Today is my thirteenth day on the ship, and the whole 'celebrity' factor ("Oh! You're the singer!!") is finally getting on my nerves. So I donned my baseball cap and dark sunglasses and decided to wander by myself into town to get my Doraditas, and then walked a little ways further to get a cab. Honestly, I didn’t even care how much it was going to cost; I just had to get away to somewhere where I knew no one would recognize me.
So the first cab driver to greet me was a man named Arturo. I put on my smile and quickly recalled my broken Spanish. I asked him the name of the tall white lighthouse we can see from the pier, and I learned a new Spanish word: “el faro” – the lighthouse. He took me in the cab to the lighthouse.
Turns out that that lighthouse is actually a restaurant, and it’s not as pretty up close as it had been from the distance of the pier. :) So I asked him (still using my kitchen Spanish) to take me to a beach a little ways further down, “una playa sin turistas” (a beach with no tourists). He thought a moment, then continued driving.
We passed several patches of beach which looked like they would have served just as well, but he kept on driving. We were headed down this sandy path, where they lay the lines that tie up the boats across the road to serve as speed bumps. Not that you’d need them – it’s impossible to speed through the maze of sandy sinkholes.
But finally we got to a little clearing in the jungle’s edge where you could walk down the water, and I asked Arturo to pull over and drop me off. There was one little man there, named Angel (say “ahn-HEHL"), who was kind enough to warn me that the water is not so clear, as there is lots of seaweed and rocks. But I told him that that was ok, I only wanted to lay out in the sun for a few hours. So he agreed to let me spend a few hours on this little patch of ‘la playa.’
Arturo put the car in park, and that was when I learned that this wasn’t just a cab… this was a Tour Taxi service. Anywhere you want to go, they take you, stay until you’re ready to leave, and then they are there to take you back to the pier. Well, since Arturo had sort of figured out that my kitchen Spanish only goes so far, I was content to let him stay and chat with Angel while I kicked back in the hammock that was set up between two palm trees.
I hadn’t been lying in the hammock for even ten minutes when I heard Arturo calling me down to the beach. “Mira los cangrejos,” he told me. I learned a new word, “Look at the crabs.” There are silver dollar-sized holes all along the beach, and if you stand still long enough, the sand crabs will peek out to see what’s going on. There were dozens of them, so clear-brown that they nearly blend in with the sand! (It made me more aware of where I’d lay out my towel later.)
When Angel noticed how this delighted me, he invited me and Arturo to wander with him down the beach a little ways, he had something to show us. He started climbing up in this tree that was hanging over the edge where the water meets the sand. He grabbed a handful of fruit and passed it to me saying, “juvos frias.” Grapes. Absolutely fresh! Straight off the beach, a blessed gift from God, as Angel explained to me that they shouldn’t even be ripe at this time of year. Not as sweet as vine-grown grapes, but certainly tasty!
Still further down the beach, Angel started grabbing large coral rocks and turning them over to see what sort of treasures we’d find. A lobster tail, some beach spiders, quite a few blanched conch shells of various sizes, mostly empty, and tiny tiny nautilus shell creatures, and a baby red crab.
Grateful for my mini-tour, these guys at last got the hint that I really had just come to spend a few hours laying quietly on the beach, and they let me be. But they continued with their scavenging, and about 20 minutes later I look up to see them approaching me, and Angel’s got a machete! Not to worry… they brought me a couple of coconuts with holes in the side, for a refreshing drink. Once I’d finished that, they split them in half, and scraped the fruit up into bite-sized pieces, using the half-shell as a serving bowl – what a treat! This is not like the flaked coconut you buy at the store and put on top of your cupcakes at home. This was smooth, actually slimy, but so sweet! No processing, no preservatives, just sweet beautiful fruit of the Lord.
Finally it got late in the afternoon, and it was time to return to the ship. I thanked Angel graciously for allowing me to spend time on his private beach. I asked him what he called it and he threw his hands up. So we all agreed to call it “La Playa de Daniela,” at least when I’m in on Thursdays. ;)
Arturo had spent three hours chaperoning me around, and I braced myself for the price when we got back to the pier. He told me $10. I was astounded, I couldn’t believe it! ‘That’s it? For the private slice of heaven I just experienced? ALL this for ten bucks?!’ This was a section of Costa Maya unknown by the weekly ship passengers; no pushy vendors, no loud music, and best of all NO TOURISTS. All I had was a $20, and Arturo looked sad because he had no change to offer me. So I told him that he’d just have to take me again when I come back in two weeks! He agreed, I got his cab number, and I’m already looking forward to doing this again!
Bless the Lord, how did I ever get so lucky?
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