When March 2020 came, and the entire world went into lockdown, for some reason I expected it to be temporary. A month or two, and then back to normal. But we all know that isn’t what happened. So, here is a little documentation of what did happen, and how it happened to us in Mexico.
I expected it to be temporary
Me and Britt had just finished a week of vacation at Hard Rock Riviera Maya and as soon as we got back home, and back to “reality”, we started watching the news and what was going on with the outbreak of Coronavirus. Our first concern was travel. We both depend on being able to travel back and forth between Mexico and the USA for work, and a shut down of the airlines or a travel ban prohibiting us from coming back and forth would mean we would both be out of a job! But even worse, what about our family in the USA? Would they be safe?
You see, at this point, the USA began to lock down tight, while here in the Riviera Maya in Mexico, we were still “safe” (at least that is what we all thought at the time), and we were worried about our family being in the USA and being around COVID-19. Maybe they should escape to Mexico where we don’t have COVID-19 (again, so we thought). And we began making calls. Everyone was ok and all set to stay where they were at, locked inside of their homes with enough toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and Clorox wipes to survive for months.
That lasted for two days before we got a call from our daughter at Louisiana State University. They were canceling classes, moving to online platforms, and shutting down the dorms. Things were moving very fast back in the USA, and with talks of shutting down airline travel and closing borders, we gave her 24 hours to pack up and get back to Mexico.
As she came to Mexico in mid-March, Britt also left Mexico in mid-March for the same reasons. If they closed the borders and canceled flights, how was he going to get to work?
When I told Britt goodbye, and sent him back to the USA, I knew it would be months before I saw him again. Not only was there very little travel allowed back and forth, his company also required a 14 day quarantine each time before he went to work. Which meant even though he would have time off, he couldn’t travel back home because if he did, he would have to wait 14 days in the USA before he was allowed to return to work. Optimistically, I was hoping this would only last for 2-3 months, but it ended up being almost 6 months before he got to come home and I got to see him again. We counted our blessings though, at least he had a job when so many others were out of work because of the pandemic.
Thankfully our daughter was here to keep me occupied. With her suitcase packed for a few weeks stay, she ended up being here for 5 months! Check back for Quarantined in Paradise, Part Two to find out how what quarantine was like for us here, what we did to stay sane, and how we survived being locked down for 5 months.
BarefootBikiniBeachlife 