Precaucion

I went surfing on Thursday morning, and had another surf day on Friday. Waves were great. We went to a spot a little further along the beach for some bigger surf, and it was just myself, Edgar and Cesar who I had gone with the day before. Such nice guys. Today I got battered in the ocean a bit more, and my surfboard hit me in the face. I quickly checked for blood from my nose, from my eye socket, checked for broken bones, with no success thankfully. The outer corner of my right eye is now black, but it could have been so much worse. One of the hazards of the sport, I suppose.

The entry and exits to wade into the surf were difficult as well. Rolling softball-sized rocks that crush toes, and sharp barnical spines to slice up tender winter feet. Yesterday I was ploughed over by a wave as I got out and survived with only a few cuts. They go well with my black eye.

As if the surfing was not adventure enough, in the afternoon I went to treat myself to a massage in the spa at Tracy’s condo building. Twenty minutes before my appointment I went down to get some use out of the sauna, and the woman at the front counter was kind enough to turn it on for me. As I started to relax in the dry heat I noticed that there was some white writing painted on the wood panel box underneath the dial. “Precaucion" and then something I didn't understand about 40 degrees. Well, the temperature guage was at 50, and my relaxed mind didn’t think much of it until, just as I was about to close my eyes and drift off into semi-lucidness BAM! everything shuts off and sparks start flying like a mini-firework has been set off from the electrical box with the heating dial on it. It had completely broken open like the shell of a cooked clam breaks open in the heat of boiling water! I let out a shocked scream and brushed the sparks from beside my thigh with my towel. I quickly put on my clothes, SO thankful that I had chosen to rest on the upper bench rather than the lower, which was completely sprayed in the dusting of green sparks upon detonation. Only in Mexico!

I tried to explain the situation to the lady at the desk, using my best internationally-recognizes explosion gestures and noises. Mexico is kind of an anything-goes place, and that also means that suing places for mishaps is not common practice. Tracy mentioned that the manager of the building fell into a gaping hole in her office during construction and hurt herself so badly that she was off work for three months and is still using a cane to walk. If that happened here in North America she would be awarded millions.

Because of the entrapreneurial and relaxed attitude of locals, there seems to be a freedom and lightheartedness to the way the children play here. Perhaps they are made tough by shoddy electrical jobs and the practice of avoiding open sewers and holes, which are all over the sidewalks. I’m sure playgrounds here aren’t deemed “unsafe” if they have wooden impliments with the same scrutiny they are in Canada. People aren’t bound by endless liability issues here, and this probably lends itself to lots of less-than-perfectly safe scenarios. I have to say, I do enjoy the feeling of liberation, even at the cost of a little extra danger. I'm a little black and blue, but I live to tell the tale.

As we surfed yesterday the pelicans flowed in rows back and forth beside us, scanning the walls of waves for schools of fish. It was so cool watching them fly right beside me, basically at eye-level. I could look them each in their motionless eyes as they flew by in perfect rows, gliding in unison like streamers on the tail of a kite in the wind.

From Tracy and Frank’s balcony I can see the “bird islands”, which are clumps of rock relentlessly engulfed in a swirl of birds in flight. In the dawn and dusk light they are white on the horizon, glowing with layers of excriment unleased frequently by their flighty residents.

After surfing Cesar suggested the three of us stop for a coconut on our way past the little beach village near Playa Linda. The “lady who makes the best coconuts ever” was not at her usual booth, so we bought them from the only guy around. We sat down at the bleached picnic table and drank the slightly sweet, air-warmed water from each of our coconuts. Then it was time to eat the soft flesh inside, and it was amazing because although the shells looked identical, we each had very different coconuts. Edgar’s was soft and geletenous, and he had it with lime and sea salt. Cesars was crunchy, which means that his coconut was the most mature out of the three, and he smothered it in hot sauce. Mine was basically a coconut soup, with just a thin film of water-laden, translucent meat that was mixed up with some fresh lime juice and salt. Cesar and Edgar’s could be eaten by hand as they were cut into strips, but mine had to be eaten with a spoon. All three were delicious.

The last night in Mexico saw us all at the restuaunt to watch Tracy sing. I was even called up to sing back-up for a couple of songs which was very fun. I have been becoming more and more interested in singing since I started learning the guitar, and it was nice to be able to hold a tune and feel confident enough to get up in front of a restaurant of people to sing a little bit; at least back-up is a start :)

Our trip to the airport today was quite comical; very stereotypical of the spontaneity of Mexico. There was a gigantic triathalon event taking over the road in front of our building, so we had to get a friend of Tracy’s to drive her car to his place so that we could walk to it and get out while the roads were closed. It was a sweltering 30 breezless degrees as we walked along the condo strip to the car, dodging the onslaught of pedestrian traffic crammed on the sidewalk. Frank was also wheeling a suitcase packed with his and my overnight necessities (we put our bulky bags in the car the day before) over the uneven street and sidewalk. At one point a cab drove by, and we took it a kilometer until the driver said that the road was closed. We got out and loaded our shoulders and hands up again. Another couple minutes of walking and there is a bus. “Great!” we think, and we hop on. “The road must be open.”

The bus driove a few hundred more meters before the driver starts making a u-turn. The road is still closed, and so we get off. We load up again and walk a few minutes more, swerving between finished triathalon competetors with medals around their necks and three-digit numbers painted in black on their shoulders and thighs. A man becons us to cross the road, “Taxi?”

“Sure, why not,” we say, and head over. The walking is difficult, and any little push helps. This guy, though, took the back road all the way to our destination, which is thankful because I don’t think we would have made it in time to catch Frank and my flights; it was much longer of a walk than we anticipated. We drove in the stop-start fashion characteristic of two lanes of opposing traffic trying to squish through a one-way street, passing holiday homes painted in beautiful pastels and creams, many of them for rent or for sale.

Now here I am, typing out the last entry from my little stopover in paradise next to a fellow teacher who lives in Vancouver. The interesting thing is that he is writing a book for kids beside me, and I just finished that course on writing for children and young adults yesterday. He motivates me to get out my own penned journal to type out and meddle with the scribbles within the pages. Maybe someday I’ll write a book too. Maybe. You just never know.

This tropical adventure ends and another begins, although I will be reminded of the ocean with my gift from the sea in the form of a shiner each time I look in the mirror over the next week.