Shark!

It was 6:30am Thursday. Almost like clockwork, I woke for good. And down here in Mexico (Cancun) that just happens to coincide with sunrise. How timely. Each morning’s been about the same .I get up, pee, start coffee, then step out onto the veranda overlooking the pool and Caribbean to breath in the sunshine and salty air. It’s really lovely. After a short respite I headed back inside where I wrote about Wednesday’s adventures. Just after 7am CDT I made Mindy a cup of coffee, dressed, and left for a run. I took a different trail Thursday morning. Instead of running through the more popular entertainment zone, I headed west towards downtown Cancun. It’s still in the hotel zone but much more subdued. I haven’t run that trail in, oh, maybe seven years. A lot has changed. Most notably, both RIU resorts have risen from the sand. And they’re sites to behold. Both the architecture and landscaping are beautiful. It looks like there’s a massive project to replace the irrigation system all along the walking/running trail as it’s torn up for several kilometers on end. My run took me past one of the local golf courses. I didn’t see anyone playing. The sun was hot. I had already removed my shirt and carried in hand. I ran about 5.5 kilometers. I was back in the room by 8am. Mindy was already showering after missing one the evening before. I knew that our day would begin earlier than most others have. While she showered I did some more writing in my blog. Once she was pretty much out of the way in the bathroom I took a quick shower. Despite making a concerted effort to protect my skin this trip, I noticed that my forehead was already peeling, and that was after applying SPF 15 & 23 all week. The sun has been intense. And though it was peeling, it was just a single layer unlike some years past. We were heading down for breakfast even before the clock struck 9am. We ate at the Isla Contoy, the seaside/poolside restaurant. Once again, Jorge made sure that we had our table of choice, the one overlooking the turquoise sea and our favorite beach spot. Both of us were quieter, more lethargic than usual. I wasn’t sick, but felt a little strange. I worried in the back of my mind that I might be coming down with the bug, but thankfully that never materialized. We had our mimosas made with pineapple juice as the orange juice was reported to be sour. This, Jorge conveyed to us yesterday. We ate pretty much the same thing we’ve eaten all week. The biggest difference today was the much lower number of mimosas. I had only two, and Mindy only one. Back to the room to prep for another day on the beach. Yesterday we got information about snorkeling from Tony, one of several water sports guys combing up business along the beach. And while that still was an option, I didn’t feel as excited about it as I did Wednesday afternoon. Mindy was back in the room napping when I headed down to our favorite spot. I was determined to minimize my alcohol intake today on the beach. I decided to stick with water and Gatorade to help minimize dehydration if nothing else. I read for about an hour. I was still reading Descartes’ meditations. Next was Hobbes. I was anxious to move on. Mindy finally joined me on the beach. At some point she asked if anything was wrong. No, not really. Internally I felt a little tired and bored. I mean, how many days in a row can one sit on the beach in pure gluttony? The weather was once again fabulous, although if you believed the USA Today, we were getting thunderstorms all week. Funny! After I drank a big glass of Gatorade I began to get my energy back. I asked Mindy if she were still up for snorkeling. She was. We walked down to the water sport pavilion to inquire about the departure time. It was almost 1:30pm and the next trip left at 3:00pm. We made arrangements to join it. We paid $70 USD to take a boat from the hotel pier out to the reef to snorkel for an hour. I had already tried it just off the beach but the visibility was poor. As requested, we walked down at 2:50pm after securing our most precious belonging back in our room. Aside from my snorkel gear, I carried only a door key, credit card, and my waterproof digital camera. Just as we were about to board the boat, a guy almost out of nowhere asked to photo us as we prepared to depart for the trip. We allowed it, although I am always very weary of such things. I just don’t like to be or feel hustled. I knew he’d be waiting with photos upon our return. Turns out, it was just Mindy & I along with the crew of three: a captain and two assistants. We took a short boat ride out to the reef. I’d guess that we were no more than a quarter mile out. Just a slight chop to the