Year One Living on Isla Mujeres: The Good, the Bad, & The Bribes

I am rounding third base heading to home on this first year of a very crazy ride I call Living in Mexico. I honestly have to say it has been the most stressful yet rewarding experience of my life. I read so many times “vacationing here is so much different than living here”. Honestly, those words cannot be powerful enough. I have a reputation for not sugar-coating anything and being pretty direct about how things are. I was recently reflecting back over the last year and decided to do a breakdown of a valuable lesson learned each month during my first year of life in a foreign country. Grab you some popcorn and sit back to enjoy the stories.

May

The month of arrival. There was a decent amount of shock that this was all actually happening.  The months drug by prior to my US departure and then in a blink of an eye, I am sitting in this foreign country already realizing this is much different than vacationing here. My first lesson learned is accessing money can sometimes be difficult and creativity definitely becomes a learned skill over time. I had spent months researching everything and felt like I was pretty prepared, but it did not work out that way at all.  The plan was to utilize Remitly services and do pick-up at Elektra.  Hard lesson learned that there are limits on how much you can wire in a month. This may not usually be a problem, but considering there was a large purchase of a golf cart thrown into the equation, I was suddenly left without access to wiring myself anymore money for weeks.  I had two different checking accounts as back-ups.  One was from a small local bank and I could not get the ATM card to work at any of the ATMs.  The second one put a hold on my transfers for a week since it was a new account.  It took some time but I eventually figured out their processes and now know that if I need a large sum of money, it needs to be transferred by Thursday, otherwise I am not getting it until Monday.  Even if all of this is planned for, it is common for all of the ATMs to be broken or out of money (especially at the first of the month).  On a number of occasions, I had 50 pesos or less on me. Moral of the story: don’t ever completely drain yourself because there is no guarantee you can get a wallet refill that day. 

POP QUIZ!

How much money is this in American dollars? 

June

When you are in a place for a short time, there is a different perspective on the experience because it is so short and unique. For example, I truly believe food is so much better when it isn’t readily available. We always want what we can’t have!  One thing happening around me on vacations that I never paid so much attention to until moving here is the constant loud noises. I have learned to live with the fact that it is never really quiet in Mexico… ever….. Well except for maybe right now because we are currently under quarantine lockdown and you pretty much have to be hungry or dying to leave your casa.  

The gas and water trucks used to be the coolest thing to see go by.  But I promise you, after you hear them 3 times a day, day after day, week after week, its just not the same.  The longer I was here, the more I noticed its just loud everywhere.  There is music playing all hours of the day and night and I am pretty sure noise ordinances do not exist in Mexico. After the water and propane trucks have finished their day and sun is setting, the food vendors start to come out. You will hear random advertisements or honking throughout the evening.  At first you don’t have a clue what any of it is, but eventually you know that this honk is this person selling that particular thing. Hey guys, one day the water and propane truck drove by at the same time.  You could hear one going and then the other one at the same time.  Best. Day. Ever. 

For the most part, this has been okay. The only time it’s ever really an issue is when I am working, doing live video sessions with my clients. They suddenly ask… uhm whats that noise?  And I have to explain that is the propane truck going by playing their little jingle and that the client will most likely hear it every week if they want to meet at this scheduled time. 

You really never know what you will see or hear when you walk outside the door. But hey, we make it work! 

July

Well first of all, it is HOT.  Anyone who has traveled to Mexico this time of the year knows this.  I was quite surprised to learn that it wasn’t that hard to acclimate to the heat. I remember being miserable in July on vacation but it somehow just didn’t seem that bad anymore when living in it every single day. 

This leads me to my next point.  Everything happens much later here than I was used to in the U.S.  You should have seen my face the first time I was making dinner plans with some locals and they said “How about 10:00”?  I was like “you mean P.M.”?  It has definitely taking some adjustments but I now find myself normally eating around 9:30 or 10:00.  It does make sense. In the culture, most are out working all day long until sunset. Then there are errands and different things to get done.  And again, it’s so damn HOT.  So 10:00 does sound like a reasonable time to eat, it has finally cooled off for the day. It’s much easier to find take out food in the evening than it is during the day. It was a struggle to get a collection of quick cheap places for lunch when I wanted to take off from preparing lunch for a day. 

