Friday, December 14, 2007 (Ron)

Looks like it rained overnight, but it’s nice this morning. I went out to enjoy the morning with my coffee while Pat slept. After about a half hour I came back in and Pat was up. I got the camera and went back out while Pat did whatever women do in the morning to get themselves ready for the day.

I walked around the neighborhood, taking pictures and talking to anybody who was out there.

When I got back to the suite it was time for breakfast. But by now it had started raining and it was coming down pretty good. The restaurant is only about fifty feet from our front door but we decided to wait it out. It wasn’t long before the rain had just about stopped and we went out for breakfast. Pat had the Omeleta Florentina and I had Huevos Motuleños. Both were very good. The eggs that I had were on corn tortillas with beans, cheese, sauce, and I don’t know what all. It was so good.

A lot of the food here has a strong Mayan influence so it’s different from what we are used to on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It’s pretty cool to be able to sample different local flavors.
We came back to the suite after breakfast and tried to plan out our day. It wasn’t easy. We wanted to go to the beach, but then it started raining, so we’d go to Plan B which was going downtown. Then the reain would stop and the sky would clear. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day to go to the beach. Then it would start raining…. We finally decided to go to the beach anyway.

The resort has a bus that runs between the three ‘sister’ resorts so we used it. We went to the resort with the best beach and got all situated with our beach chairs, towels, drinks (free), and something to read. After a while I decided to walk up the beach with the video camera and soon came to a spot where six or eight people were out on surfboards. The waves were pretty big but the guys weren’t trying too hard to surf. Once in a while one of them would get up and last about two seconds. The waves were so big (for the Caribbean) and the water was so turquoise that I sat and watched ‘em for a while.

I felt just a couple of tiny sprinkles and decided to head back. By the time I got there it was raining and Pat and just about everyone else had headed for shelter. I found Pat in the lobby, right next to the restaurant. Cool! The restaurant at this resort, just like ours, is free for the guests of the three affiliated resorts. They had a buffet going so we got our plates and started looking things over. We tried a little bit of a lot of it and it was all good. We stopped before totally stuffed (at least Pat did) in order to save room for dessert. We had both spotted some papaya pie on the dessert table and we both wanted to try it. We sat and let our lunch settle while watching the weather outside and the people inside. The rain was on-again, off again showers. We had our papaya pie which was very good, and went out to the sidewalk to walk around a little before catching the shuttle back to our resort. When we first stepped out of the resort’s lobby it wasn’t raining but by the time we got to the sidewalk it was sprinkling. By the time we had gone two or three blocks it was raining pretty good so we went into a OXXO store to get out of the rain. OXXO is a chain of convenience-type stores in Mexico and not really a place to hang out. The rain slowed way down so we went out to try to come up with a plan. It started raining again and we quickly came up with a plan – run across the street to Señor Frog’s.

So we’re in Señor Frog’s – we looked around a little and the rain didn’t let up at all. In fact by now it was pouring! OK, now our plan was to try to not get totally soaked going back to our resort. We got a taxi and the driver held the door open for us while we ran for it. We did get pretty wet but not drenched. Back to the resort for $9USD, and to our suite to put on some dry clothes.

Around 7pm I started getting hungry. Pat wasn’t ready for dinner so I went over to get a beer and a snack. Got the beer, then went over to talk to one of the waiters about a snack. He suggested nachos – that sounded pretty good so I said sure. He said he’d bring it to the room and asked if my wife wanted a beer. I replied that I wasn’t sure, but bring one anyway – if she doesn’t want it, I’ll drink it. Five or ten minutes later he knocked on the door. He had four glasses of beer, a plate full of nachos with beef and chicken, and another plate with guacamole and salsa. That was my snack! I worked on the beer and nachos for a couple of hours while writing today’s journal.

Still not finished with the nachos, I went in the bedroom where Pat was reading. She asked if I was ready for dinner. My stomach felt like I’d just eaten my dinner and half of hers. We didn’t go out for dinner. We stayed in the suite, read, finished the journal for today, watched a little TV, then went to bed.