Thrice Around the Horn
After a great night sleep, voila, sun when we opened the curtains. I had told Kate last night, the owner, that we always bring the good weather. That's what clean living and pure thoughts do for ya.

We hopped quickly out of bed and headed for the roof with a fresh cup of coffee from the community pot. What a difference a little sun makes. Even at 7 in the morning you can feel the heat. The water had already turned turquoise, and everything that had been rained on for two straight days had already dried out.

Next up was the morning walk along the beach. There wasn't as many people out as we expected and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was nice to feel the salt water between the toes. We just kept on walking until a restaurant called our name. The tables were set directly in the sand, with a nice view of the docks and Cancun in the distance. Breakfast consisted of avocado salad and mexican egg and ham. Tasty. They even give you mini tortillas to mix all the pieces as you see fit. I had a chuckle at the difference in condiments from what we get at home. No Heinz in sight. You have chillie hot sauce, chipotle hot sauce, habanero hot sauce and some other kind of hot sauce that burned your skin just touching it. All good.

We had decided to rent mopeds for an hour before it got hot, but since the price was $250 MD (translation approximately $22 canadian) for the full day, we said what the heck, and took two of them. As usual, it would be a blast and in the end we rounded the island three times.

In our first trip around, we got all decked out in our bathing suits as we figured the water would beckon at some point before the return. It took Mary Lou no time to get her scooter legs on and the rubber hit the road in minutes. The scooters have what the guys call " a place to store your skirt", a bit of a derogatory term as scooters are not very "manly", but neverless, we filled it with a towel, first aid kit, water bottle, etc. Enough to keep us alive for a week if we got lost.

Our first stop was at something called "Tortugranja". Now, you wouldn't believe my surprise when after paying my 300 pesos, I walked in and there were hundreds of turtles. Jeeze, I thought the place was going to be full of whips, chains, racks, washboards, and so on. But since we were in there, might as well enjoy. Quite an interesting little site actually. They have turtles in all stages: from buried eggs through to a seaside pen used for the final release from captivity. The largest ones we saw were around five feet long. One of the pictures showed a man stealing eggs as they were being laid by a turtle twice the size of a human.


The next big stop was at the tip of the island, which is advertised as the eastern most point of Mexico. There is a small Mayan ruin there, which I believe was used to pay homage to a sun god of some kind. There is a fairly grotesque statue of a half naked busty sungoddess giving birth standing up. Yes, that's what I said. The most interesting part of this stop, other than the breathtaking views of a sparkling turquoise Caribbean, was the dozens of iguanas. Really neat. They are completely still basking in the sun, I believe thinking we can't see them because of the natural camouflage. The pic to the right was taken with my NIKON 70-200 mm zoom.


Now, that Mary Lou is a devil behind the handle bars. Once you get her going it's hard to keep up. A real speed demon.


Along the east coast there are a number of beautiful villas set high above the water. They are all concrete construction set far enough above the storm surge of even the strongest hurricane. Many family names on the gates were english.

In between our drives, we headed to the main beach by our hotel. We had seen a sign called Tarzan's the day before. As we approaced the beach , this guy, well Tarzan, asked us if we wanted to rent a chair. We then new why the place was called Tarzan's, cause he looked just like him, albeit an old version. We paid 100 pesos for two chairs and an umbrella, then swam and slept for a couple of hours.

The rains came late afternoon. This was the first time in 11 years we had been rained on in the Caribbean, at least during the day. Back to the hotel for some socializing and we met some more interesting people. Two sisters flew in today, one from PEI and the other from Halifax. One of sisters, Dorothy was an engineer with a son named Mitch. A year ago she had enough of the executive world, quit her job and opened up a yoga studio. Kudos to you Dorthy. She was bored with her job, so she did something about it. In fact, she also wrote a chapter of a book, one of 16 by different women called, Sekmet Rising. "It is about the recognition and celebration of a womans journey into her own power". Got that from Amazon, and you can get the book there. Sekmet was an Egyptian goddess (I've seen a few of those myself). You meet the most interesting people on the road.

Everyone we have talked to thinks the winging it in Belize trip is a great idea. We have also been told that crossing into Guatemela is a must. Right now, we have booked a car for Sunday and will drive to Playa del Carmen to stay for a night, then have reservations at the Orchid Bay Garden Eco Village in the jungles of Belize. Zip lining, tubing through caves and a jungle hike are on the menu over three days. After that, who knows.

Read another great quote today, an old Turkish probverb " No matter how far down the wrong road you have travelled, turn back." Love it. Now, the trick is how do you know you are on the wrong road.

OK. That's it for tonight.