All in all, I didn’t have a terrible night’s sleep. The Yucatan’s mosquitoes invited their friends, which woke me up a couple of times, but I got an acceptable amount of sleep and also got to witness the devolution of 5th Avenue at 3, 4, and 6am.
We had to be at the start of our ATV tour a few minutes outside town at 8:45, so we got up a little before 7. The street does not wake up all that early, so we hit a breakfast buffet that I liked and B didn’t just as it was opening. Sweat just ran off me the entire time, which you kind of get used do eventually. We got a cab out to the ATV tour and got signed in and waited around for them to be ready for us. We got a 5-minute lesson in driving the 4-wheelers, and then off we went into the jungle.
I highly recommend this tour. The guide led us through the jungle, stopping every 8-10 minutes to let everyone catch up. There was just enough rough terrain, giant mud puddles, hard turns and slopes to make it a little scary, but you catch on pretty fast. You also get covered in mud really fast, if it’s been raining recently. We got off at one point to go into a cenote (limestone sinkhole, sometimes fully or partially in a cave, filled with fresh water) where the water was toxic from guano. The guano production committee roosted among the many, many stalagtites above. It was very cool. Later, we hiked into the jungle further from the trail to swim in a less batty cenote, which was 20′ deep and crystal clear. The only way in was a diving board, and I wish I’d thought to grab a mask and snorkel before I went. The water was probably about 73 degrees, just cool enough to be completely refreshing after being repeatedly doused in hot mud.
It was an excellent two hours. We returned filthy and needing to wash off the first half of the day’s sludgy coating of sunscreen and bug repellant. That afternoon we took a very serious 3 hour siesta.
In the evening, we went abroad for food, just kind of waiting to see where we ended up. We got sucked into a rooftop restaurant promising us a seafood feast, which did not disappoint. We had langostines, shrimp, mussels, octopus, surimi (krab), grouper, rice, baked potato, and boiled potato. It was carbalicious! Just as we were sitting there discussing what I knew of Invinciblegirl and husband’s itinerary, B looked down and said, “isn’t that them?” And so it was. We called them up, and they sat at the next table for their own dinner. B ordered bananas flambe, which took 15 minutes to prepare tableside, but I secretly think my goat’s milk caramel crepes were better. We arranged to meet the Invincibles at our hotel a little later for beers, possibly on our balcony.
We were sitting at the bar when Beth and Jeremy walked past, which I kind of expected would happen eventually, and so our pre-group group would be complete once the other two got there, beer in bag. We all had several drinks at the bar (and I was trying to be good and drank a large bottle of water with mine, which would prove to be a good choice later) before I wondered if we could take our booze to the beach. Jeremy went off to get their wedding tequila, B went and got our 6 pack, and we headed down to the beach not far from where we’d spotted fire dancers the night before.
It was an excellent night. We all plunked down in a big circle in the sand, and drank, smoked, and talked until 2am when it started raining. We were lucky enough to be there during the full moon, so we had ample light on the beach and it was really very beautiful. We had just enough of a breeze all night to be very comfortable. Sitting in the sand gets old eventually, but it does take a good long while. We only got up when it rained because it looked as if it was going to storm really hard.
Of course, it had stopped raining by the time we settled in at a bar’s palapa, but we enjoyed the feeling of chairs. We felt obligated to buy a round of drinks from the bar, for which we were duly gouged when we tried to leave.
At 3am, I had my first experience trying to de-sand myself. It turns off sand doesn’t just wash off. You have to work at it. I think B and I were in the shower for at least 20 minutes just trying to get most of it off.
We certainly slept well, though.