{"id":145,"date":"2013-07-15T16:42:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T16:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donniemeals.net\/?p=145"},"modified":"2018-12-12T16:43:07","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T16:43:07","slug":"the-relentless-days-of-beach-sun-and-driving-the-bus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/2013\/07\/15\/the-relentless-days-of-beach-sun-and-driving-the-bus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Relentless Days of Beach, Sun and Driving The Bus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>6 Minute, 42 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n

30\/6 \u2013 I just noticed a few of my dates are off.\u00a0 Lauren & Josh didn\u2019t leave till the 28th and \u2026 oh, whatever.\u00a0 The facts are still there.\u00a0 After all the trouble we\u2019ve had with the house and our mysterious house keeper, Paul and Joan, the house owners, will be coming into town sometime this week to personally check on the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the 30th we picked up our long time friends Bill & Gladys, a certifiable insane couple.\u00a0 Pick up at the airport was a breeze.\u00a0 The next day we went to pick up Ann.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t go so well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few hours of waiting at various terminals and\u2026 no Ann.\u00a0We decided to go back to the house (30 min. from Cancun)\u00a0 and see if she left a message or a sign of some sort.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 Sharon & I decided to head back to the airport and try again, leaving Bill and Gladys to man the fort.\u00a0 We get out to the car and there\u2019s a taxi outside.\u00a0Could it be Ann?\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 It\u2019s Paul & Joan.\u00a0 We explained the situation, introduced them to the insane couple inside, then hurried off a few hundred feet when a black suburban passed us in a cloud of dust with his horn honking.\u00a0 This time it was Ann.\u00a0 She had commandeered a private vehicle to take her to the house.\u00a0 Long story short is she was moved to awaiting point that we had no access to.\u00a0 Thank you very much\u2026\u00a0 So everyone got to meet Paul & Joan.\u00a0 We gave them the long list of problems, patted them on the head and sent them along so we could get started on some serious adult beverages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2\/7 \u2013 The five of us spent the day back down at Yal Ku, the cool snorkel place in Akumal.\u00a0 I did manage to get up close and personal with a rather shy eel.\u00a0\u00a0 On the way back in we stopped in Playa del Carmen for supplies of all kinds and generally walked 5th ave., people watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3\/7 \u2013 Off to Villadolid by way of Ek Balam.\u00a0 It\u2019s best to go climbing ruins early in the day.\u00a0 Ek Balam is one you never hear about yet is basically Chichen Itza\u2019s next door neighbor.\u00a0 The big difference?\u00a0 The entire thing is accessible, ie: no roped-off crowd control.\u00a0 Fantastic site, too! Even the ants were cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a couple of hours we scooted down to Villadolid to introduce the group to that yummy Mayan sampler plate Sharon & I had a couple of weeks earlier.\u00a0 Unfortunately it was not to be had.\u00a0 They don\u2019t sell that at 2 in the afternoon.\u00a0 Argh!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut could we interest you in our buffet for only $22 American?\u201d
\n\u201cNo\u2026 gracias Wey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Down the street and across the plaza we ate at another nice, charming restaurant\/hotel.\u00a0 Not the same but a good alternative.\u00a0After re-booting my natural GPS, we headed out of the correct side of town on our second attempt.\u00a0 Back to the house and an evening dip in the freshly clean pool that awaited us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4\/7 \u2013 We celebrated the 4th of July by hiring a boat to take us out the snorkel the reef.\u00a0 Sharon, Gladys and I worked the deal just down the beach.\u00a0 With \u201cno money down\u201d we had to promise to return immediately upon grabbing our gear and cash back at the house.\u00a0 Once at the house, the sky opened up.\u00a0 The rain was so heavy that we lost sight of the ever-present horizon out our door.\u00a0 However, just as suddenly, the shower blew past and we headed down the beach like NAVY SEALs, just not as dramatic, organized or buff.\u00a0 The reef here stretches from Cancun on down to Honduras and is protected from casual\u00a0 swimmers.