9:30 P.M. Dinner at Bastos in La Gloria (next to Super Aki). This is a wonderful fish filet dinner with white wine sauce, fettuccine, and fresh vegetables.  All of under $10. 

August

The story rolls over from July. August was the month I realized I had been on the “sweat your ass off, all you can eat taco diet”.  I had been eating late at night and eating lots of tacos and pasta. Yet, I discovered I was somehow losing weight without even trying. It was a bit puzzling but hey, I will take it. One thing I learned is that the food in Mexico is just generally healthier. We do not have the convenience of frozen or fast crap food. The eggs, meat, etc are also much fresher. Also, I noticed that a food addiction I had struggled with for two decades had suddenly disappeared. I no longer had major food cravings, especially for crap food. 

Living in paradise also makes it easier to simply be more active without thinking about it. I remember stairs being quite the chore when first moving here and by this time, it was just part of every day life to go up and down them often. As the months have continued, the weight is progressively disappearing. Here is the difference 10 months has made without “trying” to lose weight. 

September

I had a misconception of what true patience was until this month. I had already learned that “manana” did not necessarily mean tomorrow but meant someday.  But, Come On!  My laptop needed a repair and I had no idea where to take it. I asked around and everyone said probably needs to be done in Cancun.  I do my best to avoid Cancun at all costs.  Anyway, a friend of mine mentioned a “TV guy” that I should check with. She shared about a problem she had with a dog nail filer and that another place wanted to charge her a fortune and he did it right on the spot and was super cheap.  

I found out where the guy is and drive down to his shop. There are washing machines, microwaves, and countless other things sitting outside next to the street.  I see him standing outside leaning over this table, staring at some parts. I approached him and was thankful that he spoke English. He took the laptop and told me to give him two hours and to come back. I returned, and then he asked me to come back later that night. Then it was the following day, which was then “my partner is going to bring the parts over from Cancun but I need the money for them now”. 

I could go on and on about this story. He never could find the parts.  I ended up figuring out what the parts were, ordering them, and having them muled from the US.  This has already taken a month.  Parts arrived and I took them to him.  I received promise after promise that it would be done “manana”. There was always a reason it wasn’t done.  It was too hot, it was raining, there was a birthday party.  Then he suddenly just stopped coming one day. I was two months into the process and starting to get ANGRY.  I text and text him, and he just ignored me.  

A local friend advised me to say “I will report this on Merca Isla if you don’t give me my laptop and money back right now”.  I took his advice, and within 30 seconds the guy called me, begging me not to do it, and promised to make it right.  I demanded my laptop back that evening. He did get that back to me and did return the money for parts also, which I honestly didn’t expect to ever see again.  Since he was honest and returned the money (even though he stressed me out so much and I felt lied to over and over), I do still smile and wave every time I drive by his shop. 

Isla Mujeres “Geek Squad” 

October

After being here every month of the year, I do have to say September and October are my favorite months. It has started to cool down and there are less people visiting. That equals more space on the beach and it’s just generally quieter. The end of October is a pretty huge party, as the celebration is Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and it lasts three days. 

My valuable October lesson was finally truly seeking into the culture and I learned how to stop stressing so much about everything being different or hard. It was a month that I learned to just really appreciate the small things when you can find them.  

November

Life was rolling along pretty decently and then suddenly ran into a major issue one day. Do you recall the golf cart purchase made last May? Well at that time, I was under the impression it was fine to leave it in the other owners name until my residency came in and then could get it switched to my name. Around this time, a new government office began doing frequent road blocks looking for golf carts without proper registration. I learned that they confiscate the cart and its up to a $4,000 USD fine if you are caught. 