water. They briefed Mindy on how to snorkel after she told them she’d never done it. I reminded her that we snorkeled in Riviera Maya. Regardless, she was uncomfortable and nervous. It was true that she’d never done something like this from a boat, or far away from shore. One of the young deck hands advised that we’d be swimming against a pretty stiff current. He brought a tow line and a life saver to help tug Mindy along. Over the side we went. Soon we were snorkeling away. It wasn’t but a minute or two into our adventure that one of the deck hands tapped me on the shoulder while pointing downward. He motioned for silence as if not to scare Mindy. Yep, it was a shark! It must’ve been about 5 feet long, but as he later mentioned, a fairly tame variety ( a Cat shark). He swam away from us. I kept an eye out for any friends, however. Our adventure was to last an hour. During that time we saw lots of very cool sea life. We saw a large spiney lobster that the deck hands tried unsuccessfully to prod out of his hiding place. We saw several barracuda, including one that had to be 3 feet long. We saw a few sting rays, too. And once again, the deck hands kept tempting fate by swimming to the ocean floor to stir up any sea life lurking just under it. A number of times they unearthed beautiful shells for us to see and touch. In addition to the above mentioned sea life, we saw oodles of beautiful tropical fish amongst the lovely coral formations. The last half of our adventure we were able to drift in the current. I was happy for that. I was tuckered. Plus, just like when diving, I grew ridiculously thirsty and my lips were burning from the saltwater. Our adventure was seemingly over in no time at all. Back at the dock we felt bad that we had no cash on hand to tip the very kind and youthful deck hands. They were more than gracious during our trip. And sure enough, the fella that snapped our photos was waiting for our return with a complete set of photos in hand. He wanted $10 USD or 150 pesos. I asked Mindy if she wanted them. She did. She went to our room to fetch some cash. From the experience, I gathered that the photo guy is not allowed to be on hotel property. He lurked just across the property line waiting anxiously for our return with cash. He had his small family with him too. It took Mindy almost 30 minutes to get the cash and then get change. Finally, we settled up. We headed back to our room to shower up for dinner. I was ravenously hungry. Mindy showered first while I completed Wednesday’s writing. We made plans to visit Poloma Bonita, the Mexican restaurant next door, although we weren’t 100% certain that it was opened for business. It was closed Monday night. It was just after 6pm when we walked out of the hotel for the restaurant next door. Yep, they were open but we were their only patrons, the first of the night I suspected. That’s a little unsettling but we stayed anyhow. After all, this place had an excellent reputation, at least it did some 11 years ago when I first visited Cancun. At our request, we were seated at an outside table over looking a garden first, then the Caribbean Sea. Very nice. I was nervous about ordering food in an otherwise empty restaurant but fought off the desire to split. We ordered appetizers, chili rellenos along with our entrée’s at the same time. We had only water to drink. Mindy ordered beef fajitas, and I ordered chicken enchiladas. They brought us fresh chip & salsa, too. And they were truly hot & fresh. Everything was good, even the special breads offered to us by Lucitia. The bread came with two types of butter rolled up in corn husks. We got out of there for roughly $60 USD. We wanted to walk to the seaside pergola at Dreams resort next door, but as we entered through their open air entrance we were stopped and asked for our room number. When we shared that we were staying next door we were immediately turned away. Oh yeah? We joked that we could simply walk the beach and access their area but didn’t. Instead, we walked back to our hotel which is far nicer anyhow. We ended up sitting in the lobby bar listening to a piano band play. The lobby is spacious and absolutely gorgeous. But sadly, we were the only guests there. Mindy ordered a margarita on the rocks and I ordered this multi-rum drink. As we sipped our drinks, the kind server brought us some light snacks of nuts and veggies. Unfortunately, we were too full to enjoy the lovely snacks. After finishing our drinks we headed back to our room. It was still before 8pm. We changed into our comfy bed clothes and turned on the TV catching some CNN, BBC, and NBC. We ended up watching 30 Rock. My guess is that we were asleep before 9:30pm.