Usually there’s no more boring account of a trip than the “getting there” part.

Usually.

The chaos of the Cancun airport shuttle pick-up area was amusing, but not worrysome. I was happy to be here, even if it was getting dark and raining and looked as if it would be cloudy the next day, so I wasn’t too worried about not finding our driver. Someone had come by and said he was with the company and the driver was on his way. I suppose it was true in a larger sense, inasmuch as we are all on our way, somehow.

So it was an hour of milling around, listening to one other tourist brightly bitch about how she’d ordered a private transfer and she’d darned well better be getting one. Ah! There's our guy! Muey bu-wayno. We headed out in the rain, into thick traffic, and it got dark soon. Within 25 minutes we were on a narrow highway that was constantly flooded, so the driver had to slow and avoid axle-cracking ruts. Then he turned off into the jungle.

After a while I sent Natalie a note saying we were heading into the jungle with someone we did not know and that if we were never heard from again she should leave a one-star review for the transport company. “Very bad, robbed and killed my parents. Driver was courteous.”

I just kept my head down and read a twitter threat about the role of pallets in military logistics. Also checked the Map app from time to time, and learned that we were indeed headed for the right place. Sort of.

There were no signs of civilization, until there were. And then it was a dream, an apparition, a sudden hallucination.

Well. This is a big place. This is a nice place. Outside, lashing rain . . . until there wasn’t, and then we went to our rooms. We could have taken the shuttles - little buses run around constantly - but figured we’d find it easy enough. That was stupid. Staggered around dragging bags in this dark and inscrutible place, passing giant statues of painted animals. Welcome to the Magical Realismo Resort! Eventually we found our building, which made me think I had not booked a stay at a resort, but a seed bank designed to hold samples to rebuild the earth after an apocalypse.

We dried off . . . and went back through the mist to the bar.

There was a singer and a small band absolutely ripping it up for an audience of seven, including the bartender. She had a high note that could lance a zeppelin.

There was a tidy, concise selection of everything you would want, and I wanted tequila, because I was in Mexico. So I ordered my favorite from years ago (no longer my favorite, but TRADITION!) and the fellow set it before me without asking my room number. Oh, right: inclusive.

How the hell, we thought, do they make money on this?

We’d gotten a reasonable deal. This wasn't oligarch-scale pricey. The very reason we were here was for the Abu Nidal Tennis Center or whatever it’s called - okay, Raphael Nidal, wife has corrected me - and she gets three days of private lessons.

Had another - it's free, sort of! - then staggered back to teh room. Slept like a glacier, which is to say I’m sure I moved a little during the night, but not much.

What else is there to say, for this week of Bleats? I’m not sure I’ll get four out of this, because every day promises to be like the next, and there won’t be any drama unless we fail the COVID test, but I don’t expect that. Staff fully masked here, outside as well; staff insists on being masked if you take a picture for the Instagram after your salsa lesson.

Oh, right! Salsa lesson. That’s tomorrow, then.

Oh, right: one more thing.

So . . . which was it? We'll get to that.

There would be more, but I am exhausted.