Hola y bienvenidos.
First off, I added a lot of photos to the Mexico link to the right under Images. If you do anything, at least check those out. I put captions on most of them to help fill in some detail. If you are bored at work and trying to kill time in the afternoon, read on. I've written two short stories further below.
Right now I am writing from the El Cid Resort Marina near Puerto Morelos. It's a quiet little port town on the mainland between Cancun and Playa del Carmen. Since there are no public marinas or good anchorages down south at Playa or Cozumel, Stan was kind enough to keep the boat here for a few days and gave me shore leave so I could head overland and take the ferry to Cozumel to do some scuba diving. Also clearing immigration here is a lot easier than further down south, so Stan was ok with that too. We plan to leave here tomorrow continuing south to Belize. No marinas along the route so we will sail all day and then anchor at night for a few days until we get to San Pedro, Belize. The icing on the pastel is that the Mexican Navy is trying to out do their welcome by giving us a generous send off. We were informed from the customs/immigration officer at the marina that the Navy will be performing maritime exercises with live rounds down south. They were nice enough to give us the coordinates to make sure we avoided those areas. Follow along on my Spot Tracker. Should be entertaining.
As for the Yucatan, between Isla, Cancun, Cozumel, and Playa del Carmen, Isla Mujeres is easily the winner. The rest are tourist meccas overrun by luxury accommodations, an endless amount of hawkers, and expensive prices although Cozumel is worth it for the diving. Isla does cater to tourists but only has one main street with tourist shops and restaurants. A block away things have a more local feel. Quaint and tidy cobblestone one-way roads criss-cross the islands north and south towns that are filled with brightly painted concrete houses. The locals use scooters as SUV's packing their family of four on them while the tourists sit stretched out on their rented golf carts. The only other cars on the road are the red taxi cabs I am guessing were bought on overstock.com from the video game "Frogger". They always posed a challenge when crossing any street especially after a few tequila shots, taken by either the driver and/or the pedestrian.
I will admit, the island lifestyle is easy to get used to especially in Central America where siestas are a welcome habit. The two things for me that took some initial adjustment are the native species.
Story #1 - Iguanas
Iguanas blend into almost everything on a tropical island. With the brains of a beauty pageant contestant and the looks on par with the creature from the black lagoon, they have at least been blessed with an all mimicking camouflage which has helped them survive where others have failed along the evolutionary process. While the pedestrian walks innocently down the street unknowingly approaching a sunning iguana, the iguana will sit as still as possible hoping the large creature approaching him will change direction or stop coming closer. The iguana holds his ground until he realizes his bluff has been called. The distance they allow one to approach is in direct correlation to the size of the iguana. The larger the iguana, the closer they let you get. This is then in direct correlation to how far the human will jump upon seeing a large reptilian object move around his feet. One of God's little jokes. Usually the unaccustomed human chooses the flight response of the "flight/fight" instinct jumping far enough to end up in the street trapped among the red taxi cabs in his own game of the aforementioned "Frogger" while the iguana scurries off to the best vantage point to see if it's game over for the human or if he gets out of the street safely to advance to the next level.
Scene of the attack
As the wiser of the two species, I assumed, I chose a prime location for my office/siesta location/reading nook (pictured above). It was a hammock at the marina comfortably situated between 2 palm trees in the shade well above the ground, roaming territory of the iguana. One afternoon while swaying between reading and snoozing, I felt a dull thud on my thigh. I almost thought nothing of it thinking it was just some inanimate object that fell from the tree above, but as humans are inquisitive by nature, I looked over the top of my book to see a foot long iguana staring back at me. Dear God! They were now attacking from the sky. They were smarter than I thought and accurate enough to land near one's man-hood. I had under estimated my enemy. This was his home turf after all. I immediately sat up as best as I could in a hammock and gave him a quick swat strong enough to clear him from the vicinity of my crotch. After the hammock stopped swinging wildly and my heart steadied, I looked for my adversary who seemed to have vanished into thin air. Apparently they also have the skills of a disappearing ninja behind a smoke screen.
