The journey is worth it, but man what a journey! Monday
morning we got up at 3:30. Our buddy, Dave picked us up at 4:00 to take us to
the airport. We flew to Phoenix and sat in the plane for ten minutes before disembarking.
Then we had to run to the other end of the airport to get our next flight to
Cancun. (A quick side note against American Airlines… They now charge you
$33/pp to sit together! When I asked the lady at the counter to try to put us
together, she replied it was a full flight. In the rows around us every couple
had been split up and each said the website showed all side-by-side seats had
been booked. After a confusing and time-consuming process the passengers relocated
themselves before take-off. What a scam!)
Then we were met by AGI transportation and taken by van to the
ferry. If possible I will always do business with AGI. They were very
professional. We took a thirty minute ferry ride to Isla Mujeres. AGI met us
there and put us in a taxi to our hotel, Cabanas Maria del Mar.
The streets were flooded calf deep in rainwater from the
storm we just missed. After the 105+ temperatures of California, the cool
breeze felt wonderful. We joined the locals and tourists in our flip-flops and
headed out for dinner, slopping through the puddles. It was a lot of fun…
really!
We found a restaurant with grass-fed beef from the
peninsula. It’s called Dopi’s, El Rincon de Los Sabores. My carne asada street
tacos were amazing. Several chalkboards adorn the walls covered with various
comments from visitors from around the world. While we were eating this guy
came in with his accordion. Nothing unusual about that. A table motioned him to
stop and play for them. What made it funny was when he unzipped his back pack
with one hand and reached back to turn on a boom box. He then pulled out his
cell phone and you could hear a computerized voice state that it had paired
with a blue tooth device. He chose his song and suddenly we had a one man band!
And oddly enough he had a large coconut nestled in next to his boom box. Such an
odd mix of things.
The beer here is incredibly cold. The bars pride themselves
in having sub-zero refrigerators, so the beer borders on being a slushee. Every
frig has a lit-up indicator of the temperature. The norm is for it to be below
zero Celsius. At Lola Valentino’s it was negative four! Joe wasn’t happy
because that’s the only time I will drink beer is when his is cold enough :) I
won’t order my own, I just drink his.
We’ve traveled a bit and I have to say that the people who
live here are nice, super nice. Though you can’t really tap into that if you
don’t know Spanish. At one point we were on a mission to find a place to
exchange dollars for pesos. So we asked around. Everyplace was closed that does
exchanges. (Not a real problem, as most places accept American dollars) At one restaurant the whole bar joined in the
problem solving. We had gotten about half a block away when the bartender
trotted up to us to tell us the owner said she’d exchange our dollars if we
wanted.
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| Our Street |
Missing are the obnoxious condo salesmen from the mainland.
The next day we wandered the through the tiny town unmolested. The salespeople
from the little tiendas politely invite you in. One place asked Joe if he
wanted a cigar. “No thanks.” “Tequila?” “I don’t drink tequila,” Joe answered. “Cocaine?”
We laughed. Someone who doesn’t smoke cigars and drink tequila might prefer
cocaine? Too funny :)
The North Beach is popular for its gorgeous sand and calm
shallow water. We were still chest deep at about fifty yards out. But if you go
around the tip of the island to the east the water is rougher and the beaches
form in little half circles edged by jagged coral. We’re staying at Cabanas
Maria del Mar on the beach.
Today is day two on our quest to find wine. No easy task, I
tell you. First of all is the fact that no one wants to admit they don’t have
the answer you seek. They would rather send you the wrong direction than to see
that disappointed look on your face. But Joe and I were prepared for this. It’s
the same everywhere in the Latin culture. I don’t mean to say that I can always
tell whether or not the directions are correct, I’m just saying I am not
surprised when we are led astray. One thing I’ve learned is to listen to the
directions and if they are very detailed, then it’s probably correct. “Turn
left, not at this next street, but the next one. Go one block down to the OXXO
and turn right. Go about halfway down the block and it’s on the right.” It was
true and I came away with a bottle of Argentinean Malbec.
The next difficulty is deciding where to eat lunch. This
island is small, and the northern tip is maybe a half mile round. There’re lots
of choices of places to eat though. We usually decide based on what type of
beer they have. Joe likes Bohemian Obscura or Negra Modelo (Just don’t ask for
a Negro Modelo, unless you want a black man that is, then ask). We
discovered a great beach bar by the marina. The bartender named Mike (Miguel)
is an absolute sweetheart. They have the best beef tacos I’ve ever had. We went
back today and met Mario.
Mario had a t-shirt that had the superman logo on it, but he’d
added Jesucristo, Superhombre, Dios Verdadero on the three sides of the big S.
He mentioned he’d lived in the states for most of his life. Naturally I asked
where he’d lived. He named several places, but all that stood out to me was San
Quentin and Folsom Prison. He proceeded to give the best, most impassioned
testimony to his becoming a Christian I’ve ever heard. It was truly an amazing
experience to see the ferocity of his love of Christ. We’re going to get
together with him next week on his day off.
Then a tropical storm swept the flat little island. The wind
came out of nowhere. Rain came in the stores like someone was throwing buckets
of water sideways! People ran, laughing, for shelter. A young boy held my hand
as I stepped up into his store. Golf carts slopped through the roads that had temporarily
become rivers. I understand now why the central street going down the middle of
the island is the most popular… it’s at the top of the tiny hill, so the water
flows down the streets to the sea.
This brings up the daily question… raincoat or no raincoat?
An umbrella would be nice, but it’d have to be a very strong one. Mine isn’t.
So I wore an adorable bright pink raincoat and discovered it’s not color-fast.
Now my white tank top is tie-died pink. So I’ve progressed to the huge orange
poncho I bought for Costa Rica. Now I’m dry, but I look ridiculous! I usually
just go with getting soaked by the rain… I dry off pretty fast.
So that leads to the word Humidity. There’s hot and humid and there’s cool and humid. I’ve
only known the hot and humid one, which isn’t entirely true because I was born
on the northern coast of California. That’s cold and humid. Right now, here on
Isla Mujeres, it’s cool and humid. Everything is wet and sticky. Because of
that we use the air conditioner. It pulls moisture from the air. I wasn’t
thinking about that today. All I thought was how nice and cool the breeze felt,
so I turned the AC off and opened the windows. I propped my feet up on the bed
and read Tarzan for awhile. When I went to stand up, I almost fell. The stone
tile floor was covered with a thin layer of water. The room was like an iced over
lake and I was like a 101 Dalmatian puppy! I dried the whole thing with a towel
while Joe safely took his nap. Five minutes later it was an ice rink again. I
shut the doors and turned on the AC. Lesson learned.
This Malbec tastes good.
The story I’ve always been told is that Isla Mujeres is Golf
carts and scooters only. Not true. They have cars here, especially taxis. It’s not
terrible, but they do have plenty of cars. I was disappointed because I thought
it would be so cool to have the quiet of no cars
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