Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Busted

I arrived in Morelia today after an amazingly pleasant four-hour bus ride from Mexico City. For less than $30, I got a seat on a luxury coach bus, with nonstop service to Morelia. The seats all reclined, drinks and sandwiches were served, and two movies were played, albeit dubbed in Spanish. We drove past mountains and lakes, and the whole experience was a delight.

While packing this morning, I tried to cull from my luggage unnecessary items, a constant process. Last week, for instance, I left my (unused) mosquito net in my hotel room in Tapachula. This morning, I left my (unused) poncho in Mexico City. I still have far too much stuff. Unlike Jessica, who packed two pairs of everything for her trip to Senegal and does laundry every night in her sink, I went with the more is more approach.

That meant 14 T-shirts, 14 pairs of socks, 14 pairs of underwear, three jackets, three pairs of shoes, half a dozen casual button-down shirts, half a dozen polo shirts, two pairs of jeans, two pairs of pants and countless other items I am certainly forgetting. The upside of this is that I went two weeks without having to do laundry. The downside (besides having a suitcase so heavy that some cabbies need help lifting it) is that when I finally did laundry, it was incredibly expensive.

Of course, I didn’t actually do it myself. The hotel in Mexico City had a service. So I bagged my dirty clothes and passed them off. I just now, in looking at my hotel receipt, am realizing what it cost me – $90, or about the equivalent of a two nights’ stay at the hotel. But everything came back so fresh and nicely pressed, it was worth it. When you've been without an iron for more than two weeks, these things matter.

There doesn’t seem to be a chance I’ll be taken for a similar ride at my hotel here in Morelia, which does not provide laundry service, shampoo, lighting in the hallways, or – and here’s the kicker – soap. In Mexico City this morning, I purged my bottle of Purell hand sanitizer, which I had barely used. Every hotel I’d stayed in had provided soap. I figured the trend would hold. I am an idiot.

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