poemtry and prose

"On behalf of Aeromexico, let me welcome all our guests to flight 546, with service to Mexico City, Mexico," a thickly accented olived skinned woman with brown hair called out. Her eyes were blue and her red lips were well hidden by the microphone she held directly to her lips. She wore a light blue shirt with a clip-on tie and a brown and orange and yellow striped sweater vest on top. Her right hand was tucked in her navy blue pants. "A this time, we would like to extend all preboarding rights to our guests who have young children under the age of twelve traveling alone, parents with children, or our senior guests who need just a little bit of extra time while boarding the plane."

A small group of ten people stood up at the announcement and lined up in front of the small woman. She carefully checked their tickets and then ushered the first group, a family of three abord. One child started crying near the back of the small line and a haggered looking father picked up the small, red faced, blue-eyed child. The crying stopped.

Finally, after twenty more minutes, the lady called out for all First Class passengers. This time, Andrews stood up and smiled at the patiently, and still standing Autumn. "That is us," he said and they walked forward.

"Have a good trip," the attendant said, smiling at them. They walked down the gangplank, their feet sending echos far ahead and behind them. Fancy marketing posters surrounded both sides of the portable walkway. While Autumn's mind read and processed them all, she kept moving forward as her feet gave small bounces along the springy, carpeted floor.

Autumn liked plane rides. While she had never been out of the country on one, her parents took her and her brother on all sorts of small stately hops. Mostly into California. She looked down at her flight papers and then carefully read each asile as she entered the plane. Being first class meant that they got to sit up front of the plane where the oversized and plush leather seats were. Autumn slid into their row and then sat down by the window.

"I love looking out the window," she said to Andrews as they pushed their duffle bags underneath the seat in front of them. "Oh, wait, I did not mean to sound rude. Did you want to take the window seat?"

Andrews chuckled at her enthusiasm, "No, that is quite alright; you go ahead and have the window seat. I much prefer the asile seat anyways. It gives my old and long bones a chance to stretch out and relax during the long flight." He then reached out and grabbed a pillow that was tucked between their two seats and put it behind his head. Autumn guessed that with all the adventures he must have gone on for the government, he was used to flying and had no need to look out the window every second of the flight, to see where they were going. Autumn, on the other hand, snuggled tightly up on her seat and plastered her face up as close as she could to the window. She did not want to miss one precious second of the flight.

Outside, the sun cast shadows across all the parked airplanes as it climbed its way over the peak of Mount Hood. She watched as the shadows disappaited from view the higher the new day's sun climbed into the air. Her skin grew warm from the warmth the sun cast over her face and soon Autumn fell asleep, breathing heavily.

Five hours passed and Andrews was waking Autumn from her long slumber. "Autumn," he said, gently shaking her, "wake up. We are in Mexico. You need to wake up now so you can fill out some declarations forms. Then we need to find us a place to rent a jeep that will get us out to the peninsula."

Autumn stretched, raising her arms high into the air. They hit the overhead bulk and dropped back into their place. Lazily, she said "You mean we are there already? But only minutes ago we were in Portland and had not even taken off yet."

Her eyes darted out the window. The terrain below looked bumpy and uneven, very unfamiliar. A small pout crossed her lips, "I cannot believe I slept through the whole trip. It has been quite a while since I have gotten to be on a plane and I missed the whole trip."

"Buckle up kid," Andrews said smirking. "You really have not been missing much. The movie was some old chick flick about some dorky guy trying to get the overly beautiful and out of his league class girl. It bored most of the passengers. Oh, and the plane food sucked. I cannot believe how bad the quality of airline food has gotten these days. The stuff they serve would never fly in the military. And that is saying a lot."

They giggled at the comment and Autumn started working on her declarations form. She half heartedly wanted to mark that she was going to be retrieving and stealing a valuable and antique religious icon that was worth an amount of priceless down in the space that read "Are you carrying or will you be carrying anything back over the border worth a value of over five hundred United States Dollars," but her quick and better judgement took over and she did not.

When she was done, she passed the form to Andrews to look over. He smiled and nodded his approval and then gave their forms to the stewardress when she reappeared from behind the main cabin's curtain. The pilot announced their decent into Mexico City and Autumn resumed her vigilant watch over their flight's decent into the foreign city.

Houses and buildings seemed to litter everywhere she could see. Many of them had reflective roofs and she had to shield her eyes away from their brightness. After the fifth time it happened she turned to Andrews and said, "You know what I forgot to bring? My sunglasses. I hope they have a mall where we are going, because I cannot see to well with all the reflections."

"Do not worry. I am sure there are a lot of peddlers on the streets down there who would be more than happy to sell you a nice, fake pair of Oakleys. At a price that could be considered a real steal in the States," Andrews leaned over and said to Autumn.

Their plane finally landed and it was another thirteen minutes before they were docked at the gate and were told to disboard. They grabbed their bags and thanked their attendants for a nice and quiet flight. Then they walked out up the walkway and entered the airport. A warm, humid breeze hit Autumn and she instantly reached up to push a strand of wavy hair out of her eyes. She knew it may be warm here but had no idea that Mexico was going to be this hot.

"Come on, let us go try and find the best deal on a rental Jeep," Andrews said pointing to a few signs that were written in Spanish. "If we are lucky and play our cards right, we may even find us a good guide to take us right to Uxmal. So stay close to me and try not to get lost. This is a big airport and I would hate to waste time searching for you."

Autumn nodded and adjusted her bag's strap on her shoulder. She hoped that she would be able to maybe make a stop to the restroom and change into some cooler clothes. She had worn light clothing to and on the plane but it did not seem to be cool enough down here in all this heat and muck. She had no idea why the airport did not pay for any air conditioning but presumed it was due to poverty. Instead, she braved the heat and attempted to stay as close as she could to Andrews.

