Monthly Archives: June 2012

Are you for scuba?

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Remember this scene from the Ben Stiller classic “Along Came Polly”? I wish scuba diving was this glamorous, hilarious, and romantic.

I, however, learned how to scuba dive in a monsoon.

I’ve been a bad gringa — I’ve been MIA because I’ve been busy studying for my PADI Open Water Scuba certification, which I started last week in the midst of a drowning tropical disturbance. That’s the charm of Mexico, which I’ve stated before: something always has to go awry first.

It started at 6:45 a.m. on Thursday, when I awoke and saw the ominous sky, but decided to keep on with my planned scuba class. I couldn’t bear the thought of staying indoors all day long, listening to the rain, bored. I hailed a taxi in the rain — there was two inches of water puddling the street! — and headed out for my lesson, first in the pool, and then in open water.

When I arrived to my scuba locale, the rain was sweeping in in huge sideways blasts, and I took safety under a leaky palapa, watching the lightning over the Caribbean. This bad weather wasn’t going anywhere, so defying every safety principle I ever learned, I was going to plunge into a swimming pool with a big metal tank strapped to my back in the middle of a lightning storm. Perfect!

Also along for the ride was a super-cute couple from Dallas who’d been married for 23 years. In between lessons, they told me how they get remarried each year in Vegas, and gave me some “insider secrets” to marriage success. Armed with barrels full of new information, we all hopped in the pool and after learning some basic scuba skills from our instructor, Clemente, we headed down under to take our first underwater breaths.

It was crazy! And exhilarating. Fear is there, but the air comes.

I was trying to concentrate on everything new I was taking in, but I kept imagining swimming off in the pool, all the time underwater, breathing and alive. The feeling was miraculous, and I couldn’t get enough.

But there were a few little issues. I’m not a technical gizmo girl; I’m a successful airhead, and proud of it. I can operate simple machinery: a computer, a cell phone, and sometimes a car. The bells and whistles on the BCD (our scuba jacket) threw me off — valves, hoses, buttons galore.

But I succeeded amazingly at the other so-called “difficult” skills — taking off your mask underwater, putting it back on, and clearing it of water. Donezo! It was actually incredibly easy.

We were ready for our first dive. Typically, we’d do a shallow beach dive, but we were in the midst of a monsoon, remember? Visibility was awful. So we hauled our gear on the boat and headed out to 40 feet of water for a real, true dive. My first dive. I don’t think the fear registered because I was in a bit of shock.

We had to assemble our gear ourselves. Talk about trusting yourself, and your equipment. I’d assembled my tank one time only, and that was about two hours before the boat ride. A lot can happen in two hours. Like, uh, forgetting.

But with Clemente’s help, I got it together. I turned on my air. I lifted my weight belt and slung it around my waist, then I backed into the BCD, arms through the straps, buckled in. We were ready to go.

One by one we stepped off boat. Once everyone was in place, Clemente signaled our descent. We deflated our BCDs and slowly started to sink. I was breathing underwater, in the Caribbean! Then I looked up and saw the surface and thought: I am breathing underwater, in the Caribbean.

I panicked.

I signaled to Clemente that I was freaking out and wanted to go up. But he swam to me and — there is no talking underwater, of course — signaled to me to calm down, to breathe. I didn’t want to abort my mission. I wanted to succeed. I focused on the bottom, which was now close. I focused on my breathing. My heartbeat began to slow. I had pushed the fear (mostly) away. I was scuba diving!

We did another dive later that afternoon, and on Friday, still in full-on monsoon weather, we dove to 60 feet. I swam right over a nurse shark. I saw a bright green moray eel. A giant sea turtle. Lots of parrotfish, grouper, and barracuda. A lobster!

After some skills tests in the water, and some real tests (see above), I’m a scuba diver!

I promise wetsuit photos are forthcoming. I didn’t want to break out the camera in the rain!

On The Wild Side

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The famed other side of Cozumel — the roguish, older brother of the more developed, touristy mainland-facing coast — is a must-do while on the island. If you haven’t yet paid off the Mexican policia for a rollick on a deserted beach with your lover, well then you haven’t lived. (But that’s a story for the memoir, folks!)

The east side is, simply put, gorgeous. One long highway threads south from the hotel zone, then rounds the base of the island back north again. The route’s peppered with ramshackle bars serving buckets of ice cold Sol and fried fish. But you need a scooter or a car to get there, like our glamorous rental, this cherry red hatchback.

After getting a bit lost, we made our way to Mezcalito’s, plopped down in a hammock, and ordered a bucket of beer. I felt like I was a young Milla Jovovich in Return to the Blue Lagoon, a movie I happened upon when I was 10 or so, and which helped solidify my fascination with crystalline water and capable, naked island men.

