Tag Archives: air travel

Covid Travel Safety to Oaxaca … or Anywhere!

On Friday, December 30, I drive away to Albuquerque from Taos and on Saturday, December 31 (my birthday!), I fly away to Oaxaca. Yes, a lot has changed since March 12, 2020, when I flew from Oaxaca to California to visit my son for a week and ended up staying with him for two months. Then, the Covid Pandemic was an unknown, we were scared of everything, only to learn that so many people became infected and died. It’s almost three years later and I have not contracted Covid … yet.

I’m still very cautious, wear a face mask the moment I step into an airport and keep it on until I reach my destination … either Oaxaca or New Mexico! I don’t take it off until I am outside. Such is not the case for most now. On my recent travels returning from Oaxaca to Taos in November, maybe 15% on the plane were masked. I am writing this because our study tour season is about to start. Our first group starts on January 3, and we have three more after that, going to the Oaxaca Coast, to Mexico City and Michoacan, and then wrapping up with Chiapas.

We have alerted all travelers to take precautions and we continue to send out reminders. We want all travelers to be respectful of each others’ health, to protect self and others, and especially to protect the indigenous people of Mexico whom we will visit, who do not have the benefit of quality vaccines, and who are more prone to disease because of underlying chronic health conditions (like high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, respiratory illness).

Why? Because Covid has not gone away and now it is on the rise again as winter digs in.

Here is our Covid Travel Advice:

  • Take a Covid home test the day before you are set to travel to be certain you are negative
  • Mask up before you enter the airport
  • We require N95 or KN95 face masks
  • Keep your mask on throughout your travel day in the airport and on the airplane
  • Yes, we know that mask-wearing is uncomfortable, because it is for me, too! This is no excuse!
  • Test again 2-3 days after arrival
  • Wear masks whenever indoors and in crowded places like markets
  • Understand the importance of traveling respectfully in Mexico where mask-wearing is still a norm among local people
  • Know that all our travelers are required to have vaccines and the latest boosters, no exceptions, to ensure each others’ safety

What motivated me to write this? Christmas!

We just finished a modified Christmas Feast celebration with fourteen people, family and and dearest friends who are akin to family. The organizers traveled from Philadelphia and New Jersey to participate. The men have been doing this since 1982. They choose a different cookbook each year, parse out the recipes, and everyone participating makes something very elaborate from scratch. My daughter-in-law and I made the agnolotti, a version of ravioli stuffed with seasoned butternut squash and topped with shallot butter infused with truffle oil. It took us all day. Since we didn’t have anything but a French rolling pin, which we were told wouldn’t work, we adapted and used an empty Gracias Adios Tepeztate Mezcal bottle. Hummph.

Ok, so we’ll get to the crux of the story … the Chief Feast Leader tested positive for Covid on Christmas morning. That shifted everything, of course. We moved the Feast to my west patio facing the Rio Grande Gorge so we could be outside and protect ourselves. I required that anyone coming into the house had to wear a face mask. The Chief Feast Leader was isolated at a separate table and wore a mask the entire time. We managed, but we were cold despite building a fire pit and having a propane heater. As the sun set, the temps dropped to below thirty degrees. This was a short dinner, despite the elaborate menu and French wines. I could run through the menu, but that’s not the point.

And, why did the Chief Feast Leader get Covid? He traveled from the East Coast without wearing a mask — including nine hours in the Dallas airport because of flight delays as the country was experiencing the start of the Bomb Cyclone blizzard. And, even though we had reminded everyone to please take all necessary health precautions, he chose to ignore this. The couple staying with him and his partner in the shared Air BnB tested positive on December 26.

I tested negative yesterday. I’ll test again tomorrow. Fingers crossed I will escape this once more. Meanwhile, I urge all of you getting ready to travel to Oaxaca or wherever your journey takes you, to take care, be respectful of others, and to know that we are all still vulnerable. Your choices affect the health of those you come in contact with.

Blessings for 2023.

Travel Day to Oaxaca: Ready, Set, Go

I’m double masked. First, an N95 then covered with my handmade cloth mask made at the height if the pandemic by friend Sam Robbins. (She makes beautiful masks because she is a quilter.)

Do I feel more secure? With my third Pfizer booster and a flu vaccine, I’m still feeling jittery and a bit anxious. I asked the woman behind me in the security line to step back to maintain distance. No one else seemed to care. Everyone else was jammed up in the line.

It looked like it always did traveling before Covid. Lots of close contact. The only difference was that everyone was wearing face coverings, though a few had masks drooping below nostrils.

At age 75, one can go through security and keep on shoes and light jackets. Easy peasy, I thought. Except that before going through the metal detector, I was asked to remove my belt and Teotitlan woven quechquemitl (short poncho). Upon exit of the detector, because areas lit up on the x-ray, I was asked to remove my shoes and undergo the patdown. Shoes had to go back through the x-ray.

In the security line

Leave plenty of time! I got to the airport 2 hours before flight departure.

Be patient. Ask for what you need — like asking people to step away.

it’s a full flight from ABQ to Houston. We will see how that goes!

Borat Says: Go to Oaxaca! NOT. Covid Rages.

Sasha Baron Cohen’s film, The Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan parodies, in part, the lack of leadership that was required to prevent the spread of Covid-19. I found it telling, hilarious, offensive and an indictment of the USA. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean.