Soon they were standing in front of a counter. He was speaking almost perfect and fluent Spanish with a mexican whose name was Jose. Autumn caught a few words of what they were speaking, as she did take two years of the language in grade school but she was not really at all interested in their barterings. Instead she turned her attention to the airport and all the hustle and bustle there in. It seemed like there was a never ending flood of people moving into and out of the airport. A crowd of obvious tourists entered the airport, with their tanned skin and t-shirts that read, "Viva la Mexico." Autumn wondered if she should purchase a set of shirts for D&D and whether or not the twins would actually wear them if she did. The thought made her giggle.

She felt a soft tap on her shoulder and she turned towards Andrews. "Okay, we are all set. I managed to get us a good deal on an american made Jeep that is all terrain ready and perfect for going into the jungle. Jose here also knows a few villages up near Merida where we may even be able to find a suitable guide to take us in and around the ruins. He has gone to go get the jeep and when he returns, we are all set to drive out to the city. You ready for this?"

"Oh totally," Autumn responded as her eyes continued to dart around the main airport terminal. "Think we have time to grab a few t-shirts and a cheep pair of shades first?"

Andrews threw the wide grinning Autumn a look short of murder and shook his head, "Come on. Let's just get going. There will be a lot more of that cheesy and cheep merchandise everywhere. I promise you that."

Autumn pouted a small frown and quickly bought a pair of blue mirrorshaded sunglasses for the equivalent of three dollars in american monies. She slipped them on as she stepped outside and looked for Andrews. He was putting their two bags into the back of a old, green Jeep. It was a muddy car and the wheels on it were a bit taller than the standard size. "Another custom car," Autumn thought. "I wonder if he bartered for this?"

She leapt up into the passenger seat of the Jeep and hastily threw on her seatbelt. "Oh good," Andrews said, "the Jeep does come with those. I was a bit nervous that they would have given us a car without them. And believe me, here in Mexico, you NEED seatbelts. They drive a little crazy over here."

"What do you mean by crazy," Autumn said, her eyes darting around the parking lot.

"Well, I do not want to scare you. But you will see what I mean very soon. Just do not lean out of the Jeep or try and cross the roads unless you are unable to see anything around you until the horizon. Trust me."

And with that, he put the key into the ignition and the Jeep roared to life. He quickly pulled out of the parking spot and fell right into the speeding traffic. The world began to whizz by them and Autumn attempted to look a lot less scared than she felt by all the fast moving automobiles. She had never seen anything like it. Many people had painted Crosses and spanish protection wards right on the windshields of their cars. Sometimes having a small space to view from. Others had carpeted the inside of their cars with red tassel ended carpet. The one thing they all had in common was that they drove ultra fast and it made Autumn wonder how they never got into any accidents.

"They must be ultra alert," she thought continuing to take in all the sights. Andrews headed east and almost expertly navigated their way from Mexico City out to Merida. The city was unlike anything Autumn had ever seen. There were a lot of outdoor markets where people bartered for bananas and chicken and other food items, their hands exchanging money and goods. People wore brightly colored shirts and white pants and almost everyone had a smile on their face. Billboards depicting goods or places to visit were plastered over every building. It reminded Autumn a lot of what New York had looked like when she last visited the city on a book trade convention. Big, busy and overwhelming.

The landscape soon changed from a huge metropolitan city with its large and strange architecture and huge hotels, all catering to many tourists to a lush and foreign jungle with gigantic green trees and a ground that constantly seemed to move. The road was worn bare and many times, it seemed almost to disappear from right beneath them once and for all. Andrews refused to stop. He kept driving, occasionally slowing down to look at the map he was given. At one point, someone had carved a tunnel out of a giant tree and they drove right through it.

After an half hour's worth of driving east, they finally started seeing the first signs of civilization. Small villas started cropping up on the horizon, their handmade homes looking small and thrown together with scraps of western industrial waste. Children could be seen kicking a ball made of some giant nut around near the streets. Autumn sometimes caught the people in the towns looking up at them as their Jeep sped through their contryside, and for others, they kept their eyes trained on their work.

A hastily crafted sign saying Merida came into view. Underneath it, written in Kilometers was the number sixteen. Autumn hated math so she had no idea how to translate kilometers into miles. Instead, she looked to the west where the sun was setting. "So, are we going to stay in Merida tonight?" she called to Andrews.

"I was not planning on it, but it might be a good idea since the sun is beginning to set. I will try and find a suitable place for us to stay and maybe they have someone there we can talk to about taking us through the ruins."

Autumn stretched in her seat and nodded. "Sounds like a good plan to me."

It was getting dark as Andrews finally pulled the Jeep into Merida. The city looked like a cross between the smaller countryside villas and Mexico City, but on a more even scale. Andrews found a petrol station and filled up the Jeep's twin tanks and paid the attendant in pesos. Then they drove around until they spotted a small motel that looked cozy and halfway decent to sleep in.

They got a double twin bedroom and were mildly surprised that it had air conditioning as well. Autumn plopped down on the bed and curled up. "Hmm, it is not that bad," she started. "A bit unused but I am sure I can sleep on it. But first, I need food. Can we go find us a burrito or something for dinner?"

"Sure thing," Andrews said, stretching his back out. "You are going to love mexican food here. It is much better than the slop we get in the states."

The headed out of their room and wandered around the nearby streets for a place that smelled the best. All around them, came the smells of oven roasted chilis and grilled meats. All of which made Autumn's stomach growl. Finally, they took a chance and wandered into one of the resturants.