Before last month, I’d never been to Mexico. Now, I’m here on my second trip. I’m staying at a resort adjacent to Puerto Morelos, a little town about twenty miles south of Cancun. This is a very different Mexico than CDMX, one that in many ways is just an extension of the United States with Latin American style poverty tucked away but not quite hidden. There may be a time when I want to see the Mayan ruins that are scattered throughout the Yucatan Peninsula but otherwise I’m unsure why I’d return. The purpose of this trip was to attend a Rhodium retreat, a business community I’m part of that puts on what I consider to be can’t-miss events.

Yesterday was the excursion day, and also the only time I’ll leave the resort grounds until I leave for the airport. It included going snorkeling over a coral reef for the first time since I was in Australia one summer during college with my family. Highlights included seeing a sting ray and not getting sick. I don’t have the greatest track record on that latter point. That part of the day also saw me set foot on the beach to get to the boat dock, so I did technically walk on the beach this trip. We then traveled by bus inland to visit some cenotes and finished the day riding four wheelers through the jungle getting caked with dust.

The excursion activities aren’t the reason I came, though. I came to be around people who have taken similar business journeys to myself. It’s a concentrated chance to take in lessons and glean insights from people who are years ahead and to help those who are going through things I’ve gone through. I also gave a version of what I’ve begun calling the M&A weather report, a sort of market update I give to different groups in which I participate. I feel that’s a meager contribution relative to what I receive from everyone else, but I’ve had multiple people ask me follow up questions so it seems like at least someone found it useful. That’s a marked improvement from when I first started attending these events. I still have the feeling of an outsider that I wrote about after the most recent Rhodium event in October, but maybe now I’m at least contributing more from my outsider perspective.

There was one full day of working sessions on Monday and another today. I will have to make do with less energy today, but I’m still looking forward to it and scrambling to jot down notes that I’ll begin processing once the current round of travel ends later next week.