Nothing to do but have good conversation, practice my Spanish with my lover, and the most important part of it all: relaxing.

After a few beers it was time to get our toes wet. We drove to a beach, parked in the median, and had ourselves a time. The waves were a bit ferocious, as is the norm, but the water was so crisp, and so clear.

Return of the Mack

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The island nights are strangely hotter than the days. Night falls like a curtain over the sun and yet no reprieve for us. We walk everywhere, hoping each time will be different, leaving the house sleek and groomed and arriving to our destination unkempt messes. If we’re lucky, there’s a strong breeze to cool us down; if we’re super lucky, there’s a light rain shower.

Last night we had both. Stacy and I stepped out for a bite — we had no specific destination, just a gnawing hunger — and that’s when Nilo pulled up on his scooter, carrying — of course — two sixers of Heineken. Dinner plans abandoned.

“You girls,” he said, popping open two bottles in the blink of an eye. “Come see the house.”

If we’d attempted to say no, Nilo would’ve found a way to lure us anyhow. Resistance is futile. Plus, I’d missed the old guy. He’s got swagger. Stacy doesn’t share my affinity for strangers, but I have a history of moving to foreign places and living beside charming men who help me adjust to my new life. (A Bostonian named Tex plied me with rides to the grocery store, homemade chili, and even weed when I relocated to New England.)

Nilo unlocked the door to an empty white room with beautiful high ceilings and a checkered tile floor. No furniture, just a staircase leading to the rest of the house. A wooden cross hung over a fireplace.

“You meet my daughter,” Nilo suggested. “She’s fifteen.”

“Victoria!” he called, and out stepped Nilo’s beautiful daughter, not even batting a lash at the site of her papa with two random American girls. His son even materialized minutes later too, and showed us the new Converse he’d just purchased.

We sat out on the open-aired veranda and talked. The breeze was nice and Nilo was on fire with the audience he so craved. “I told you about Isla Mujeres,” he said.

I nodded. Isla Mujeres and Holbox, two close islands, are in the midst of whale shark season, and during our last meeting with Nilo he’d suggested taking us. “Whale sharks?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “My other work.”

“What do you do?” I asked.

“I paint the pictures for the presidential candidate on the boat,” he said, handing us t-shirts and posters of PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto.

Mexico’s national election is a mere two weeks away, and all over the island are pictures plastered of Pena Nieto. Most of the folks I’ve talked to will be voting for dark horse Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, but Nilo will vote for Pena Nieto “because he pays me.” Stacy is going to cast her non-existent vote for Pena Nieto, too, because she, and hordes of other women, appreciate his handsomeness more than his politics. Stacy thinks he resembles a Mexican JFK Jr.

“You come with me to the mainland,” he told us. “I do my work; they ask me what I want, I tell them a hotel, we stay there for days.”

Oh, Nilo.

It began to rain and we headed indoors. Nilo’s kids readied for a night out and pleaded with their papa for money. He handed Victoria $100 pesos and gave her a strict curfew of 11.

We prodded Nilo to show us his Olympic memorabilia, and he emerged with a bag of medals, which we appropriated for an impromptu photo shoot.

Freestyle 1st Place: Nilo Dzib

True love

A little drunk and even hungrier, we bid Nilo farewell, and he held onto Stacy a little too long. It was her last night on the island and despite his pleadings and charms, she’d refused each one of his marriage requests.

I promised Nilo I’d see him when he returned from the mainland a few days later, and we’d do it up cantina-style at Las Tortugas.

We hoofed it to the Oxxo to buy beer for Stacy’s goodbye party at the condo. Without enough time for a sit-down dinner before the party, we lit the pilot in the oven and cooked a frozen pizza in despair. It was just the right amount of post-Heineken grease to carry us through the next several hours of fiesta!

Dinner at Casa Mission

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Qué romántico!

This was the sunset from Cozumel Wednesday night when I decided to take Stacy on our very own ladies’ date night to one of my favorite places on the island: Casa Mission.

There are three mission restaurants in Cozumel: La Mission, Parrilla Mission, and the flagship Casa, complete with a tropical lawn, caged parrots, and ornate, colorful furniture straight from a Frida Kahlo biopic. It’s a bit touristy, but it’s the quintessential Mexican experience: mariachi, margaritas, mágico. Soon you’ll see why.

We donned black dresses and lipgloss, and the humidity even complied for a while — our individual manes enjoying an hour of glory each before molting into Mariah Carey and Farrah Fawcett (me).

La Casa en la noche

Queso fundido: Oh yes we did-o

Mar y tierra

Loose Gringa pre-Farrah hair

Lovely dinner date

 

After dinner, we stepped outside to take a tour of an on-site tequila factory. Alvaro led us through the process of digging the root of the blue agave plant, called a pineapple because it resembles a giant piña. The leaves are steamed, then Alvaro got all scientific and my head started spinning. Anyway, something special happens … and then TEQUILA!

