Heart at home in foreign land

Since it seems so many are now confessing their affairs, I think it is time to confess mine: I am having a love affair with a foreign land. It began officially in 1998, but it was always meant to be. It was written in the stars.

When I was in high school, we had an exchange student stay with us my senior year; I spent several months after graduation with her family in Mexico City. While I was there, I met a man who invited me to go to this undeveloped place where they were going to put a planned vacation destination. It was 1973, and the place was to be called Cancun. As fate would have it, I never got to go then, but in 1998, I finally went there on a family vacation.

Cancun was fun, but it didn't do much for me. I kept thinking I could do most of what it had to offer by driving to Myrtle Beach. That was until I arranged a side trip south into the Mayan Riviera, to a place called Xel-Ha.

In 1998, the main highway was not completed, and much of the drive was on unpaved roads -- long, dusty and very bumpy. Needless to say, not everyone in my family had the same excitement I did. I think it was the people. The Mayan people and even the ex-pat Americans were so warm and friendly. Some of the people I met that trip still are friends to this day. But then again, maybe it was the crystal clear warm waters of the Caribbean. Or was it the sultry, balmy weather? Or the cries of the jungle? Most likely, though, it was a combination of all of the above that started the seduction.

Then, two trips later, when I went down with a film crew from Charleston to work on a TV pilot, it really hit me and I was hooked! Something happened when I arrived at Akumal and drove under the entrance arch.

It wasn't deja vu, but it was a feeling that I have never had before. The closest was the love at first site I felt for my husband. There was a sense of calm that came over me, a feeling that I was finally home.

I have returned to Akumal many times for a variety of reasons from family trips to helping run a fundraising event and participating in free spay and neuter clinics. It always seems like I am mixing work with pleasure, but in the same sense that one does when going home to visit family, it's always a labor of love.

The funny thing is, I can get easily confused and even lost trying to get around Mount Pleasant, but my compass seems perfectly intact when I explore the Yucatan. Akumal is now my home base, and I stop there on each visit, but now I am doing more and more exploring and finding more and more out-of-the-way places throughout the Yucatan. Sometimes I travel with my husband, sometimes with friends and other times I go by myself. No matter how I travel, I feel a great sense of adventure and a stirring in my soul.

My father was a fighter pilot in World War II, and he still, at 89, has a bit of the wanderlust in him. I am so thankful that I inherited his sense of adventure and wanderlust. I hope by confessing my affair it will in no way end it. And to all of you, I encourage you to follow your heart.

Lydia Linton Pontius lives in Mount Pleasant with her husband, Mike, and their two dogs. The two are partners in Just Imagine, an Internet services business, and Sac-Be International, publisher of Sac-Be.com, a Yucatan travel Web site. Lydia also operates a small group travel business called Just Imagine Vacations (www.rivieramayavacation.net).