Sometimes you hook a lunker...sometimes you're the bait

     "Adventure of a lifetime in the jungle," my husband read the travel brochure aloud as we planned a vacaction with our best friends at an all inclusive resort in Mexico.  
    Upon arrival, we signed up for an all day adventure with three historic stops. Our first stop in the ninety-eight degree heat, was a visit to the Mayan Ruins in Tulum high atop a mound overlooking the turquoise sea. That tour was akin to a religious experience for me. We were inspired as we perspired and listened to the native tour guide who sounded like a preacher backslapping congregants and prefacing every sentence with, "my friend."

      If visiting the ruins was an epiphany for me, then our next stop, swimming in a cenote` felt like being baptized in holy water. Cenotes are a phenomena our guide informed us, natural fresh water wells considered to be gifts from the ancient Gods. The Yucatan Peninsula, the only area of Mexico where cenote`s exist, is composed of limestone rock which has eroded over time creating numerous caves and cenote`s as big as ponds. These natural wells were the  only potable water source for the early inhabitants, thus they were considered holy grounds. Holy or not, there was no way I was going to sacrifice my dignity and take the plunge off a cliff fifteen up. I did not join the line of people atop the ridge waiting to dive. I did dog paddle.

    Our next stop was at a banana plantation where we swam in a blue lagoon that rivaled the one in the movie by the same name. I floated in the salt water, completely relaxed until my husband shouted, "Here I come!" I watched in horror as he and his buddy rescued a woman who had swum beyond the boundary and was being slammed against a wall of coral and tugged by the current out to sea. They encouraged her to kick her feet and SWIM! But they did most of the work. When they arrived on shore exhausted, she laughed and said, "I can't wait to tell my husband about my wonderful adventure." The guys were not the least bit amused. She didn't even thank them.

     Our adventure continued the next day at a national park. We spent a handful of quarters in the gumball machines which dispensed a fistful of fish food. We tossed pellets to the turtles and to colorful tropical fish. When it was time for the snorkel trip, we were issued life vests. My friend and I wanted the orange heavy duty, I-don't-care-if-I-do-look-like-a-dork vests, while our husbands opted for the lightweight, barely-there life saving devices. We were handed snorkel masks and instructed to spit into and smear our saliva on the glass. Ewww! My nerves were on edge. Being on a small watercraft in the middle of the deep ocean wasn't my idea of fun and relaxation.

      Somewhere between spitting into our masks and practicing breathing through our snorkel tube, we lost sight of our husbands. When we finally saw them, they were at the dock being shuffled onto a boat with thirty other people. As we made our way to them, the captain slammed the loading gate and roared off with our guys on board. Despite our protests, the next boat captain assured us we would meet up with the other boat. My best friend and I plopped down on a wet seat, snugged our poufy vests and held on for dear life. I breathed a sigh of relief when I spotted the other boat up ahead, but passengers were all in the water, and we couldn't tell one persons' swim-suited hiney from the other. 

       We couldn't see our guys, but we saw a pipe fish and gave each other a thumbs up. When we saw the barracuda we kicked our flippers and beat a path back to the boat. We baked in the sun, crusting with brine, inventing fantastic adventure fables to tell our husbands.    

      Back on shore, our husband's jabbered at warp speed about their own excitement. My friend and I winked at one another and began our schpeel. "We were dumped, alone in the middle of the sea..."  Our make believe story didn't compare to their real adventure.
         "We swam away from the group, and in a flash we were surrounded by an entire school of fish," my husband reported.

        "Aww, that's nothing, we swam with a barracuda!" I bragged.
    
       "Yeah, well these fish kept getting closer and closer; we were eye to eye with them. They were as big as us. Tuna-sized. They nudged us. We swam like hell back to the boat."

      Back at the shower house, the guys discovered why the fish were nudging them. They were LIVE BAIT. Their pockets were stuffed with mushy fish food pellets."
 

A fishy story from the tuna-size guys, if you ask me.
Oh, how I am yearning for a beach.