Insanely, we actually have a place to live. We found a few on craigslist, and had a realtor/friend check them out. One of the four was outstanding, the clear winner, and we signed a lease from here and faxed it back while I was still on Isla Mujeres. I’ve looked at all the photos a dozen times, I’ve studied the neighborhood on googlemaps and used walkscore to plot my course to grocery stores and Nia class. It seems right for us but it’s a little weird to move in to an apartment you’ve never laid eyes on. Then again, I moved to mexico without ever having been. We were eager to get settled, to have a place to go to. We’re not over adventures, but craving stability. And after ten days in hotels it will be so amazing to sleep in our new, if temporary home.

We are lucky enough to get to raid my mother-in-law’s storage space and expect to inherit some cool family pieces as well as a big kid bed (larger than our Mexican matrimonial from Mega), Oriental rugs and Lord knows what else. We’ll still have to restock on everything for the household, but that’s what Target and Costco are for. I’ve heard from friends who returned to the US after living abroad that the sheer amount of choices is offensive, overwhelming, and gauche. I still plan to wheel through the happy aisles blithely adding goods to my basket. It’s going to be consumerific.

I know we’re not going back to the same country. A lot has gone down while we were fulfilling our fantasies in Yucatan. I would be stupid if I weren’t a little nervous. But I feel prepared, much more so than when I graduated from college and was pushed by tragedy from the nest into the cruel world. I haven’t lived in a brand new city in four years. We’re changing country, expecting seasons and risking a much cooler clime. We’re going back to being renters, living in a shared building. We’ll have new responsibilities and self-imposed expectations. It’s all going to be different again. I can’t wait.

On July 2 we won’t have a truck. We won’t live at the beach. We will be Americans in America, which is admittedly less interesting, but I hope will be lovely and stimulating and good. Perched in our new apartment, likely unsettled, but hopefully home.

1. Drive your own car down from the States, or
2. Arrive with enough cash on hand ($10k or so should do it) to walk right into a dealership and buy a car, new, with cash.

What you should never, ever do, what you simply cannot do, is buy a used car.

In our four years in Yucatan, we have owned five vehicles, all purchased used. The first was a 1996 Volkswagon Jetta, purchased for $30,000 MXP in the parking lot of a MEGA supermarket. It had stick-on tinted windows, a massive spoiler, and an “enhanced” muffler that made the car sound like a tugboat. It overheated constantly, and had the unusual habit of dying if you rolled down the power windows while at an idle. After a few months and dozens of trips to the mechanic, it finally exploded at 50MpH on a road in Progreso, with steam pouring out of every seam in the dashboard. We sold it for $12,000 MXP.

Lesson learned, we bought our next car from a used car lot in Merida, a 1999 Jeep Wrangler. We were very proud that we negotiated the sale in Spanish, our first truly complicated transaction conducted entirely in a foreign language. If only we’d read the fine print: sure, we had put $40,000 MXP down on a $120,000 peso car, but in the two years it would take to pay off the car, interest would make the final cost more like $160,000 pesos. Oh, and that if we missed a payment, the dealership had the legal right to sell our house, take the payment, and give us the difference. Worse than that, the car began a schedule of breaking down within one week of purchase. We made trips to PROFECO, the consumer protection agency. The dealer just smiled. We intervened with our lawyer; the dealer listened, smiled, and cashed the checks. Over a year, we broke down and were stranded dozens of times. We began keeping an “emergency kit” in the back, which contained not just roadside flares and a tire iron, but a pint of tequila to treat Jillian’s ever-increasing anxiety. Everything on the car broke, one piece at a time, before we finally replaced the whole engine. By the end, we found that our “mechanic,” a fat, crooked Chilango, had been systematically removing the car’s remaining functioning parts, one at a time, and replacing them with non-working parts. Finally, heartbroken, we sold the Jeep for scrap, for $5,000 MXP.

While figuring out our next move, we bought a Nissan Tsuru for $28,000 pesos. It had clearly had a recent slapdash paint job, but we weren’t worried about that. We were just looking for something to use instead of a rental. There was just one problem: it never really shifted right. You could find the gear, but there was kind of a pause before it would actually shift. Our mechanic explained, with a perfectly straight face, that of course it shifted strangely; he had converted the automatic transmission into a manual, and used an undersized gearbox, because it’s what he had laying around. So, why on Earth would we EXPECT it to shift right? What were we, stupid? We sold the car a few weeks later for $15,000 MXP.

