NAME THAT FISH
We
got up at 9 on Monday, which was an achievement considering we’d gone to bed at
2:30. Christy was sore, sunburned, and
hungry. We dropped $47 on the hotel’s
breakfast buffet, which was good, but not THAT good. Afterwards, we faced a dilemma. We needed to disassemble Christy’s bike and
pack it for travel. Christy didn’t think
she could do it, I have no mechanical skills, and the representative from the
local bike shop was nowhere to be seen.
We
inquired at the front desk, and they told us they’d send someone up to our
room. Ricardo arrived a few minutes
later. I don’t think he’d ever taken a
bike apart before, but somehow he managed.
We got all of the parts back in the box, and sighed with relief. Now we could enjoy the rest of our final day
on Cozumel without having to worry.
At
the beginning of our trip, we decided to name our stuffed salmon after the
person that had the biggest impact on our trip.
When we bought the salmon in Alaska, we named him Pikatti,
which is Eskimo for “companion”.
However, since then, we had decided to add a name with local flavor each
time we took him on a trip. Initially
Christy wanted to name him Guadalupe, while I was pushing for Jesus (Hey
Zeus). What would Hey Zeus do? After Ricardo solved our bike-packing
problem, the answer was obvious. Our
salmon’s name became Pikatti Ricardo.
We
spent the rest of the morning on the beach.
I did some more snorkeling, but Christy declined to join me. She wasn’t too enthusiastic about marinating
her wounds in salt water. This was too
bad, as she missed out on some great snorkeling. Early on I spotted a shipwreck of some sort. It was about 20’ deep, so it was hard to get
a good look at it. I made a couple of
free dives to investigate. I’m not sure
what kind of ship it was, but it looked like it might’ve been a barge. The highlight though was the vast school of
fish that was swimming around it.
We
had lunch and then made a second attempt to visit the Mayan ruins of San Gervasio. I was a
little surprised that Christy was up for it, but we both felt like we should
check it out while we were there. We
drove back over there, and arrived before closing time. We paid two entrance fees before roaming the
former Mayan city. The ruins of San Gervasio weren’t as spectacular as Tulum,
but they were still nice. Best of all,
there were only a few other people around.
On the other hand, San Gervasio is in the
jungle, and there were plenty of mosquitoes.
The bugs were miserable. We both
had flashbacks to our July, 2003, trip to Yellowstone.
The
highlight of San Gervasio was probably the temple of Ixchel, the Mayan Goddess of Fertility. Now, I know what you are thinking. The temple for the Goddess of Fertility is
located in Mexico? Who would’ve guessed
it? Perhaps the locals should ease up on
the prayers and offerings there. They
seem to be working too well! Rumor has
it that OctoMom lives nearby.
We
enjoyed our visit to San Gervasio, but would’ve liked
more time there. San Gervasio
is more spread out than Tulum, and Christy wasn’t
moving very fast thanks to her blisters and sunburn.
We
returned to the resort in time for Christy’s massage appointment. Then we went back to town so Christy could
return her timing chip to the race officials.
On our way there, we drove down a road we hadn’t traveled
previously. It was dark, and I didn’t
see the speed bump until we were almost on it.
I slammed on the brakes, which had virtually no effect, and we nailed
the speed bump at about 25mph. We heard
a loud “bang”, and suddenly the car sounded awful. I looked in the rearview mirror, and spotted
our muffler in the middle of the road.
Oops.
I
took a moment to enjoy the exquisite irony of the moment. Gringo goes to Mexico, rents a car, and drops
the muffler. Maybe I should’ve cut some
grass for an encore? I pulled over,
retrieved the muffler, and jammed it back into place. Where’s the duct tape when you need it?
At
this point, we felt like our luck with this car was running out. We were leaving first thing the next morning,
so we decided to return the car early.
First though, we had to get gas.
We drove around for a bit looking for a gas station. We finally found one, but the line for the
pumps was a block long. When did Jimmy
Carter get elected President of Mexico?
We
eventually got gas and drove the car back to CP Rentals. There they tried to charge me an extra $40
because the car was an “upgrade”. An upgrade from what?
A burro?
I pointed out that the car had virtually no brakes, and that it looked
like someone had sacrificed a goat to Ixchel (or made
some other, equally disgusting offering to Ixchel),
in the back seat. We argued back and
forth, but didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.
Finally I decided that we should just agree to disagree. I gave them the $60 we owed (having already
paid $40 up front) and walked away.
At
this point we were exhausted. It was
dinner time, but we were both sick of Mexican food. As we walked through town, Christy confessed
that what she really wanted was a pizza.
She had tried to order one from room service after the race, but they
had run out. As luck would have it, we
passed a Pizza Hutt 2 blocks later. This
was a pitiful way to spend our final meal on Cozumel, but we didn’t care. We enjoyed our pizza before catching a taxi
back to the resort.
The Spanish Word of the day is “Fecundidad”. “Fecundidad” translates to “fetility”, as
in, “There doesn’t appear to be any shortage of fecundidad
in Mexico”.
SALIDA
We
got up at 7:30 the next morning and took a taxi to the ferry. Christy was finished with any sort of
athletic endeavor, so we hired a guy with a cart to haul our luggage to the
boat. We arrived early, which was a good
thing. We boarded the 9am ferry at 8:40,
which left right on time at 8:45. It’s a
good thing we didn’t arrive any less early!
If there’s one thing I learned on our trip to Mexico, it’s that anything
scheduled for a specific time could start up to 30 minutes before or after that
time. Actually, if there’s anything I
learned on our trip to Mexico, it’s this:
Don’t rent a car! Although I will
say that you haven’t really lived until you’ve operated a motor vehicle in
Mexico.
The
ride was smooth. We did have some
excitement at the far side though.
Christy’s bike case was nowhere to be found. What had happened to it? It finally turned up in the back of the boat,
along with one other bike.
We
found another guy with a cart, who hauled our luggage out to the parking
area. We were 90 minutes early for our
shuttle to the airport, so we lounged around and Christy did a little
shopping. Our shuttle arrived 10 minutes
late, but delivered us to the airport in plenty of time. Sadly, we had to pay the full $100 baggage
fee for Christy’s bike on the return. Our
flight back was smooth, and we made it home in time for me to pack for my
business trip to Utah the next morning.
Christy
has already signed up for the 2010 Cozumel Ironman. She’s looking forward to going back and
trying to qualify for the world championships in Hawaii. I’m not sure yet if I’ll join her on this
trip though. Christy’s mother may go
with her instead. Meanwhile, we still
have next summer’s trip to plan. We’ve
narrowed down our choices to a couple of possibilities. I’m not yet ready to divulge our probable
destination, but here’s a hint: Knowing
Spanish wasn’t necessary on Cozumel, but it will be there.
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Please remember to Leave No Trace!