Take a couple of episodes of Gilligan’s Island, a Jimmy
Buffet 8-track album and sea water, grind it all up in a blender, serve it in a
dirty glass ringed with salt or detergent - or something you REALLY don’t want
to know anything about - and take yourself a big ol’ sip. The resulting
head-trip might approach the first stop on our final leg north up the Costa
Maya. Let’s just call it the Leaky Tiki Slightly Freaky Jungle Hotel where
every day is a sun-blasted blur and every night a bug fiesta with you as the
main course.
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| Leaky Tiki staff hard at work |
Instead of the Gilligan’s Island crew, we had Bob 1 and Bob
2. Bob 1, a true Buffet-style character right out of Margaretville, was the
“skipper” of the Leaky Tiki while Bob 2 was a former guest who somehow shipwrecked
himself at the hotel and ended up working for Bob 1 (yeah, we didn’t quite get
that either, but there you go). And then, rounding out the cast of characters
was a congenial, if odd, gringo staff, and a lone Mexican whose principle
occupation appeared to be rescuing the place from complete collapse on a daily
basis. Psst, could somebody please
send an SOS to the Professor on the coconut phone?
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| SS Tits Up (Leaky Tiki kayak) |
We arrived at the Leaky Tiki with high hopes that the long
deferred desire to lie beneath swaying palms between soaks in the warm ocean
would finally be realized. We told ourselves that we would, as the brochure
promised, be able to kayak and snorkel at the nearby reef, sip pina coladas and
consume large quantities of Guacamole chips and dip. Paradise, right? Naah, not
quite.
Off the bat we were informed that there were masks, well
maybe one mask, no snorkels, but possibly a swim fin, somewhere. Furthermore,
getting to the reef was a tad problematic: one of the kayaks had no hatch
covers to speak of and the other, a sit-on-top, had a puncture that had been
repaired by, swear to God, a wine cork. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were served
mess hall style and if you didn’t like what was on the menu (way, way
overpriced and in US dollars no less) well too bad for you. Have a beer (for
three bucks American) or bacon, bacon, bacon. For some reason, there was a lot
of bacon. Just to stir in a soupcon
of crisis mode to the whole affair, the generator that powered all of the
electrics would, now and then, give out a fart-like noise and shudder to a
stop, halting all things electric e.g. fans, refrigeration and contact with the
outside world, until one of the Bobs got around to fixing it. HEEELLLLPPPP.
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| Eric rests, somewhat uncomfortably in our Leaky Tiki cabana |
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| Leaky Tiki lifeguard |
But wait, back up a second. The Leaky Tiki did have great
hammocks and if your notion of a true getaway was to wrap yourself in one and
sway to the breeze while reading a summer novel and do
absolutely nothing else, this would have been the place for you. In
fact, most of the guests seemed perfectly happy with the whole arrangement, and
spent a good deal of the daylight hours sprawled like
pollos rostizado under a fiery sun. At night there were
alcohol-fueled chess matches and lively bar conversations until the wee hours.
To each his own.
But, for us, after a couple of days of swimming and beach
walking and reading and swimming and beach walking and so on and so on…we voted
ourselves off the island. We simply needed more to do and time was a-wastin’.
We managed to arrange a taxi rescue and bid adios
to the Leaky Tiki. We were back on the trail of our lost paradise.
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| Salsa lessons! A happy dance on Tulum's gringo beach |
Next stop, Tulum, which, at first, did not seem to hold the
key to our fantasy either, owing to the flocks of gringo tourists that swarmed
the (once again) overpriced and trendy beach hotels and restaurants. Eric
definitely hit a low point after a late lunch in a throbbing trance-dance beach
bar that seemed a million miles away from the primitive, jungle Yucatan of the
past few weeks.
Fortunately, we had booked ourselves into a Tulum Pueblo
hotel, the Posada Luna Del Sur and, thanks to that, our luck began to change.
First of all, the hotel was family-run by Tom Evans, an expat, and his many
Mexican relatives. The place was spotlessly clean – not that we are overly
picky about that, but it helps the morale quite a bit not to have to share
meals and beds with buggy critters. Tom was the “dream” hotel proprietor. He
knew every great place to eat, every worthwhile sight, tour or activity within
taxi distance of Tulum. He solved problems, made tour and taxi arrangements,
visited with every single guest, and altogether insisted upon taking complete
care of us. It felt much more like visiting a friend than staying at a hotel.