My residency was coming in that month so figured it would be a quick fix. Then the next curve ball, the tag office will only register to permanent residents, and I had my temporary residency.  Some friends tried to help me out, but the best they could do is have me pay a “bribe” to get it in my name.  It was going to cost quite a bit of money, and I really didnt want to keep that cart much longer anyway. This was my first time having a true Mexican Bribe experience.  I just decided to just let it sit and put it up for sale.  In the mean time, I started looking at Polaris’. Moral of the story – if you are going to live in Mexico, its only a matter of time before you experience your first bribe/ripoff. 

December

The beginning of December seemed promising.  The golf cart was sale and hoped to have a Polaris purchased and ready to go in time for the festivities at the end of the year. In reality, neither of those things came through that month. But guess what did come through and was my extravagant Christmas present?  All I got for Christmas was a $500 electric bill.  Best Present Ever!  

In Mexico, the electric bills come every other month rather than monthly.  It was the furthest thing from my mind. May-Oct had been around $50 per bill.  Guys, not $50 a month, $50 for two months of electricity.  Imagine the look of shock on my face when Chepo (the landlord) hands me the electric bill and explains that he doesnt know what is going on but will find out for me.  He said his son had a high one also, and he is going tomorrow to find out what the problem is.  Over the next couple of days, I learned that this happened to numerous people. The little guy down the street has no A/C and only one light in his entire home.  His bill was normally $10 for two months. This cycle, his bill was $100!  Which is a lot of damn money when the average take home salary per day is $6 and it’s Christmas.  I remained optimistic.  I knew there was a mistake and that it would get corrected.  Cause that’s how it works in life, right?  

Except in Mexico.  I heard stories about the entire utility office being full of very angry residents, Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans.  They ran multiple tests on the meter but nothing was wrong.  So guess what, after fighting weeks with them about it, everyone lost. We were forced to pay these outrageous electric bill or lose power.  

But hey, on the bright side of life, I did get to spend Christmas on the beach and at one of the local beach clubs. This month I learned that sometimes I am going to have to deal with some pretty big bullshit in order to continue living in paradise. 

January

Well the year started with a pretty big bang.  I tried following the tradition and taking a nap during the day to be able to party all night long for New Years Eve, which is a big tradition on the island. It isnt unusual for grandma’s to be out dancing in the middle of the street at 3am, followed by watching the sunset at Punta Sur at 5am.  Then the party is finally over.  I felt pretty successful to stay out until 2am and lay down about 3am.  I am obviously an American because I simply can’t drink ALL NIGHT LONG like my fellow peeps can here.  I was pretty drunk and ready to crash but it wasn’t happening.  There was a bit of a role reversal happening this particular night.  Do you know how normally you rent from someone and your landlord lives next door, so you always try to be quiet and not have loud parties or do anything to get in trouble.  Well, guess who was upstairs having the LOUD FIESTA until 7am.  I was so tired and so drunk but I couldn’t sleep over what sounded like drunken spanish karaoke happening behind the wall of the bedroom.  I already have a mental note to rent a room somewhere next New Years Eve so I can get some sleep, lol.  The following day, Chepo saw me and said “hey we looked for you last night. We wanted you to come to the party but couldn’t find you”.  I was honestly a little disappointed because I think it would have been a fun fiesta to attend. Chepo said you are family and you come to all of our parties.  It was really nice to finally feel so welcomed and at home with mi familia.  

Here is a pic of me NYE on the malecon by The Tiny Gecko. It was so nice rolling in the New Year right on the ocean.  I was being all optimistic and just KNEW 2020 was going to be MY year….. yeah thanks COVID. 

February

This turned out to be a very emotional month for me.  I still had the “Yeah 2020 is my year” mentality, it was right before Covid really hit.  I was about to hit A LOT of walls.  My first blog post was about the adventure of traveling across Mexico to purchase my Polaris “Caribbean”.  It was a very long story. I could easily write just as long of a story about the hoops I went through to get my baby registered. 