Over the course of several years, this constant cycle of buying cars, getting stranded on the side of the road, waiting for the Green Angels, hitchhiking to the next town, dropping the car off at the mechanic, picking the car up from the mechanic, ordering parts from the States, carrying parts to the States, breaking down again, renting cars, returning those rentals, selling cars, and buying new cars, really, really took its toll on both our relationship, and our first impressions of life here. It seemed like no matter how hard we tried, no matter how much money we threw at the problem, we could never, ever count on having a car. We could never get our most basic needs met, no matter what we did. That is an unbelievably frustrating way to begin your life in a new country.

Fortunately, it is completely, totally, 100% avoidable. You see, here in Mexico, we have no Carfax. No dependable record-keeping, tied to vehicle identification numbers. When you buy a car, you have no way of knowing what happened to it in its prior life. It could be salvaged. It could have been used as a taxi. For that matter, it could have been used as a dumptruck. There is simply no way to know what you are buying, and no way to check on the history. Further, you immediately must become exposed to the least fun parts of living here. Rather than sipping a margarita and nibbling on some ceviche, you will find yourself standing in a filthy mechanic’s yard, listening to a guy explain to you, in very technical Spanish, with an entirely straight face, that, no, of course your car is not running properly, because the previous owner used it to smuggle two tons of illegal, duty-free gouda back and forth between Valladolid and Motul on the weekends. And what are you, stupid?

The only way to avoid this is to bring your own car. Barring that, bring some cash. The day you arrive, march yourself right into the Nissan dealership, and buy a brand new car. Buy something common, like a Tsuru, or a Platina, if you are feeling fancy. Something with parts widely available, and that can be fixed inexpensively. Do this immediately. Don’t buy a “for now” car, don’t buy “just something to use until we can get something nicer.” It will, quite possibly, destroy you, or at the very least, make your first few months or years here terrifically unpleasant. Bring a car, or buy a new car, and if you can’t do that, don’t come. Seriously.

Because it’s going to get hectic. A little more than a week after I get back from Playa, we’re taking the bus one last time to the Cancun airport to fly to Tallahassee. It’s crazy. This is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere since I left my parents house for college at age 17. This was the first home we ever really made together. It’s going to be difficult to pack it up and go, even though it is absolutely the right time to do so. We arrived here four years ago with nothing. A few articles of clothing, laptops, sunblock, and stars in our eyes. Looking back on arrival posts I love our energetic voices and sweet insights. We were puppies. Adorable! And though sometimes it feels like Mexico has hardened us, I know that a change of scenery will bring us renewed energy and better perspective on all this. We loved this life often and fiercely. And we will love our new life too, I hope. We’ve gained so much, not least of all complete trust in each other, which I have written about before, but can’t praise enough. Even though we’re going home and it’s exciting and familiar, I am sure certain aspects will be daunting. Change is hard. But having a partner to get me through anything means everything.

I hope America is ready for us. Because we’re coming back bigger and better than before, like the Cloverfield monster. (spoilers!)

Getting out was easy. Breaking back in might prove to be somewhat more complicated. But I am ready for the reward and the challenges. It doesn’t feel like the adventure is ending…in some ways it is just getting started (sage nodding).

When last we spoke we intended to drive out of this enormous country late in June, taking in the scenery and making a heroic road trip out of the adventure. That was four months ago and almost every day since then we’ve had a new idea on the spectrum from “Let’s stay here forever!” to “We have to leave today!” and may or may not have included a spontaneous trip to Maine on a hunch about a house that didn’t pan out but did include an epic lobster roll at a fish shack north of Wiscassett. As I type this we’re all up in Google Earth’s biznass, peering into capes and federals.

What is the current state of Malcolm and Jillian, you wonder? We are leaving Mexico. Though I don’t know when exactly. Our trajectory may be somewhat erratic, but we remain yours, steadfastly, keeping you apprised of our mission to drop in whenever we can from wherever we are in the universe. You’ll always know we are here if you stay tuned. Aloha, Mr. Hand.