Rachel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kleenexwoman) wrote2004-04-15 05:34 pm
kleenexwoman) wrote2004-04-15 05:34 pm
They all went down to Mexico
So I know that everybody is just dying to hear a day-by-day account of my vacation. Well, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET ONE!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
No, you are. Lucky you. Here it is.
Saturday: We wake up at 2 A.M. and go to Dunkin' Donuts. Once there, Mom gets a nice coffee and I debate religion with a group of young men who have been there all night. They give me a Jack Chick tract, for which I am profoundly grateful.
The airport is Detroit Metro, a place known for its gleaming modernity--no, I'm sorry, for its piles of dust while it attempts to attain gleaming modernity. Somehow, we manage to end up in the oldest part, which is a Very Seventies gate with lots of orange and brown seats. We are surrounded by college students, and I can only fervently hope that we are on a different plane.
After much ado with tickets, I fall asleep and as a result am not aware that we have taken off. I wake up over the Gulf of Mexico and am freaked out by the whitecaps.
We stand in Immigration for a while. The men stamping the passports seem to do it in a very professional way. It's almost like a performance, and it has a nice ring to it.
On the bus to the hotel, I notice a bodega in the middle of the jungle. It's about a mile from anywhere and is boarded up. This would make a good subject for an art project.
We get to the hotel, which is very large, and attempt to find a bar. Unfortunately, the designers of the hotel hate people and thus have made it so that in order to get to a spot thirty feet away, you have to walk a half a mile through staircases.
I decide to cultivate the skill of walking on water.
After a few piña coladas, we adjourn to the buffet and I eat more flan than is good for me.
Sunday: Easter! I celebrate by eating ham and eggs and taking a book on Gnosticism with me. We check out the compound--there's a bar in the pool. I mean, a bar, that you can swim up to and order a drink, in the pool. I consider this to be the highlight of Western civilization.
We take a very long walk around the resort. Mom is very happy, and sweat is running off me like Rincewind from an angry druid. I come from the land of the ice and snow; I am not meant for a Caribbean climate. It's a nice change, though.
We take a walk to the ruins (there are actually a few IN the resort) and guess completely wrong as to what they are. A Mayan sublet turns out to be an altar, and a Mayan altar turns out to be a Spanish chapel.
We see many, many lizards. Many lizards. Lots of em, yes oh yes.
We also check out the shoreline. There are a bunch of little snails, which we throw back into the ocean.
I notice a ruin and climb up some rocks to check it out. It's desolate and deserted and it doesn't seem like anyone has been here before. Unfortunately, my sense of intrepidness is ruined by a middle-aged man wrestling with a baby stroller in the middle of the stones.
Later, we go to the little beachfront and have lots of piña coladas. I inquire as to whether the man next to me likes getting caught in the rain as well. Unfortunately, he is Norwegian and does not catch the reference.
At the pool that night, Brian gets his toes nibbled by a peacock and Mom gets a Sombrero. Not the hat, but a drink. She lets me have a little of it. (It's gross.)
We play volleyball with a very nice young lady named Jessie and have dinner at an Oriental restaurant. It's free, 'cos we've got a Worry-Free vacation. I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn't like paying for things.
I later discover that I have a huge f'in sunburn. I don't know whether this is because sunscreen is just useless on my skin or whether it would have been worse if I hadn't glopped SPF 60 all over myself.
Monday: Xcaret day! Xcaret is an ecological park that you can get to by walking from the resort. We have a free pass for it.
It's a really cool place if you like animals. As we are walking to the park, Brian notices monkeys in the trees and we watch them eat fruit for a while. Monkeys are cool.
Animals we see:
Huggable, tiny sea turtles
Big-ass ancient sea turtles
Manatees that suck people's fingers
Hermit crabs that make little "deedly deedly deedly" sounds when they walk
Flounder fish, which have two eyes on one side of their head and are creepy
Flamingos. Lots of them. Mom likes this.
Sea urchins, or "pilluelos del mar" (I'm translating very roughly here)
After this, we check out the Underground River, which is only partially underground and has leetle baby fish in it. When we get out, the Caribbean sea is crashing against the breakers and the palm trees are shedding coconuts.
We go to a performance at a stadium.
This starts with a little Mayan girl coming out and singing. Eventually, priests and other little kids and stuff stand around her and give her flowers. It's in Spanish and the loudspeaker is scratchy, so I can't quite understand it, but it's probably stuff about cultural understanding. It's tolerable if you assume they're going to sacrifice her.
They play a game of Mayan rubberball, which involves large feathery headdresses and getting a ball through holes. Like basketball, basically. Then they play MAYAN FLAMING HOCKEY!!!!! WITH THE PUCK ON FIRE!!!!!
I suggest to Brian that he introduce this to his AZA group.
Later, they have a mildly disturbing play with the conquistadores. There is a swordfight. Afterwards, doves are released to show how the Mayans and Spaniards came to live in peace. I love revisionist history, don't you?
They do a rain dance.
