Z|ECC Summit Cancun Day 0 - Z-Bañuelas
Unlike previous entries, this one does not have any hurricanes or cancelled flights. Although that is awesome storytelling material, honestly I don't miss it even a bit. My path takes me again to Lima airport this time by design and not by urgent need.
I’m pretty good at sleeping in place. I almost feel proud about it. Many people envy that and kind of hate me when they see me just peacefully fall asleep when the plane takes off. I don’t know what it is, but I just feel that the plane is tucking me in and I just can’t avoid it. I guess I’m not great pilot material. Even in daily flights I need to just take a brief nap during take off.
A wild Chickalletta (Gallineta) appeared!
A chicken themed alarm clock goes off and wakes up half of the plane the owner obviously snores immutably. I woke up pretty upset. Some dream about chickens had been chasing me I assume for the last 15 to 20 minutes. In my sudden awakening I end up losing my sunshade clip-ons which I would (luckily) find almost at the end of the flight.
Small Hop in Lima
Lima is a beautiful place. Its airport, not so much. Although apparently small, LIM has tricky hallways and sneaky assistants. Also it reproduces one of the characteristics of Latin America: Inequality. The difference in facilities between the local connections part and the international one once you go to the boarding area is somewhat striking and sad. I fully recommend the food court on the public side of the airport. Don’t Miss the Roasted chicken!
Into Mayan terrain.
Cancun is a beautiful place, surrounded by nature, great weather and amazing people.
There’s a great contrast between the manglares, the highway, the big hotels and a white sand beach. I had been in Cancún once before back in 2021 for an ECC reunion after the long months of the COVID pandemic. I knew pretty much what to expect for these kinds of resorts. I’m not particularly fond of them but it is noticeably easier to arrange certain logistics like meals, accommodation, accessibility, etc. since their business is mainly group trips.
Something I oddly recall about that last trip is that the driver was pretty insidious with questions about who we were, what we were doing and didn’t seem too trustworthy. As a rule of thumb, always be the one asking questions to the driver and don’t provide more information than what you are asked. Also you are totally entitled to blatantly omit information if you feel that a question is meant to turn you into some sort of target.
Fortunately, this time our driver was a senior citizen who was very kind and was more interested in showing us around and was gentle to share his knowledge.
One beautiful thing he taught us about the Cabañuelas just having passed. This is an ancient way of predicting weather, which is based on the first 12 days of the year, that later farmers use as a reference of how the 12 months of the year will be like in terms of weather. Our driver grew up on a farm and this ancient knowledge came from his parents, grandparents and so on. Z|ECC summits have that feeling where you can sense how the rest of the season will be by carefully checking the weather of the different talks and debates.
He also recommended us to try pollo and cochinilla pibil and sopa de lima. The typical dishes of this region of what one was the vast Mexican Empire. I am sorry but this doesn’t seem to be “Gulf of America” at all if you ask me.
I quickly ran into the wallet team when I got to the Hotel Lobby. And the proper hugs and jumpy salutations of friends catching up happened accordingly.
Nightfall came pretty quickly since it’s winter in Mexico at this time of the year. We joined some ANONs for dinner who ended up being part of the Maya team. Great folks. They also helped us order awesome food.
It was time wrap up my slides for my session (I didn’t know when it would be) and go to bed.
Z|ECC summits are intense and you have to be fully awake to catch everything that happens.