Sasha Baron Cohen makes good use of the NOT Joke. Example: Time to Go to Oaxaca. NOT.

On board Southwest flight to ABQ

Mexico is NOT faring much better than the USA. And, Oaxaca is on the cusp of turning RED again on the traffic signal scale of measurement. Cases are rising exponentially there, too.

I was thinking about returning to Oaxaca in January. However, my Zapotec family in Teotitlan del Valle recommends I do NOT come back just yet.

Masked up with my sister Barbara in Santa Fe, NM

Here is the question I asked: IF I were to return and IF I contracted Covid-19 while there, where is the best place to get treatment. I was told the best treatment in Oaxaca is at the Hospital San Lucas, though it is the most expensive private hospital. All costs are out-of-pocket.

Me and my sister, almost twins. NOT.

The public health office announced on November 4 that in two weeks Oaxaca will be pretty close to having all hospital beds occupied in both public and private hospitals due to the celebrations and thousands of tourists who came for Day of the Dead.

The only other option to Hospital San Lucas, I’m told, is to go to the IMSS public hospital. They keep reporting lack of beds, lack of equipment for intense therapy, and lack of pain medication. It is not looking good. And, last week, Teotitlan del Valle appeared on the official list of contagion again.

I was hopeful before I received this news, but not now. If anyone is planning to return to Oaxaca, please think again. Go to Oaxaca? NOT.

My Oaxaca family is sequestered, staying home, staying safe. This is the same for most of my USA and Canada friends who live there permanently.

Santa Fe, NM train station

Now, why did I even entertain this thought of return? Because I just completed plane travel from Durham, NC to Santa Fe to have a reunion with my sister. Now, I’m in Albuquerque to see my son Jacob who drove here with his partner Shelley from Los Angeles. Then, I’ll be in Taos staying with friends through Thanksgiving. This is as close as I’m going to get to Mexico for a while, I fear.

On the plane, I wore an N95 mask, a face shield, gloves. I was armed with Clorox wipes, alcohol spray and hand-sanitizer. I took a window seat (I read somewhere this was the safest). No one sat in the middle seat. I ate and drank nothing in-flight. All passengers were REQUIRED to mask-up. Flight attendants were diligent about that. I thought that if I could do this safely (and it appears that I have), I could safely attempt plane travel to Oaxaca. YES, likely. But once I get there, then what?

My sister wearing her safety gear for departure

It seems that Day of the Dead was a super-spreader event for Oaxaca. If you are a vacationer, we recommend that you stay home. The health care system in Oaxaca, should you need it, is not equipped to treat you.

Enough said.

Autumn colors at Abiquiu, NM — glorious cottonwoods

As for 2021, I will begin planning for our Day of the Dead Folk Art Study Tour in October and announce it in January. In early 2022, we will return to the Oaxaca Coast and Chiapas for textile study tours. We are keeping fingers crossed that most of us will be vaccinated for disease prevention and life will go on. Yet, we aren’t sick of this, are we? NOT.

Chili peppers. Essential Southwest + Mexican ingredient

Wigged Out By H1N1 or The Masked Bandit Rides, Again

I’m on an airplane to Detroit.  There may be 6-8 people on board a full flight who are wearing surgical masks.  This is a first for me, and despite the strange looks and at the encouragement of two passengers just behind me who were talking about when they were putting their masks on, I did, too.  There is an assumption that if you are wearing a mask you are sick.  So, the looks were pretty intense as I made my way down the aisle to find my seat mid-cabin.  I can’t imagine hospital personnel wearing these things all day.  There is that warm, moist, almost suffocating feeling of having your nose and mouth covered, a feeling reminiscent of when I was a child breathing in the menthol warm, moist air generated by the vaporizer when I was sick.  The man next to me is going to Detroit to visit his first grandchild, 2 weeks old.  He promised his daughter he would wear a mask, shower and wash his hair before touching the newborn.  How many times did I wash my hands today?

At dinner last night, Marci asked me when was the last time I was in Mexico before she would give me a hug in greeting.  Not since mid-February, I replied.  Then, today in the NY Times I read that the virus could have mutated from bird to pig to human as long as a year ago.  Perhaps it is of the variety that erupts when the weather turns warm, rather than vice versa, I wonder.  We are all preoccupied now and doing anything we can to protect ourselves despite the fact that some health care professionals say the face masks don’t help prevent the illness.  Then, why, I might ask, are they handing out masks all over Mexico and the photos of the health care workers in the Mexican hospitals are all wearing them?

Today is Thursday, one day before the start of a long Mexican holiday weeking leading up to Cinco de Mayo – the Battle of Puebla.  I am on my way to Columbus, Ohio, to visit my friend Sam (Frances) Robbins.  We are going to celebrate our Oaxaca connection by creating our own Cinco de Mayo fiesta.  Perhaps I will make Micheladas.  For certain, we will dine on her Talavera dishes hand made and carried back from our Puebla adventures.  This is the best we can do right now.  Neither of us have plans to be in Mexico in the next month.

My glasses are fogging up.  The flight attendant is serving drinks and snacks.  Do I pass on them or raise my mask to drink?  The dilemmas of travel during influenza.  I pass as she looks at me hesitantly.  What does Joe Biden know?