The best was yet to come!
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| Artemio to the rescue! |
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| Eric & friends at Artemio's favorite Chamico's beach |
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| Eric at Artemio's favorite cenote |
Tom, through his connections with the taxi drivers in town
hooked us up with Artemio, a local cab driver with whom we immediately bonded.
Good-natured, energetic, curious, adventurous Artemio was a 48-year old
ex-military man who took up cab driving after retiring from the service. He was
as eager to learn English as we were to expand our Spanish so many of the cab
drives were more like roving classrooms. We were comfortable enough together to
poke fun at our language mistakes, crack jokes, and learn some of the details
of each other’s lives. Artemio took us to his favorite cenote where we all swam
together in wonderful clear blue water and then to his favorite beach, which
was one of the best swimming beaches of the entire trip. This was more like it!
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Lynn's 69th birthday!
The days wound down quickly and we began to cast about for
the last few adventures we could squeeze in before the inevitable return to
stateside life. Through Tom, Lynn
had booked us a trip with a Yucatan Outdoors kayak company working out of the Sian Ka’an
Biosphere just below Tulum. The trip had been set up to coincide with her
birthday on the 24th. Alas, the night before, Eric went down hard with a
vicious case of tourista. Rather than
postpone, Lynn was persuaded to do the tour alone.
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| Guide, Emiliano, taking a photo of Lynn in the Mangroves |
It turned out to be a dream
trip, complete with mangrove island snorkeling while rosette spoonbills swirled
overhead, excellent and knowledgeable guides, loving German Shepherd
companions, dinner under a brilliant canopy of stars and even a special
birthday surprise – a nearby crocodile that decided to have a swim at the exact
same time as Lynn! But the festivities did not end there. Lynn returned to the
hotel to find, thanks to Tom and his staff, the king-sized bed done up as a
birthday banquet with chocolates, rose petals, champagne, oh and some big guy
curled up in fetal position doing his best to be festive and continent.
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| Close encounter with a sea turtle |
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| Tulum ruin from our fishing lancha |
At last, sadly,
we were down to one final vacation day. At the suggestion of Luis, another taxi
driver and member of Tom’s extended family circle, we booked a “turtle tour” -
a snorkeling excursion to see the sea turtles out at the reef near the old
Tulum ruins. As it happened, it was a windy, wavy, day punctuated by
rain squalls. But, as we were determined to make an all-out effort to peg the
fun meter one last time, we climbed into the small
lancha and roared off with our own personal captain and guide. The
water trip included a seaward visit to the Tulum site, which was nothing short
of amazing, especially as we tried to take pictures from a violently rocking
boat. We watched huge waves crash into the cliffs below the temples and tried
to follow the guide’s (shouted) explanation, in Spanish, of the genesis and
architecture of the Mayan city.
That experience alone was worth the price of the tour (12
bucks apiece), but we were just getting started. Ignoring the rain and bracing
for the alarming plunges and leaps of the little craft, we made it to the reef
area, donned our gear and leapt over the side of the boat. We huddled with our
guide, checked gear and ducked below the surface into a bustling aquarium world
of fish, manta rays, and several species of gorgeous sea turtles.
The turtles
made their appearances in a sudden fashion, clustered in small groups,
seemingly curious about these new visitors with funny-looking faces. They were
not shy. At one point, Eric, while studying a retreating manta ray, felt a soft
touch on his belly that slid up to his chest. A turtle was directly below him,
just passing by and saying “hello” with a casual flipper. Eric laughed with delight
and tried to tell Lynn all about it while underwater with snorkel in mouth,
which more or less sounded like “awk, awk, waka, awk, wak” but it didn’t
matter, she understood exactly.
Then, just like that, it was over. All gone. In the morning,
there were heavy goodbyes and hugs for Tom, Artemio, and everyone at the Luna Del Sur whom we had come to know in such a short time.
Then “boom” bus, motel, airplane. At
this moment, we are somewhere over the Rockies. Lynn is lolling back and forth
trying to sleep and Eric is tapping out these last few words of thanks to all
of you who have journeyed with us, offering encouragement and wonderful
comments. No better way to end this than to say “
Muchas gracias,
companeros.”
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| Flying home |
-The
End-
