Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

A beginning, a middle, and an end.

Sunday, Mar. 8, 2009
12:27 a.m.
Somehow, contrary to all expectations, the mountains of snow that we left behind when we departed the north for sunnier climes had melted into molehills upon our return a week later. It’s remarkable how we left a frozen world, white tinged with pink as the plane leapt skyward from Burlington, VT at dawn, to leapfrog southward, changing conveyances in Washington, DC and Charlotte, NC, arriving finally in Cancún, Mexico in the middle of the afternoon, feeling overdressed in our jeans and running shoes, and acutely aware of our pasty white skin next to the coppery tones of the natives. A bus ride to Playa del Carmen and a ferry trip across to Cozumel, watching the sun set this time, followed by a taxi to our resort and we were greeting my husband’s sister and her husband in the lobby bar, so glad that we could stop moving for a while.

Nothing is perfect. Humans must categorize and label things in relation to what they already know and for the entire week I could not stop comparing my present experience with past ones, which sadly made my holiday less enjoyable than it should have been. I kept measuring the resort against the one we’ve been to several times in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, and it kept coming up short. This was totally unfair, I realized, but somehow inevitable.

Still, it was sunny and warm, there was an abundance of food and drink, a beach, a pool, peacocks strutting around the yard and waking us at night with their strident screams, and iguanas everywhere you looked. I took more pictures of iguanas and tree roots than anything else. I had lots of time to myself to read, there was free internet of which I availed myself a couple of times, and even an excursion or two.

My husband got his open water scuba certification and went diving many times with his sister and brother-in-law. I do not dive. A sensitive gagging reflex and an aversion to salt water made my one snorkeling experience in Cuba several years ago a less-than-wonderful experience. If I had to rip the mouthpiece out of my mouth every few minutes in order not to vomit, I can’t imagine being forced to keep a regulator in between my teeth for hours at a time. Then there is the delicate matter of my proclivity to motion sickness (the several ferry crossings were a trial for me), and you see why I prefer to remain on solid land.

While I did not complain at the time, I suffered serious boredom with my husband and in-laws away for complete mornings. Since we also did most everything else as a foursome, there was little alone time for us as a couple. One afternoon, though, we drove around the island in my brother-in-law’s rented car and visited the Mayan ruins of San Gervasio. It was extremely cool.

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However, as previously mentioned, the tree roots and iguanas excited me much more than the ruined remains of an early civilization.

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The day before we left, my husband and I visited the ancient Mayan cities of Tulúm and Coba with a guided tour. They were extremely cool. While Tulúm is the more beautiful site, with better reconstructions and open walkways, all the interesting things were roped off, so we couldn’t see the frescoes in the House of Frescoes with our own eyes. Nor could we clamber on the ancient limestone slowly being eroded by wind and weather. At Coba, though, we were encouraged to climb to the top of the 42 metre heap, even though a sign at its base warned us that we did so at our own risk.

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At the top, one can see only jungle all around. Yet, 600 years ago, from the same vantage point, one would have seen a huge city spread out below.

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Two days later, I am still feeling the soreness in my thighs from that climb. Of course, returning home in reverse (with one less airplane ride) with hours and hours of immobility didn’t help. But finding that we didn’t have to dig out our car from where we’d left it was an unexpected delight, and the clear roads that we traversed made the journey home much less painful than we expected.

The best souvenir I brought back is the one that will soon fade and disappear: my tan.



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