Great expectations

Have landed in Chiapas with my friends from Chicago, and am surrounded by the rolling green mountains of coffee and corn country. Getting here was a piece of astonishing cake. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever have in Mexico the kind of mishaps and adventures that I expected, and whether or not this is a reflection of my waning adventure-seekingness, and should I therefore feel lame (like when I suddenly stopped feeling comfortable commuting to work on a kick-scooter). But this is more likely the result of a combination of factors, including that Mexico is pretty darn developed, especially when it comes to tourism, and that I am not necessarily wimpy but more cognizant of the benefits of shelling out 15 extra pesos for a plate of tacos served above room-temperature in a well-lit area.

Something slightly out of the ordinary did happen, however, this morning at Benito Juarez Airport in Mexico City. As my friends and I got out of our cab, I was too busy trying to act like I knew exactly what I was doing, flying to Chiapas and all, to realize that I had left one of my bags in the trunk. As the driver sped away from the kiss-and-fly lane, I ran after him with flip-flops echoing, arms waving frantically, and huffing my best whistle and most desperate "¡¡ESPERE!!", which turned out to be effective only in grabbing the momentary attention of bored businessmen as they scrolled through their Blackberries on the curb.

I stopped running and got on the phone with the taxi company, apologizing to the people around me as it rang. "Sorry to freak out," I said, my voice still stuck in a half-shout, which led me to an uncomfortable vision of myself in an American flag T-shirt and matching fannypack. As I told the operator what had happened, a short and stocky airport employee ran up to me, also out of breath, and anxious to chime in.

"He was in a maroon Subaru, but I didn't get the plates!" he shouted at my phone. This was because, as he later told me while we scanned the traffic for turned-around maroon cars, he thought I'd been robbed by my driver. In that moment, I felt like he and I would've made great spokespeople for the official Visit Mexico tourism campaign slogan.