After scanning the area to see if any bystanders were able to get some enjoyment from my apparent epileptic fit, none of which were so lucky, I went back to reading. About 5 minutes passed before one of the other boat owner's dogs, Kiba, came up to say hello. Kiba was always very friendly but something was different about his mannerism. The hair was up on his back, tail at attention, and stiff as a statue pointing towards something directly under me. I thought somehow this crazy iguana was back for more. I looked on the ground under me and saw nothing. I sat up a bit and felt something odd between myself and the hammock. Sitting up a bit more I realized what a precarious situation I was now in. Somehow when I "swatted" the iguana off my thigh, he had just haphazardly fallen off and ended up at the base of the "V" my hammock was making where I in turn sat on him. He in turn felt it was as safe a place as any especially since his maneuverability was limited. However now with a brittany hunting dog staring him in the face with only the mesh of a hammock separating him from his demise and just enough room to move since I had sat up more....well you can imagine the chaos that ensued. Cue the dust bowl you see in cartoon drawings of the Tasmanian Devil fighting Elmer Fudd.
After the dust settled, I was strung up in the hammock like a Mexican puppet that you've let a group of 4 year olds play with all afternoon. The iguana's evolutionary chain ended after he became a chew toy for the dog. The dog got bored after his toy stopped playing back and decided that all the activity deemed him a dip in the water while the owner came around to find his dog a soaking wet mess.
Lesson learned: Don't ever underestimate the intelligence of a beauty pageant contestant.
Story #2 - Crabs
Crab traps (holes) litter the ground at the marina
Another pre-historic creature that calls Isla it's home is the land crab. Walking around the marina's boardwalk, it's hard not to notice the large holes scattered throughout the property (pictured above). I inquired as to what these holes were from and was told crabs. I was also told they were harmless aside from the holes being ankle breakers at night. I pictured small harmless crabs that had just continuously dug out one hole until it was the size of a human head. Wrong. These things needed every centimeter of the hole they dug to fit their body and one huge claw inside (crab pictured below drinking a Dos Equis)
Drinking buddy... after a bit of convincing
During the day these "harmless" creatures are hard to spot however the crabs come out at night, to poorly quote the hit Whodini song. Walking off the security of the raised boardwalk at night is a bit unnerving to say the least. You can hear the crabs moving before you can see them. So you know they are there and just hoping they are not moving toward you.
Once again I was in my acclaimed hammock reading at dusk. A couple other guys came out to the deck to drink some beers and one pointed out that a couple of crabs had actually made there way into human territory and were up on the deck. I began to look around for these crab conquistadors who were trying to claim our land as there own when I noticed one of them had the bookmark I laid on the ground in his massive left claw and was slowly making his way back to his lair to writhe in the glory of his new bounty.
Well I had been duped by one of the native species already so this time thought it would be worthwhile to employ the help of the other two non-native bystanders, Jethro and Larry. They were from Louisiana so I was sure this wasn't their first rodeo plus if anything at least there was safety in numbers in case this crab called in for reinforcements. With the drinking they had already done in town, we devised a pretty intricate plan to contain the crab and retrieve the bookmark from his cold, dead, claw if force became necessary. If we would've actually been smart, we would have set up the video camera to record our antics in trapping this crab as it would've made us $10,000 richer on America's Funniest Videos.
When facing off against most wild animals be it a bear, a dog, a rabid rabbit, they will usually move in a back and forth manner when facing you. When facing a crab, the natural motion of a face off can be thrown out the window. When staring into the tracheal beady eyes of a crab and getting ready to make your move toward him, instead of the crab retreating backwards as one would expect, they scuttle quickly to the right or left starting an unpredictable arc that continues until they are behind you like a master jujitsu technician. Again one of God's little jokes as the 3 of us are now in a competition to see who can jump the highest and not scream while the crab cuts around us each time we take turns trying to block it from entering it's home base.
Finally, our numbers paid off and it makes just enough of a misstep for Jethro to give it a clean whack to its head that scalps the top part of his shell off. Humans 1 - Crabs 0. I still had to muster up some courage to wrench my bookmark from his tightened grip and did so with the assistance of my flip flop. In the end we shared a beer with the poor fellow as he did put up one heck of a fight and I had to remember what page I was on so I could put my bookmark back to its intended use.
Lesson learned: Beer bottles are handy in bar fights and in retrieving one's bookmark.