After intermission, there are some weird mariachi songs and a pineapple dance. During a lasso dance, thunder breaks and lightning strikes and rain falls very, very hard. The roof leaks and the dancers seem to get upset. I blame it on the rain dance earlier.
There's no Pancho Villa revolution dance. Dammit.
Tuesday: We have to get up veeeeery early because we are going to Chichen-Itza, a Mayan ruin center. There is some trouble with the tickets and Mom yells at the ticket guy. He doesn't understand English, so I translate very badly. I think I may have ended up asking him to sleep himself a sandwich, I don't know.
We change busses at one point. The bus is called "Bus-Car" and I ask Brian what they're looking for. (This is a Spanish joke.) He hits me.
There are a lot of little Mexican villages on the side of the road. They are oddly fascinating. The people that live there seem to have a fondness for chickens and mangy dogs.
Our tour guide is named Gabrielle. She is very, very...er...gorda. She wants to sacrifice Brian to Cha'ac, the Mayan water god, and I have no problem with that.
We check out a Mayan water well. It's very, very beautiful and also very full of tourists.
On the way up from the well, we see a guy doing paintings. They're New-Age fantasy stuff, pyramids and unicorns, but we watch him painting for about fifteen minutes.
We also have lunch at a buffet. It is not a very good lunch.
We stop at a little marketplace to go pee and buy crappy souvenirs. Gabrielle is pushing the Mayan hieroglyphic necklaces. Pretty sure she has a profit-sharing things going on with them, because as soon as we get there she collapses into a chair right by their stall and chatters in Mayan to them.
We finally get to the park itself. Gabrielle waddles from place to place and gives us a talk about how amazing the Mayan culture was. She then sits down and refuses to talk. I ask her a question about Mayan astrology and she just grunts. I decide we have a sucky guide.
Note to anybody who goes to the Maya Riveria: Make sure you don't get Gabrielle for a guide.
Anyway, we stroll around and climb the huge pyramid, which is not as hard as it sounds. It's only 91 steps. Well worth the climb, though; the top has an AMAZING view.
I sleep on the ride back. By the time we are at the hotel, I am far too tired to do anything but sit like a lump in bed and watch a telanovela. It takes me seventeen minutes to realize that it's "Friends" with subtitles. Dur.
Wednesay: We wake up very early and say goodbye to the monkeys. The airport has dirty postcards and we meet a girl who likes Invader Zim. Brian flirts with her while I snooze on the plane. We make scientific "Yo momma" jokes and I freak out about what seems to be a rat pellet in my bagel.
Anyway, it's Thursday and I've recovered from jet lag (w00t, a whole hour!) and I'm back. Neat.
No, you are. Lucky you. Here it is.
Saturday: We wake up at 2 A.M. and go to Dunkin' Donuts. Once there, Mom gets a nice coffee and I debate religion with a group of young men who have been there all night. They give me a Jack Chick tract, for which I am profoundly grateful.
The airport is Detroit Metro, a place known for its gleaming modernity--no, I'm sorry, for its piles of dust while it attempts to attain gleaming modernity. Somehow, we manage to end up in the oldest part, which is a Very Seventies gate with lots of orange and brown seats. We are surrounded by college students, and I can only fervently hope that we are on a different plane.
After much ado with tickets, I fall asleep and as a result am not aware that we have taken off. I wake up over the Gulf of Mexico and am freaked out by the whitecaps.
We stand in Immigration for a while. The men stamping the passports seem to do it in a very professional way. It's almost like a performance, and it has a nice ring to it.
On the bus to the hotel, I notice a bodega in the middle of the jungle. It's about a mile from anywhere and is boarded up. This would make a good subject for an art project.
We get to the hotel, which is very large, and attempt to find a bar. Unfortunately, the designers of the hotel hate people and thus have made it so that in order to get to a spot thirty feet away, you have to walk a half a mile through staircases.
I decide to cultivate the skill of walking on water.
After a few piña coladas, we adjourn to the buffet and I eat more flan than is good for me.
Sunday: Easter! I celebrate by eating ham and eggs and taking a book on Gnosticism with me. We check out the compound--there's a bar in the pool. I mean, a bar, that you can swim up to and order a drink, in the pool. I consider this to be the highlight of Western civilization.
We take a very long walk around the resort. Mom is very happy, and sweat is running off me like Rincewind from an angry druid. I come from the land of the ice and snow; I am not meant for a Caribbean climate. It's a nice change, though.
We take a walk to the ruins (there are actually a few IN the resort) and guess completely wrong as to what they are. A Mayan sublet turns out to be an altar, and a Mayan altar turns out to be a Spanish chapel.
We see many, many lizards. Many lizards. Lots of em, yes oh yes.
We also check out the shoreline. There are a bunch of little snails, which we throw back into the ocean.
I notice a ruin and climb up some rocks to check it out. It's desolate and deserted and it doesn't seem like anyone has been here before. Unfortunately, my sense of intrepidness is ruined by a middle-aged man wrestling with a baby stroller in the middle of the stones.