\u00a0 That means, even though you can easily swim to it, you can\u2019t without a permit and a guide. Oh, and a required life jacket.\u00a0 Ann wasn\u2019t too happy about that little detail but we all complied like nice little citizens of goodwill and plopped into the sea for a spectacular array of flora, fauna and fish.\u00a0 After an hour or so, we convinced the boat captain to motor down the coast a bit and got him to drop us off right outside the house.\u00a0 The girls out did themselves on dinner that evening with a splendid fish tacos and a yummy sauce that contained numerous things I don\u2019t like.\u00a0 So they didn\u2019t tell me and I ate till\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5\/7 \u2013\u00a0 15\/7 Let\u2019s just group this multi-day chunk together.\u00a0 Yep, another trip to the airport. Kasey, KC, Kandy or \u201cThe woman child\u201d (Ann\u2019s daughter) flew down today and was successfully picked up by us.\u00a0 That makes us 2 for 4 in successful airport pick-up service.\u00a0 We made it back to Yal Ku for the woman child to experience as well as played a bit in Playa del Carmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 6th and 7th held a surprise.\u00a0 No alcohol sales.\u00a0Not in the store, at restaurants or in bars.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 No beer on the beach??\u00a0 The 7th was election day and in an attempt to get hombres out to the polls, there\u2019s no liquor sales the day of or the day before.\u00a0 Good thing we were stocked up at the casa so we left Playa del Carmen in our rearview mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also took another boat reef snorkel tour but with a different crew.\u00a0 Mario was the boat captain and lived a while in Dallas; good English and a great sense of humor.\u00a0 He also hooked me up with a good mechanic (hopefully) because Chacha is starting to act a bit funky, (more on that as the situation unfolds).\u00a0 We topped off this chunk of days with an evening in town, starting with the Uruguayan restaurant.\u00a0 Great steaks with chimichuri\u00a0 and Bill\u2019s selections of red wines.\u00a0 A few of us had a night cap across the street at Barre Barre bar where I was introduced to a yummy Mezcal.\u00a0 I had several and still managed to get us home.\u00a0 At least, that\u2019s what they tell me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the morning of the 10th\u2026 I had promised Paul and Joan that I would give them a ride to the airport today so this was the news I got to greet them with, \u201call the water in the house went on strike.\u201d\u00a0 Not a drop was coming out the pipes.\u00a0 Paul contacted Jerry, the surrogate house guy, and they discovered the well pump system went ka-poot in the night.\u00a0 In short time the front yard looked like a South Texas fracking site.
Off to the airport with Paul & Joan.\u00a0 Back home without stopping the motor then back to the airport to drop off Bill and Gladys.\u00a0 It\u2019s just us, Ann and the woman child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ann, Sharon & I managed to get a scuba trip in, a very cool, 90 foot dive of a sunken U.S. mine sweeper.\u00a0 Very nice and kind of creepy.\u00a0\u00a0 No, the Mexican armada did not attack and sink a U.S.ship.\u00a0 We did it for them just for kicks, possibly a result of the BRAC realignment.\u00a0 Don\u2019t know, ask George W.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We contacted Mario for our 3rd reef snorkel.\u00a0 The four of us hung out at a beach restaurant that his wife works at, had a couple of early tequilas then took off for the not-so-high seas.\u00a0\u00a0 Later that afternoon Sharon & I met up with Mario and he took us to his \u201cshade tree\u201dmechanic, Roberto.\u00a0 After discussing the problems we were told to bring it back Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 14th was pure laziness.\u00a0 Packing for Ann and the woman child was their job for the day since they would leave the next day.\u00a0 Ann sheepishly informed us that their flight was at 7am which meant we needed to get them there by 5.\u00a0\u00a0A.M.?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh joy\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n

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30\/6 \u2013 I just noticed a few of my dates are off.\u00a0 Lauren & Josh didn\u2019t leave till the 28th and \u2026 oh, whatever.\u00a0 The facts are still there.\u00a0 After all the trouble we\u2019ve had with the house and our mysterious house keeper, Paul and Joan, the house owners, will Continue Reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donniemeals.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}