Oh, Alvaro

The distilling process is really cool, because the tequila drips down the plant leaf and into a bottle on the floor. It doesn’t get more rustic and tempting than that. I was ready for a tasting.

It was honestly some of the best tequila in my life and, according to Alvaro, beat out all other tequilas in taste tests held in Chicago and San Francisco two years in a row! The aged bottle will run you around $100 USD, but it was so smooth I really considered dropping the coin.

As if I’m not using enough superlatives, just to prove how delicious and special that tequila was, I even spoke Spanish with the taxi driver the whole way home!

Imagine what I can do with a whole bottle!

Gracias a Casa Mission y nuestros meseros por una experiencia especial!

Adventures in Mega

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There are two grocery stores within walking distance from my condo: Chedraui and Mega. Chedraui is crowded, maybe a little more down and dirty, but in a pinch it does the trick; Mega, on the other hand, is a modern supercenter, and the locals liken it to Wal-Mart.

I headed out to do some hardcore shopping on Tuesday — the island has amazing food options, but I’m a gringa on a budget (and a diet), so I needed to re-center myself after a weeklong bender, and re-enter my arsenal of recipes and acquaint myself with the pristine stove in the ‘ol condo.

But even in a place like Mega, I’d be one naive girl to expect to find the same food in a USA grocery store. But what was I do to with a hankering for hummus, of all things? I prefer to make my own using drained canned garbanzo beans, but the frijole aisle — yes, there is a bean aisle — was devoid of canned beans. I knew it — nothing in Mexico is ever that convenient, which makes me appreciate the little things, and the Mexican way of life, even more. While I’ve been cooking for years, I’m a self-confessed shortcut lover, so I’d never actually soaked my own beans — until this week. Wednesday morning, I cooked the beans down, used half for a pasta salad, and will save the rest for hummus.

And of course I attempted my own pico de gallo. Not bad.

There’s also not a lot of options when it comes to milk. There’s no cold white jugs frosting in open refrigerators; instead, there’s boxed Parmalot. Luckily, I found myself some rice milk to use in coffee and cereal. And yogurt here? Let’s just say you can forget the tang and health benefits; Mexican yogurt is two molecules away from ice cream.

But on the upside of Mexican life, you can find amazing ingredients not common back home. Whole squid, octopus, head-on prawns. Prickly pear leaves called nopales look amazing, not that I’d even know where to even begin with those; real key limes, which, as we speak, a frozen key lime pie is setting in the freezer; and all sorts of fruit. Did you know there’s no lemons in Mexico? And that oranges here are green? It’s true. The mangoes and pineapples are fantastic, though.

And can you believe that somewhere in Mexico, my enterprising distant cousins founded a sugar substitute company? It makes sense though, us Sween(e)ys are totally sweet.

Even more fascinating than trying to find one’s country comforts is Latin American advertising. So much drama, so much flair. Behold.

 

Julio is always watching!

Once bitten, twice shy

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After a rooftop brunch at Prima on Sunday, we decided on a whim to hit the highway and headed out to Cozumel’s San Gervasio ruins. The island interior is a parched, windless stretch of roadway, lined with fraying buildings resting against jungle, and a rest stop that was actually called the “Pee Pee Station.”

San Gervasio on Sunday is free to Mexicans; but for us gringas, entry was around $3. It’s a long drive from the highway turn-off to the actual ruins. The dirt road is decorated with beautiful stone monuments and a border of rock formations, purportedly created by the aluxes (pronounced “ah-loosh-es”). Aluxes are mythical Mayan dwarfs who emerge at night from hiding to conduct their business and play tricks on humans. But they can also bring protection, if you bring them offerings; or they can bring harm, disease, and dead crops.

Once inside San Gervasio, we saw only a few other tourists — the site was very quiet. But not for long.

“The gods are mad at you,” Oscar told me, as the mosquitoes closed in.

I swatted and danced around, shaking the critters off. “You must pay in blood,” he said.

Were the aluxes out to get me? All my life I’ve been a mosquito magnet, but this was more than I could handle. This was revenge, I knew, because no one else was being attacked. A bite here and there, sure. But my arms and legs were so covered with mosquitoes that I couldn’t even walk, I was too busy swatting them away.

We made our way through the buildings, and I tried to keep my cool. We spotted several prehistoric iguanas bathing in the sun. Teams of butterflies — mariposas — and birds flitted around us from all directions. Beacons of hope, it seemed, but no: I itched and I writhed; I writhed and I itched. I was still under siege; we had to leave.

