yoga, afternoon massage, and sunset cocktails was very much alive and well. We forgot our worries, laughed over cards, and gave appreciative toasts to the fortune that was our life. Healthy, without attachment or concern, the world was our oyster….with a Mikimoto pearl set.

I do not understand the businessmen that slave away their best years under dimly lit excel spreadsheets. Nor the needy women who waste their youth in a state of panic over getting married and having children. Life is so fleeting-shouldn’t we just take time to enjoy it? Why worry, why panic…in fact why live anywhere that doesn’t allow you to wear your swimsuit 24/7? When you spend enough time on a beach reflecting, the things that usually demand brain space (career ladders, dating etiquette, ummm….wearing clothes) become so trivial.

Although I am returning to the apparel world shortly, I do hope to bring the carefree attitude of Troncones with me. Along with help from the girls, perhaps I can create a new look in San Francisco.

A 'Type A' Takin' It Easy

You could spend a lifetime at Present Moment retreat without leaving its acre of Oceanside land. Each day offers a simple rotation. Yoga pavilion - pool - restaurant - bungalow. Rinse and repeat. Life is easy, the air is healthy and even the margaritas seem good for you. If it were not for David’s invitation to visit him in town, my body would have traced the same repetitive route for another full day, like a beached whale on steroids.

However, I abandoned routine to hop on the city bus, the highways bus, and journey to the central market of Zihuatanejo (Zihua). Navigating the Mexican bus system, or any Latin American bus system, is no easy task. There is no space (people and chickens alike spill out the windows), there is no designated ‘stop’ (you just hail the bus on the road like a hitchhiker), and there is no schedule. The driver just arrives when he feels like it. Construction, road accidents, passing cattle, and inviting breaks at taco stands are all reasons for delay.

Waiting is something Americans are not good at. Back at home I will become huffy if someone performs more than one transaction at the ATM, causing me to wait another one minute in line. Mexicans are different. They enjoy each minute as it is given, even if it is waiting for an unreliable bus along the highway. In comparison to my pacing and incessant clock checking, the locals laughingly watch the street dogs play, interestedly read the small town journal, or just blissfully stare out into the sky, recollecting a fond memory. Instead of merely just ‘waiting’ they are using the time given to them. There is no rush. There is just right now.

When the highway bus finally came, I breathed a sigh of relief, eagerly dolled out 15 pesos, and determinedly channeled patience for the additional hour into town. No time like the present to….er…enjoy the present.

And so I relaxed as Mariachi music blasted from the speakers, mustached cowboys in tall hats squeezed beside me, and the painted overweight bus scuttled down the highway like a Mexican bean beetle.

Two hours after leaving Troncones, I finally arrived in Zihua, a Mexican coastal town centered in a small bay with dramatic cliffs. The vertical earth supported tiered pastel housing of the wealthy and poor alike. I navigated my way thought the narrow streets, inhaling the smell of Mexico, a perfume that can be best described as a blend of roasted chili, chalky earth, and furious sun. As a type A American, I had given myself plenty of time for my journey and arrived at the agreed upon coffee shop destination perfectly punctual. However, true to Latin style, David was 30 minutes late. He was accompanied by his sun burnt friend Jerry, who has just made the long drive from Miami to spend the rest of his life in Zihua. As we sipped our coffees, David waved to passersbys he knew and more and more people came to join our motley group. Obviously no one was in a hurry to be anywhere at 11am on a Tuesday. Soon we were an overflowing loud table of American Jews, French Algerians, Mexicans, and Panamanians. We talked of Acapulco in its heyday, romances lost, the growing drug trade (we were on prime cartel territory, after all), and despite all the chaos, why we all had an ongoing love affair with Mexico. After a lingering breakfast of salsa drenched eggs, David offered to take us around town. According to him, there is only one place to go for each service or item you need. He has his preferred shoe repairman, the “most honest” dried chili lady, the ‘sweetest’ coco water stand, the ‘only’ place for calamari, etc. Mexican culture thrives on loyalty. We ambled through stands, streets, and shops, bartering and gossiping with the locals. It wasn’t long before I started to form my own allegiances. Now I just needed to move here.



Walking along the prestigious white sands of Zihua’s “Playa Ropa” I contemplated such a move. Life is cheaper, easier, sunnier. I speak English, Spanish, and most importantly, I speak adventure.

However I couldn’t start looking for property quite yet. My friends were due to arrive at the Present Moment Retreat back in Troncones. Too late for the bus system, I haggled with a taxi driver urged him to speed hastily up the windy road back to our remote village. I would arrive just in time for sunset cocktails. That’s one thing worth being punctual for.

Not Moving in Troncones, Mexico

“Way down here
You need a reason to move
Feelin’ fool
Running your stateside game
Lose your load
Leave your mind behind

Ohhhh Mexico
Sounds so simple I just gotta go
The sun’s so hot I forgot to go home

Guess I’ll go now.”

I came down to this remote coastal town in Mexico’s southern pacific to surf and do yoga. But with fractured feet that refuse to fuse back to their strong selves I have instead resorted to perfecting the ‘Mexican plop’…a very complicated move that involves a bikini, 70 SPF sunscreen, and complete appreciation for the non-moving. I quite like this new sport….and honestly if I spend the entire vacation laying by the ocean and don’t put on real clothes the entire time it will be quite fine by me.

Last night I listened to a Cuban band play on the beach while practicing the ‘sitting, hand-clapping plop’, a rather advanced technique in the plop spectrum. I marveled at the sleepy happy town of Troncones and the eclectic mix of people who had sought it out. Musicians aplenty, Qui artists, surfers, yoga masters, and those looking to do nothing beyond stare at the ocean.

It’s a sleepy town and my main acquaintance to date has been a water loving black dog who insists on staying by my side. I call him Perrito blackie. (original, I know).


But since my Perrito doesn’t talk back much outside of an occasional soft ‘woof’ I decided to make more human sorts of friends. Against the background of Latin drums and soft breezes I drank tequila and conversed with three Harley driving renegades. One insisted on showing me his photo album of the region, which consisted almost entirely of his smiling head next to various sunset backdrops. Another spoke of life’s purpose, and a deep fear of commitment for anything other than an open road. The third had committed….to Mexico. He had been living in Zihua (a nearby town whose full name ‘Zihuatanejo’ produces pronunciation trouble even for the locals) since 2003.

“Life is just simpler here,” he said. This resort is called Present Moment and if you think about it, there is really no where else you should be.”

My newly acquired friend was from Detroit but spoke a flowery Spanish like an Argentine. Although Troncones was tranquil and full of bliss, he said a more vibrant ‘real’ Mexico existed in Zihua and invited me into town whenever I feel up to it. Inspired to see a ‘real’ Mexico, I decided to act like a ‘real’ Mexican plan on navigating the system of chicken buses tomorrow to head into town and see what it has to offer. Since it’s also a coastal town I hope I won’t have to change out of my bikini. One must have goals.