It might sound terrible to state that this journey sucked the life out of me, but it did. Many expats will tell you “it’s easy”, “we had no problems”, “jump in and enjoy the ride”, or some mantra like that; but, the truth is, it is a roller-coaster ride, a monolith mountain, a trek through the roughest regions, all centered on one goal – to get us to Mexico for retirement.
It might help to explain this journey as though it were a drive down a Mexican street, starting with the first bump in the road, or “tope”, as it’s called in Spanish. It is a truth that has a strong ring of symbolism – the “speed-bump”. You see, speed-bumps in Mexico can be small, gradual, gentle elevations that your car will glide over smoothly even if your speed is a little too fast, similar to the ones we’re all used to; to topes that gradually grow to Mayan Temple in size and shape, sharper in incline that definitely require a slower speed if one wants to maintain one’s suspension. In this journey, however, substitute the car’s suspension for my sanity. Hence, my analogy to the next two types of topes.
There is a tope constructed of a series of steel bubbles called “vibradores”, and what a vibration they create. These little beauties can have 20 or more 6″ half-dome steel balls buried in the road, that when driven over at too high a speed, will rattle the windows off the car.
The next type of speed-bump is the “vados” or dip, which sounds like a fairly harmless word, but in this case, the vados is not quite a dip, so much as a set of canyons. It is designed to stop your car in its tracks with two tire sized traps that will lodge your front and back wheels at the same time if you don’t take it at an angle and slow to an almost complete stop. One crawls through it at a mesmerizingly (is that a word?) slow speed. It is truly my favorite of all speed reduction mechanisms (insert sarcasm), and it is definitely the one I would equate with the “what the heck were we thinking when we decided to build a house in Mexico” scenario.
I should mention the ingenious home-made topes made of thick rope, bricks, rocks, or any other large seemingly useless rubbish that will reduce your speed … and trust me, these home-made speed bumps work like a charm. I find them quite creative and very effective. One rule I should mention, all types of speed reduction mechanisms can appear at any second, in the middle of any roadway, with or without warning! This is not unlike the difficulties we encountered on our journey to retirement to this land of endless sun, sand, and sea. One definitely needs to stay alert for them, the topes that is, if you want to have an intact car; or, in line with the analogy, my sanity, by the end of the journey.
My husband and I experienced many topes from the time this journey was set into motion in 2015, to this very day. One speed-bump after another, some with warning, others without; some big, some cavernous, but all required three things – the forethought to slow down, the analytical skill to think about how you will approach it without getting your windows blown out, and the courage to persevere.
It will take time to process all the challenging obstacles encountered while making this transition a reality. Some will take longer to come to terms with than others; some, are very personal and somewhat painful to recall. My topes run the gamut from trying to get a house built in Mexico (yah, enough said); to the planning for, and execution of, moving our entire lives to a foreign country; to figuring out the lengthy, complicated process of acquiring residency (who knew?); to finding a rental that would accept five pets; to assembling the paperwork in order to bring these five pets across the border without any hiccups (this was before the rules changes recently, yet again); to learning what private health care is when one has only known free universal health care; to learning what it means to be retired with my husband (yes, ladies, you know what I mean); to managing the cultural intricacies of a new country; to navigating the emergency room at a Mexican hospital within the first months of arriving; to learning to live in a one bedroom condo with said husband and five pets, 24/7.
There have been many positive experiences as well, and those will quell the memory of the obstacles in due time. Remember, the difficulty of a tope is in the approach and one’s outlook. However, I think if I was on a skateboard cruising through my life here in Mexico, was 30 years younger, had better knees, and a stronger health care plan, I might tackle it head-on and with gusto. The wind in my hair as I launch myself on the skateboard up and over, landing perfectly on the other side. Well, it made for a good visual until the perfect landing part. But seriously, this is real life not a slow motion vignette, and no journey is without its difficulties. Probably not yours; definitely not mine.
So here is the million dollar question: if I had known what was ahead, that this road would be fraught with barriers, that I would no doubt encounter topes along the way, would I still hop on board for the ride? For myself, I will not know the answer to that question for almost another year.
What about you? What was your journey like to get to the place you are in today? And would you do it … if you had the chance to do it … all over again?
— Written and Photos by Brenda L Calnan
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