Nothing a refreshing pit-stop at the cantina can’t cure. We had tacos dorado, stuffed with chicken; ceviche; sopa de camaron; and alitas — chicken wings! We also sampled fried lionfish, which are hunted by scuba divers seeking to protect the reef from the poisonous and ravenous nonnative fish that has migrated to the island in recent years. There’s not a lot of meat to the lionfish, but they’re salty and delicious.

Tacos dorados

Ceviche and sopa de camaron

Fried lionfish!

 

Cocina economica

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It’s an unassuming place, outfitted with a little screened door, draped with lace curtain. A wooden sign reading abierto. But inside, the light filters through palms overhead and long-tailed lizards eye you behind fuchsia flowers. Il Giardino, it’s called, a cocina economica just down the road from where I’m living in Cozumel.

Cocinas economicas are household restaurants dotted all over Mexico. They’re cheap, comfortable, and popular because they serve up solid, from the soul, food. Maria both lives in and owns Il Giardino and offers nontraditional fare in the realm of jerk chicken and even pasta. A bit wore out on fish, I had a hankering for the jerk chicken, rice, and potato salad; Stacy ordered a spicy shrimp pasta. Both were lovely. We had bread and chimichurri sauce before the meal, and all this, and two Coca Colas, was $200 pesos. Can’t beat that.

This is going to be one of my mainstays.

The heat is on

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While dining locally, one never knows who they’ll meet. In this case, Nilo, an ex-Olympian sailor.

Stacy and I trekked last night to Las Tortugas, and within minutes Nilo was at our table, proposing marriage and telling us his life story. He participated in two Olympic games for sailing, and has traveled around the world. He even lived on Long Island, and likes to poke fun at people from New Jersey. Don’t we all?

It turns out, Nilo lives across the street from me. He has a boat, naturally, and maybe we’ll sail with him. Maybe.

Stacy and I ordered red snapper. Many Mexicans believe that Americans can’t handle their chiles, so when I ask for hot sauce, they chuckle, then watch me add it to my food and take a bite. “Too spicy? Too spicy?” the waiter asked me.

Just right, I told him. “I can handle my chile,” I boasted.

He disappeared briefly, and returned carrying a habanero pepper on a small plate. It was a challenge.

The waitstaff gathered around, laughing, waiting to see the American girl choke. But I didn’t. I ate the pepper, raw.

Once I was crowned Queen of Las Tortugas, Nilo regaled us with stories of seeing the Rolling Stones live in Winnipeg in 1984. We sang a drunken “Ruby Tuesday” and it couldn’t have been more perfect.

“I can’t believe you ate the chile,” Nilo told me afterward. “You know what chile is another word for here?”

 

La Isla Bonita

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Maybe I’m masochistic, definitely melodramatic, but I’ve always wanted to sprint through an airport, right as the plane is about to leave, and make it — just barely. And that really happened. Our flight from Boston to Atlanta was late departing due to repairs, and we had a very small window to connect with our flight to Cozumel. I was waving my ticket in the air like a madwoman. No way was I missing the flight to paradise.

Thank god my friend Stacy is here for two weeks to help me adjust to island life. I know, how hard can it be? But right before I left Boston, I received this fortune after sushi:

The Southerner in me loves a good prediction, ominous dream, psychic, horoscope … This trip will undoubtedly, and already has, changed my life forever. But the desire? Was it ever a secret?

Settling into the condo was easy. Out of the gate, the weather was immediately stick-to-your-skin hot. The breeze is like a hair dryer. This is the weather I love. We unpacked and walked to Chedraui, one of the island’s grocery stores, for beer, limes, papaya and mango, and of course, huevos:

That night, we went out for tacos with some friends on the island. In my dire hunger, I forgot to take pictures. But they were delicious; and the hot sauces! I can honestly say one of the reasons I’ve come to Mexico is the chile.

Tuesday was overcast and hot, so we met with Antonio and went to the beach. Of course I pried his mind for Spanish words about sex. How could I not? I am learning so much about the language and the metaphors; I desperately want to participate in this clever repartee. For instance, the Spanish sandwich torta is also a word for a woman’s derrier. And chile is another word for a man’s … you know. Almost certainly, I will get myself into trouble with this.

I made friends with a burro.

Refreshing splash accomplished, we headed to Fish Cantina for food and beer. Cantinas are spots where, so long as you drink, they will keep bringing you food, for free. We had shrimp soup, conch ceviche, a dish involving pork throat, which tasted oddly like Chinese food… Stacy ordered more ceviche; I opted for pescado al ajo.

I’ve been getting a bit panicky about being here for two months. After a few more days, I think I can finally exhale. My condo is great, and there’s a pool and an adults-only tanning roof. You know what that means: no tan lines!

Up on the roof.

Early drunken casualties.

I will survive.