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OUR AKUMAL ADVENTURE, PART 12

Saturday, 7/1/00, Day “14”

I got up about 5:40 a.m. and went to sit on the balcony. I watched the sunrise and a couple of geckos that were scurrying around. Our last full day. Suddenly, there are no more mañanas, just time to pack your stuff and go away...

I forgot to mention that last night before we left the restaurant, Joél came in carrying a tray of tequila shots around the tables. While I had religiously avoided tequila throughout our stay, I took one, just because it was him with the tray. (We had chatted quite a bit over the past few days, and I bought a lovely mandala bracelet from him.) I licked my fist, poured on the salt, licked it off, slammed back the shooter, and sucked the lime. I then slapped the glass back on the table, said “Gracias,” and departed for the Akumal Bar. Joél had a look of amazement on his face. Perhaps he didn’t think I knew how to do it. Steve remarked that if he’d done that, he would have just kept going backwards to the floor!

At breakfast, there was no bacon, no sausage, nothing to go with Steve’s eggs. That is a problem that needs to be addressed. I had a piece of French toast (not floating this time), a couple of pieces of fried banana, and some strawberry yogurt, which was quite good.

Around 9 a.m., the power went off, not just at the hotel, but the whole eastern grid from Playa del Carmen. I was hoping it wasn’t some terrorist attack due to the elections. The hotel generator kicked in, providing electricity for the essential services. These included the restaurants and bars, which I could well understand, and the Jacuzzis, which I didn’t really consider “essential.” Perhaps it was because they were on the same circuit as the Turtle Bar.

We ended up at the Turtle Bar, drinking some beer. Then the situation got even better—the water was off! No water for el baño! This was probably due to the fact that the water was pumped by an electrical pump. However, eventually all was well—the electricity was back on in the early afternoon, so we were not overly inconvenienced.

We went back to the palapa to get our shoes and shorts for lunch. At Arrecifes, Steve had a cheeseburger and fries, while I had a delicious cream of tomato soup. The buffet was the same monotonous selection. Just out of curiosity, we stepped over to Tucanes. While we had been told the buffets were the same at each restaurant, we found that not to be the case. Some of the food was the same, but there was more hot food selection at Tucanes. We will know in the future...

As we stopped by the Turtle Bar on the way back from lunch, we discovered that there were no hamburgers or French fries today. Why, no one could say. This was especially odd, as Steve had just eaten some in the restaurant. I suddenly found myself being a translator from German to Spanish when one of the German fellows was asking Marcelino if there were any French fries. That made my brain work too hard!

We spent the afternoon as usual, trying to cram in as much snorkeling as possible. Steve found more shells. I saw a blue tang juvenile; they are bright yellow. I also saw a fish I’d never seen before and can’t find in my fish books. It was maybe a damselfish of some kind, dark with small yellow spots down its sides like strings of yellow pearls. I never got its picture, since it kept hiding under the coral.

As I was up at the Turtle Bar again, a couple of people were helping a woman out of the water. She was limping and obviously in pain. She had apparently stepped on a stonefish (a.k.a. rockfish, scorpionfish—the ones with the spines) of some sort. I had seen several of these while snorkeling. When I reported that injury to Steve, we counted up and found that, so far, we had heard of or seen two sea urchin injuries, one stonefish injury, and two separate broken toes. The random sunburns were almost superfluous.

Eventually, Steve went to our room to get cleaned up for dinner. I went and sat at the water’s edge, still unable to tear myself away from the view. As I sat there, Sylvia came along and sat with me. We chatted like old friends for a long time. As I got ready to leave the beach, I passed our lounge cushions on to them, since they were staying until the next Wednesday. She took one back to their lounges while I policed my area, then came back for the other. I advised her to take the things to their room in the evening, or they’d disappear or be appropriated by somebody else. (That’s another thing, COA really should have cushions for all the beach lounges. They seem to have sufficient for the pool lounges, but the Italians seem to appropriate all the beach lounge cushions. They are often piled up by their activities hut, serving no useful purpose whatsoever.)

I got cleaned up and joined Steve at the Akumal Bar. We had another delicious Bloody Mary, then went to dinner. I had a very good cream of corn soup, while Steve had two helpings of the pork roast, which he said was excellent. The roast was a whole pig being carved at the serving table.

After dinner, we went back to the Akumal Bar for our last evening with Gaby and Johnny. When they finished their set, we sat and talked for quite some time. When they left, we all hugged and shook hands and wished each other well. It was almost tearful, but I managed not to cry.

Steve and I discussed the possibility of requesting a late checkout. Checkout is at noon, but I had read that if you check out later than that, they would charge an extra $25. We had already been assured by Noe that even without our wristbands we would be able to use the facilities until our transfer pickup. We decided just to use the morning to pack and relax and check out at the appointed hour.

One last sitting on our balcony, one last watching of the Kukulcán palm, one last sleep in Akumal...

Submitted by: D. Stevens -- dragon5@fullnet.net
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