Welcome to the Let's Get Lost Blog Tour! In honour of his upcoming book, Adi Alsaid is visiting blogs with "Seize the Tuesday" stories.
Adi Alsaid, author of the upcoming contemporary YA novel Let’s Get Lost, will be touring the web with ‘’Seize the Tuesday” posts to celebrate the publication of his novel. Each piece will focus on a different, fun example of how Adi was able to "Seize the Tuesday" in his own life and how that can inspire others to make a change in their lives too! Seize the Tuesday not only gives readers a glimpse into Adi’s life, but also introduces readers to one of the key themes in Let’s Get Lost of "seizing the Tuesday" - of seizing a moment that can change your life forever.
Here's the official scoop on Let's Get Lost:
Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost.
Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.
There's HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday—and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.
Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth— sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.
Seize the Tuesday: A Day in Paradise
by Adi Alsaid
It’s impossible for the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico to be anything short of beautiful, especially when the high season for tourism is over and the hurricane season has not yet begun. The waters are turquoise, the jungle rich and green, the humidity and heat tolerable, the sand so fine and white that I have no qualms saying it’s like you’re walking on clouds. Palm trees frame the blue skies as if you’ve stepped into a Corona commercial. If you go, it doesn’t really matter where you stay, you’re going to be living someone’s idea of paradise.
On my recent trip to the peninsula, I wanted something a little more adventurous than paradise. I wanted a place that was so gorgeous that other idyllic spots looked on with admiration and jealousy. Enter the Sian Ka’an biosphere, just south of Tulum, and a six-cabana private property I found on Airbnb that boasts its own idyllic beach, a treehouse cabana, more hammocks than neighbors, and an unassuming chef named Armando who quietly works magic with fish he catches himself. You can have your all-inclusive resorts and sugary margaritas, I’ll take this.
Photo Credit: Adi Alsaid
Ignoring the proprietor’s fair warnings about a rough road leading to the place, we rented a modest Sedan and paid eight extra pesos for the deductible-free full insurance. An hour and a half through respectable highways past Cancun, Playa de Carmen, and billboards for an adventure-themed resort named Xplor (a very subtle and clever play on the fact that many places in the area have names that begin with the letter X), we turned into the narrow road that comprises the Tulum hotel zone. Chic eco-lodges (whatever the hell that means), restaurants advertising that they show World Cup games, yoga spots with suntanned hippies sitting out in front, a Turkish restaurant, a pizza place whose sign announced simply, “Best pizza on Earth.” We drove past it all, passing through the ancient-looking stone archway that serves as the official entrance to the ecological biosphere Sian Ka’an. Immediately the road fell apart, causing our Nissan to toil through bumps and holes and divots and rocks. Signs prohibited speeds in excess of 40 km/h, though the condition of the road did more to slow us down. But, this is what it looked like.
Photo Credit: Adi Alsaid
Occasionally, convoys of Jeeps holding sunglass-and-camera-wielding tourists would roar by, clouds of dust in their wake, the road behind them falling further apart. Whatever hardships the road put us through were forgiven not just when we arrived at our ridiculously beautiful destination, but by the journey itself. Iguanas soaked up the sun in the middle of the road, bends gave way to unexpected glimpses of the Caribbean. On our return trip in the middle of the night, we would spot enormous crabs, bats, possums, only two other vehicles, one of them a taxi parked at a bridge while the men it had carried drank beers and fished over the rails.
We swayed in hammocks, felt the sand pass harmlessly between our toes without the burn that beach sand often does. We dove into the sea and marveled that it tasted like saltwater, since it was so clear it could only have been a manmade pool. We took the only lounge chairs and dragged them to the sun or the shade, depending on our mood, since we were the only ones around. We read, ate plates of fruit and Armando’s exquisite meals. We watched the sun rise over the water, watched the moon do the same. There were more stars in the sky than I’ve probably ever seen before, and shooting stars made casual appearances. Splendor, it seemed, was the default. Storm clouds built up on the horizon and passed to the North, where I imagined the Cancun tourists scurrying indoors while we lingered in the ocean to watch the sun set into the jungle.
There are plenty of ways to seize a Tuesday, plenty of places around to call paradise. I don’t mind when there’s a little effort involved.
Photo Credit: Adi Alsaid
About Adi Alsaid:
Adi Alsaid was born and raised in Mexico City. He attended college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While in class, he mostly read fiction and continuously failed to fill out crossword puzzles, so it's no surprise that after graduating he packed up his car and escaped to the California coastline to become a writer. He's now back in his hometown, where he writes, coaches high school and elementary basketball, and has perfected the art of making every dish he eats or cooks as spicy as possible. In addition to Mexico, he has lived in Tel Aviv, Las Vegas and Monterey, California. A tingly feeling in his feet tells him that more places will eventually be added to the list.
Visit Adi online at SomewhereOverTheSun.com,
Facebook: AdiAlsaidAuthor,
Twitter: @AdiAlsaid
Instagram: @JUhhdee
Thanks for stopping by, Adi! Let's Get Lost will be available on July 29th. (Look for FYA's book report on it that week!)