I stood next to the bar at the beach right before dawn. Next to me were a group of stragglers from the night before. They hadn’t made it to bed yet. I, on the other hand, was bright eyed and ready to start the day.
“Buenos dias” I said to the bar tender.
“Uno cafe por favor.”
I rarely miss a sunrise, especially one across the horizon of the ocean. Starting the day quietly and calmly is my ritual, no matter where I am. And coffee next to the ocean….pure heaven to me. I don’t meditate. I let my mind go wherever it wants or needs to, but mostly, it’s on the sun coming up. A new day. Whatever it will bring. That day… it was a little vitamin sea.
so I had my coffee… “por el mar”
by the sea
One of my friends asked what I was doing for spring break a while back. “Oh, we’re just going to Mexico.” I had said.
Like it’s the most mundane place on earth I could choose to visit.
And as soon as I said I instantly felt terrible. Like an arrogant ass. I apologized immediately. Because I know traveling is something I at times take for granted. Something I’ve done my entire adult life, not because I am wealthy by any means, but because it is a priority to me.
Landing in the Cancun airport during spring break reminds me of the herds of wildebeests and zebras in Africa, bounding and racing frantically to the water hole. It’s mass chaos and the watering hole is full of beer. Wild eyed women and grumpy men. I was instructed to look for a man in a teal shirt and white pants and sure enough I found him standing outside in the heat with a clipboard. I gave him my name while being pushed and elbowed from every direction. He led us to a bus and as soon as I sat down inside I was handed cold Corona.
That’s how vacation starts in Mexico.
We stayed at the Grand Palladium. A sprawling estate with thousands of employees, millions of pool towels, acres of blue water and one hammock with my name on it… the ocean a few steps away.
I’ve never spent a vacation next to a pool, there has never been a reason to, until now. My Dino Dude. I sat for two days straight watching him bob up and down. Playing catch. Jumping. Running from there to the ocean and back. Surrounded by happy noises, laughing kids….relaxed parents. We spent Easter, the beside a pool, after attending services in the little Catholic Church, everything spoken in Spanish, women in swimsuits and cover ups, everyone in sunglasses….instantly followed by mimosas. A day much different than our usual ham and deviled eggs.
Two days was plenty though. So we plopped ourselves down in front of a hotel representative and told her to tell us where to go. What to see.
And so we saw. And did. And went.
While my husband spent a day fishing (something I vowed to never do again after spending so much time hanging green over the side of too many boats) the Dino Dude and I visited our first cenote and snorkeled with sea turtles. We jumped in a van with 6 other people. One of which was a 6 year old who sang Christmas carols the entire day. My son described the bus ride to the cenotes as being the vehicle in Jurassic park being chased by the Dinosaur. We were in a mad hurry on a dirt road full of pot holes flying up and down in our seats. It was awesome. The cenotes are underground caves with water running though them. There is a whole system in that area and they are all connected. And they are so beautiful and intense. We swam through the second one into complete darkness. Scary and amazing at the same time. We made our way on the bumpy road again to the sea turtles which turned out to be an over crowded part of the beach. We were taken out by a boat to get away from the crowd and ended up seeing 6 beautiful turtles, 3 sting rays and too many fish to count. The colors weren’t the best, but the experience to be underwater in their world never ceases to amaze me.
The next day we headed to the Mayan ruins. A trip we all kind of dreaded because it would mean a long day on a bus. A trip that we all ended up enjoying immensely.
I won’t lie, I don’t pay enough attention to tour guides. But for some reason, this one I did. The Mayan culture, seemed to me, to be the beginning of every other one out there. Their world seemed like something out of a Harry Potter book, with games that ended people’s lives, and temples and human sacrifices. They were the beginning of so many things. Calendars. Numbers. Moon phases directly attached to our bodies. Gum. I sucked it all in. It was excruciatingly hot, but well worth it. And an ice cream bar is always a good idea at the end of this kind of tour. But here’s the thing about seeing one of the seven wonders of the world. It’s not peaceful. It’s full of thousands of other people there to see a wonder of the world. On the way back we got to stop at one of the most beautiful cenotes I had seen yet. Open to the public and out in the open. With rope swings and cliffs high up that people were jumping off of. It was incredible. And water a color blue that can’t really be described. Nor would I want to try. Pure and beautiful. Magic. We were rewarded at the end of the day with dinner in a little town with authentic food, and time to pick up a few souvenirs. And on the 2.5 hour bus ride back… I drank Corona and slept like a log.
The last adventure… Xplor. A day of zip lining, cenote rafting and swimming and ATV riding. Perfect for the boys. And I had to keep up with them. And of course I did. So many zip lines. So many ladders to climb. Swinging over Mexican jungle like Tarzan. I drove an ATV in a swimsuit, barefoot with a hard hat on. I’m that kind of girl.
We said goodbye to our resort the next morning. I said my farewell to my ocean sunrises for the time being, to the ocean and the sand, my coffee cups covered in sand and the palm trees littered with coconuts above. We said goodbye to the kittens that we would stop and play with every time we would head in that direction. We said goodbye to the flamingos that squawked while gracefully marching with their legs high though the pond in the front garden.
We said goodbye to the lizards, the crocodiles, the little long nosed foxes and the weird little rodents.
We said good bye to Mexico and thanked it for being good to us.