Later, we go to the little beachfront and have lots of piña coladas. I inquire as to whether the man next to me likes getting caught in the rain as well. Unfortunately, he is Norwegian and does not catch the reference.
At the pool that night, Brian gets his toes nibbled by a peacock and Mom gets a Sombrero. Not the hat, but a drink. She lets me have a little of it. (It's gross.)
We play volleyball with a very nice young lady named Jessie and have dinner at an Oriental restaurant. It's free, 'cos we've got a Worry-Free vacation. I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn't like paying for things.
I later discover that I have a huge f'in sunburn. I don't know whether this is because sunscreen is just useless on my skin or whether it would have been worse if I hadn't glopped SPF 60 all over myself.
Monday: Xcaret day! Xcaret is an ecological park that you can get to by walking from the resort. We have a free pass for it.
It's a really cool place if you like animals. As we are walking to the park, Brian notices monkeys in the trees and we watch them eat fruit for a while. Monkeys are cool.
Animals we see:
Huggable, tiny sea turtles
Big-ass ancient sea turtles
Manatees that suck people's fingers
Hermit crabs that make little "deedly deedly deedly" sounds when they walk
Flounder fish, which have two eyes on one side of their head and are creepy
Flamingos. Lots of them. Mom likes this.
Sea urchins, or "pilluelos del mar" (I'm translating very roughly here)
After this, we check out the Underground River, which is only partially underground and has leetle baby fish in it. When we get out, the Caribbean sea is crashing against the breakers and the palm trees are shedding coconuts.
We go to a performance at a stadium.
This starts with a little Mayan girl coming out and singing. Eventually, priests and other little kids and stuff stand around her and give her flowers. It's in Spanish and the loudspeaker is scratchy, so I can't quite understand it, but it's probably stuff about cultural understanding. It's tolerable if you assume they're going to sacrifice her.
They play a game of Mayan rubberball, which involves large feathery headdresses and getting a ball through holes. Like basketball, basically. Then they play MAYAN FLAMING HOCKEY!!!!! WITH THE PUCK ON FIRE!!!!!
I suggest to Brian that he introduce this to his AZA group.
Later, they have a mildly disturbing play with the conquistadores. There is a swordfight. Afterwards, doves are released to show how the Mayans and Spaniards came to live in peace. I love revisionist history, don't you?
They do a rain dance.
After intermission, there are some weird mariachi songs and a pineapple dance. During a lasso dance, thunder breaks and lightning strikes and rain falls very, very hard. The roof leaks and the dancers seem to get upset. I blame it on the rain dance earlier.
There's no Pancho Villa revolution dance. Dammit.
Tuesday: We have to get up veeeeery early because we are going to Chichen-Itza, a Mayan ruin center. There is some trouble with the tickets and Mom yells at the ticket guy. He doesn't understand English, so I translate very badly. I think I may have ended up asking him to sleep himself a sandwich, I don't know.
We change busses at one point. The bus is called "Bus-Car" and I ask Brian what they're looking for. (This is a Spanish joke.) He hits me.
There are a lot of little Mexican villages on the side of the road. They are oddly fascinating. The people that live there seem to have a fondness for chickens and mangy dogs.
Our tour guide is named Gabrielle. She is very, very...er...gorda. She wants to sacrifice Brian to Cha'ac, the Mayan water god, and I have no problem with that.
We check out a Mayan water well. It's very, very beautiful and also very full of tourists.
On the way up from the well, we see a guy doing paintings. They're New-Age fantasy stuff, pyramids and unicorns, but we watch him painting for about fifteen minutes.
We also have lunch at a buffet. It is not a very good lunch.
We stop at a little marketplace to go pee and buy crappy souvenirs. Gabrielle is pushing the Mayan hieroglyphic necklaces. Pretty sure she has a profit-sharing things going on with them, because as soon as we get there she collapses into a chair right by their stall and chatters in Mayan to them.
We finally get to the park itself. Gabrielle waddles from place to place and gives us a talk about how amazing the Mayan culture was. She then sits down and refuses to talk. I ask her a question about Mayan astrology and she just grunts. I decide we have a sucky guide.
Note to anybody who goes to the Maya Riveria: Make sure you don't get Gabrielle for a guide.
Anyway, we stroll around and climb the huge pyramid, which is not as hard as it sounds. It's only 91 steps. Well worth the climb, though; the top has an AMAZING view.
I sleep on the ride back. By the time we are at the hotel, I am far too tired to do anything but sit like a lump in bed and watch a telanovela. It takes me seventeen minutes to realize that it's "Friends" with subtitles. Dur.
Wednesay: We wake up very early and say goodbye to the monkeys. The airport has dirty postcards and we meet a girl who likes Invader Zim. Brian flirts with her while I snooze on the plane. We make scientific "Yo momma" jokes and I freak out about what seems to be a rat pellet in my bagel.
Anyway, it's Thursday and I've recovered from jet lag (w00t, a whole hour!) and I'm back. Neat.
no subject
--Ben
no subject
no subject