Atop the temple at Coba
Christmas break began with a Whiskey Plank party the last day of school, followed by a winter Solstice bonfire on the commune. The last plank of a boat is called the Whiskey Plank, the fastening of which is celebrated by pouring a shot of booze on the boat, and many, many shots into the builders. I opted for the sparkling cider that was offered to the underage students. This was wise, as i was flying out the next day, and planes already make me want to puke, no whiskey required.
I arrived in Baltimore around midnight to be welcomed home by a flurry of furry wiggling, sniggling, snaggling, waggling chaos. The puppy dogs were extremely glad to see me. I honestly thought they were going to lick my face off. It was touch and go for a minute there on the sidewalk outside. Christmas was packed with multiple present openings to meet every one's varied schedules, a trip to the emergency room at 2am for my father in law's kidney stone,(or "pet rock" as we began to call it), and a trip to the Maritime museum on the eastern shore.
Post licking nap
Then came the adventure.
Our 7 person party consisted of Sarah, her dad John and his friend Mike, her brother Drew, her sister Rachel, and Rachel's partner Mully. We were at the airport at 5:30, and in Cancun by mid morning. Plane travel was uneventful, and then we tried to claim our reserved rental car. I should say, we and every American tourist on the planet. It only took 2 hours, and only cost $50 dollars a day extra for the Mexican insurance they never mentioned. A sign of dastardly deeds and snaky dealings to come. We then changed the sole American 20 dollar bill sarah had, bought 2 potato chips and a bottle of water, and had enough left over for half a stick of gum. We decided we'd hit an ATM at a gas station and get pesos directly rather than paying astronomical rates at the airport, and bolted out of tourist hell.
Onto a barren, never ending stretch of highway through the jungle without a single gas station. Not one. Glad the rental car only halfway filled the tank for us. Bastards.
never ending jungle
We then stopped at a tourist info center with bathrooms, lazy policemen, dust, and a few languid iguanas. We asked where we could get gas. When i say "we" i mean "I" attempted (in my 4 year old child words) to ask where to get gas. They pointed at the cops lounging in the shade by their pimpin' police truck. I asked the cops, and they said to pull around. We did. Then they pointed at some highway workers 200 yards away. So we pulled over there. A dude with a plastic gas can sold us half a liter of gas for about 15 bucks. We had plenty of American cash, and sarah's left over pesos.
I said, "How much does it cost. A lot, huh?"
My pal grinned at me.
"Oh, yeeees."
I poor mouthed him and gave him a collection of pesos, and the 2 American dollars i had. I smiled, he smiled. I lied, he knew i was lying, poorly, and in Spanish. We got enough petrol to get down the road, and felt pretty lucky about it. We finally fueled up in V-town, on gas as well as beans, rice, and fried bananas.
Cathedral in Merida
First stop was Valladolid. Which is pronounced "vee-dilauded". Actually, it is not. This is one of the hundreds of bastardized Spanish pronunciations i heard over the course of our 10 days south of the border. Valladolid eventually settled out as "V-town" and Chichen Itza, the Toltec archaeological site became known as "the Cheech". Mully and i were the heavy hitters in the language department, and we decided that between the two of us, we made mostly a whole Mexican. I also realized that i have no neural receptors for context clues. A Mexican could be screaming at me to get out of the way of a speeding bus (which is not unheard of in the land of speedy, stinky diesel machines) and i would be conjugating the verb "mover" to try and determine exactly what they were saying, as the vehicle flattened me. Once i told a woman at the grocery store that Sarah needed something to make her hair more "lucky". I mixed up suerte and suave. Suave means soft. We were trying to buy conditioner. The woman looked at me like i was retarded, kindly and compassionate, but confused at my rare affliction. Mully asked the dude at the Oxxo, (Mexican 7-11) for "a bag of the water, hard, and very cold". He forgot the word for ice. They figured it out. They are quite good with the context clues.
The Cheech
Over the course of our visit to Valladolid, Merida, Playa Carmen, and Ux-mal we went on adventure tours which included zip lining, rappelling, swimming in underground rivers, as well as hanging out with real live Mayans. We also went snorkeling with big, scary-ass manta rays and barracudas, and ate dinner in a 4 star restaurant inside a cave. We saw thousands of Gucci princesses, and countless plastic breasts on the beach. I read an article in the newspaper about the gross number of tiny bikinis on in Playa Carmen. I can corroborate these allegations. Ridiculous.
On New Year's Eve we couldn't figure out why the hotel next door drug about 100 sofas onto the beach and lit a throng of tiki torches. It looked like Survivor Manhattan Island. 10pm, no one's at the party. 11 pm, still no one. The ball dropped, and so did we, only to be awoken at 2 am to pumpin' bass and our new pal, affectionately termed "Dieter," strutting around the beach like a peacock in a white linen shirt and thong speedo. He and the posse rocked the Casbah till 8am the next morning. I must confess to fantasies of throwing a handful of sand onto the DJ's turntable and wandering off, claiming not to speak Mexicoan.
Fish Tacos after snorkeling
We went to the Cheech, Coba, and Tulum and saw many ruins from different periods, in different settings, in varying stages of reconstruction or dereliction. We were able to climb the temple at Coba, allegedly the last year anyone will be able to climb any of Mexico's archaeological sites. Because the world's going to end in 2012. The Mayans predicted it, and their calendar is pretty freakin impressive. So go climb the rock pile while you still can.
Swanky ocean front ruins
languid iguana
I made it back to Cancun in time to catch my plane, and spent about 16 hours getting back to my hobbit hole. It was a cold, snaggwaggle-less return, but i was very glad to be back. I had Sunday to take care of my beeswax and get ready for school to start. Day one was today, and I'm already lofting another boat. Kinda makes me wish i was haggling for gasoline with a gold toothed Mexican on the side of a jungle highway.
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