Oh, geez.  After reserving a hotel that was supposedly close enough to the airport to make my 6am flight, I missed it by 5 minutes.  Since it was a super discounted non-refundable ticket, it looked like that was it.  No Mexico for me.

I asked around to different ticket agents in the airport, though, and eventually they saw my love for San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico was driving me, not just some kind of anger about not getting my way.  So by 10am, I had another ticket for the same price as the first one.  If that seems like a waste, it's not, because at 6am we started with it being impossible for me to go at all.  The discounted tickets I buy usually have to be bought 6 months in advance, so to nab one in 4 hours was really an accomplishment.

I emailed the folks at my hotel in Mexico that I'll be seeing them on Monday instead.  That done, I looked for a place to crash from Saturday to Monday morning--a hotel that was REALLY near the airport this time, and that had a shuttle that could be counted on.

I found one and the shuttle driver is a cool Mexican woman who gets what Monday's mission is and is committed to the cause.  She's awesome, too, way stronger than I am and able to hoist my luggage at will.  

I've made friends with the housekeeping staff here already, since they're Salvadoran and Honduran and I've been where they're from.  One of my PTSD stories is about a civilian Salvadoran close friend of mine who got killed during the war.  I spoke at his memorial service after he died.  Small world:  one of the housekeeping ladies knew him.  No hoax; she knew the particulars.  I went to his grave in 2016 in El Salvador to show his memory some love and leave some flowers on it.  So the housekeeping staff and I sent out for Chinese and had a good lunch together.

Now I have to get some sleep.  Though I missed the 6am flight this morning, I only slept for 2 hours because of trying to get there on time.  Looking forward to a successful 6am launch on Monday!

Thanks for caring.  Again, this is where I hope to retire, this is the future I live for.  I grew up in Latin America as a war child surviving its revolutions and dictatorships and got much PTSD for my trouble.  Now Latin America's much more peaceful, believe it or not, and I plan to return to it full circle to rest in peace while living out my golden years.

May all of your nightmares turn to dreams of hope, and may all of your childhood dreams come true, too.