Inland, Dreaming of Waves

Monday, February 26, 2007

Today it was too choppy to go diving. We snorkeled in the bay in the morning and afternoon, but it was hard to see because of all the sand in the water. I did swim in a school of smallish fish—possibly snapper. There were a lot of them, and the pelicans and the terns were feasting on them. I saw black urchins near the few rocks in the bay, a pufferfish, some black fish, and brain coral.

We rented two ancient 1-speed bikes and rode into Akumal and ate Lucy’s famous shrimp tacos for lunch. We also had two of her empanadas, which were good. They had a problem with their electricity, so we didn’t get to try her homemade ice cream. We tried to exchange money, but the exchange was closed, so we went to Turtle Bay Café and got chayagua/chayagra (a drink from a local plant that tastes green and sweet) and ice cream. Then we rode back home.

Pretty much all we did this entire week was dive, eat, sleep and get from one place to another.

We went back into town later to get our laundry and discovered that the Mercado de Akumal was closed. We went to pick up our laundry, and the woman joked, “No ticket, no ropas” (clothes). I asked her why the market had closed and she would only say, “Problemas.” I wonder if that meant, “None of your business!”

We took a taxi to Akumal Pueblo (across the highway, where many of the workers live). The car’s windows were dirty inside and out and the driver had Mexican music on really loud.

We went to El Ultimo Maya for dinner. The menu didn’t look very “Mayan” and the waitress didn’t speak English. She took our order, but then she came back and kept saying something about “veinte minutos” (twenty minutes) that we couldn’t quite understand. When I said to her, “Le entiendo” (I don’t understand you), she kept repeating herself. It didn’t occur to me until that I should have specified that I didn’t understand certain words she was saying because I don’t speak Spanish very well. This dinner really taught me how poor my Spanish is. Eventually we got our food—possibly even sooner than 20 minutes. The shrimp cocktail was good, the fajitas were average, and Todd’s rice milk with tamarind was good.

Afterward, we walked back down the hill to the taxi station. It was a very different atmosphere from the other side of the highway. Here I really felt like a foreigner. I’d like to have spent time there in the day, but I wouldn’t want to go there alone at night, with all the (rather short) men hanging out on street corners.

posted by Price of Silence @ 8:51 PM