Is Mountainous even a word?

I've been dreaming of places lately. Places I've never seen. I've looked at thousands of Google images over the past 5 months of this magical place that he calls home. Pictures are supposed to be worth a thousand words but I can't seem to find one to describe how I feel about any of them. It's like a whole different world. Like I'm Alice and suddenly I'm going to fall through that looking glass to a magical land of deserts and tacos.

I grew up in suburban Michigan. Metro Detroit where the closest thing you'd find to a desert is a baron wasteland of abandon buildings. Burnt out factories and remnants of a better time. It's almost impossible to picture something in your mind that flourishes. But there it is in those thousands of Google images. A mountainous region in the south of Mexico, that I may someday call home.

There is a map hanging on my refrigerator in my 1 bedroom apartment on Chicago's north side. A hand drawn map that he had drawn at work one day to show the other back of the house guys where his home state was in relation to their native country of Guatemala. On the original map the letters abbreviating North South East and West in Spanish (Norte Sur este y oeste) were written over several times in an attempt to remember which word meant east and west. This original map was given to me as a gift. "Es un regalo para ti" he said. "Oh thanks! I'm going to hang it on my fridge." I responded in my most sarcastically appreciative voice.

Days later this map was re-drawn while sitting on my couch. It now hangs on my fridge as a reminder of where my heart is. Oaxaca, Mexico at the southern end of the country only a hop skip and jump from Guatemala, and thousands of miles from what used to be his home too, where he left his heart in Chicago, IL.