I learned an extremely valuable lesson in Mexico this month. I knew when purchasing Caribbean that she did not have tags for several years.  I had inquired on it prior to the purchase, and was told it would be a couple hundred dollars at most to get that all caught up.  Well, that was not the case.  

The hard lesson learned is that anytime you purchase a large ticket item, a car, house, etc., it is very important to ensure proper tags, registrations, etc have been taken care of.  Otherwise, the second you purchase said item, the financial responsibility falls on to you. I fought for an entire month trying to get everything taken care of at a reasonable price.  I was angry and felt screwed by the entire thing. If I had known this was going to be the case, I would have definitely tried to negotiate those extra costs into the purchase price.  So on top of being asked for a very unreasonable amount of money to catch up on license and registration fees, there was going to be another “bribe” to get a damn license plate. They have this whole story about how they don’t have plates (even though its a new plate year and everyone gets a new plate). 

There was no way of getting one without a hefty bribe to make it happen.  I made multiple attempts.  There were several people who went to the office and tried to get a more reasonable answer.  All of February was a complete FAIL at getting this accomplished.  Below are photos of my sweet Caribbean and me just sitting in her because we weren’t legally allowed to go anywhere. 

March

The registration dilemma continues. After multiple attempts, I found an amazing immigration lawyer who came over from Cancun to assist me. It was still not a cheap process, but was the cheapest I had found and they got it done in a matter of hours. My life lesson this month was the word “just” does not exist in Mexico.  Just implies that something should be simple. Nothing is ever simple in Mexico. It is possible to get anything you want but it comes with high patience and normally a high price. I was very proud the day I received my temporary residency in Mexico last November. This however was much more of an accomplishment and I was very proud to finally have proper registration and could legally drive again. It was something that was not really possible since October, prior to the confiscating of improperly registered vehicles. 

April

Everything felt like it was in place. I didn’t have to take public transportation anymore or walk places.  I could legally drive a vehicle I purchased without looking over my shoulder. FINALLY.  I could drive wherever, whenever I wanted.  No more problems!  

Then COVID hit. My amazing drives in beautiful Caribbean was very short lived.  When Mexico goes on lockdown, they go on LOCK DOWN. All month, they have had road blocks set up everywhere. We are unable to leave the home except for food and medical. There is no driving around. No walks either.  And the worst part, no BEACH.  The planet is basically closed, y’all. 

I went into the Covid crisis a little concerned. I had no idea how things would operate in a foreign country and the unknown did make me anxious. Overall, I am very proud of Mexico.  They have been handling things very well.  Not one time have we ran out of toilet paper. 

I love how this community has truly pulled together to help one another. There are all kinds of donations being taken place to make sure not just the people, but that they animals are also taken care of. There are weekly food deliveries to the people who are in need.  The local government officials have donated a large portion of their salary to ensure that our locals have everything they need to survive. 

This island is sustained on tourism which does not exist now. In fact, they are not even allowing people on to the island.  I am proud of how cautious and protective the Mexican government is being. They are clearly more focused on the well-being of their citizens and make that a much higher priority than allowing the tourist dollars to come in.  Times will be tough, for a while, I am sure. However, I have faith that our local people will be taken care of and Isla will remain strong. 

This is a strange time for the entire world. Anxiety is high because of the unknown. Depression rates are increasing because of the amount of loss we have all experienced. As a clinically trained coach and licensed professional counselor, I am doing my best to try to keep everyone’s head above water until we can get through this. 

A couple of weeks ago, I asked my clients to dress for our session for the social life they want, not the one the currently have. I participated as well, which included a beach wrap, some sun glasses, and my big ass cat floatie. I could see that it definitely made a difference for people to have something to get ready for that day, even if it was just me.  

For all you cool cats and kittens out there, this is where I am signing off for now. I enjoyed writing this story and reflecting back on my first year of living in paradise. There have been some great moments, as well as hard moments. No place or life is perfect. But we can find the best version of ourselves when we remain positive, patient, and determined.