By Refraction

NEUSTAETER: The saga of the rings — Slaying stereotypes after my Mexican misadventure

Mar 31, 2019 | 8:05 AM

YOU KNOW WHAT TRAVELS FAST? Bad news.

You know what’s really easy? Stereotyping, labelling, blaming, branding and believing the worst in people.

A lot of negative stories seem to be finding their way to us from Mexico right now. On a fairly regular basis we hear about the “bad hombres”, the drugs, the unfortunate experiences of tourists and how we should build walls instead of bridges.

But you know what we don’t seem to hear about often enough? The many good, honest, kind, and generous Mexican people.

We recently took a family holiday to Mexico and it was a fantastic experience. We’ve had a particularly challenging few months and we were all pretty frayed at the edges; desperately needing sunshine, quality time together and freedom from distractions and responsibilities.

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The whole week was everything that you hope it will be when you bite that bullet and book the trip. We stayed at the Sandos Playacar Beach Resort in Playa Del Carmen and it far exceeded our expectations (thanks Roxanna from Travelwise!): the staff was exceptional, our teenagers ate all day every day to their bottomless stomachs’ content — I swear you actually save money when you compare the bottom line between an all-inclusive and your weekly grocery bill at this stage of life — and we all burned our pathetically white skin to a pleasing but painful bubbly crisp.

Everything had gone as wonderfully as it could have… until the morning we left.

Although we thought we were well prepared for it, if you substitute sleeping in for staying in the pool too long and the forgotten child for my wedding rings then it was a classic Home Alone scenario that day. (The fact that we had drowned our sadness about leaving in a record number of Tequila Sunrises at the swim-up bar that morning may have also been a factor.)

It wasn’t until we arrived at the airport that I looked down at my naked finger and felt my heart sink.

Now, who was ultimately at fault for the forgotten symbolism of our undying love is still a hotly contested matter between my husband and me, but although he did place my rings in the safe AND was responsible for emptying out that same safe on the morning we left, at the end of the day I must concede that “my rings, my responsibility” is not an unfair ruling. (Although I will add that since I’m not normally a big 8:00 a.m. tequila drinker, I did say “you’re in charge” to my better half at least a dozen times that morning.) But no matter who was to blame, the sinking fact was that I was leaving Mexico and my rings were not coming with me.

When I was younger, my mom accidentally left a diamond necklace and earrings of huge sentimental value in a hotel in Vancouver and although she called within minutes of leaving, the jewelry had already disappeared and was never recovered. So in my case, although the resort employee was kind and helpful, I had already almost lost hope that I would get my rings back by the time we called the resort about them.

Sure enough, we were told that the rings hadn’t been found but they would let us know if and when they were. I really thought that was the last we would hear about it and I felt ill as we began our excursion home. But, by the time we had landed for our connecting flight, there was an email in our inbox from concierge Mr. Eyter Briceno (AKA my new best friend) informing us that they had recovered my rings and were happy to help us make arrangements for shipping them home!

A few days later my rings arrived, carefully secured and packaged, safe and sound on my doorstep. Before I could even write a follow-up email profusely thanking Eyter and the Playacar staff for their kindness, I had a note from him in my inbox checking to make sure that I had indeed received my ring and thanking us for staying at the resort. Talk about over and above.

You never really know where it will come from when you need a little restored faith in humanity, but you can be sure that it will happen if you’re paying attention.

Like absolutely anywhere you’ll travel on this planet, Mexico has the good, the bad and the somewhere in between, but don’t for a second buy into the lie that any nation can be judged by their bad news stories or by fear mongers pushing their own agendas — or we’re all in big trouble.

Instead, when things don’t go as planned, look for the good hombres of the world, because they’re everywhere and their stories should be told too.

So cheers to Eyter; this Tequila Sunrise is for you!

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.