Each dawn I had seen a pelican fishing along the beach on Playa Media Luna, as it apparently worked its way south along the Isla Caribbean coast. This morning, Ritsuko had gotten out of bed early to sit with me on the verandah and await the bird’s appearance. Sure enough, the bird dived in right in front of our hotel, scored a fish, and flew on southward, making the occasional dive along the way. We applauded and cheered until we realized that it was not yet 6AM and we should probably tone it down in deference to the other guests, who might not be awake at the crack of dawn. Then we sat in silence on the verandah, having our morning coffee, watching another glorious Isla sunrise.
This morning, we decided to return to M&J for breakfast. We got to M&J right at 7AM, and were greeted by Pedro, who was setting up the tables. He brought us some coffee as we sat in the strong morning breeze, watching the parade of taxis bringing people into town. It was a lovely morning. We had eggs with chaya, fresh orange juice, fresh tortillas, and coffee while basking in the morning sun, cooled by the Caribbean breeze. I love having breakfast there.
A general rule of mine on vacation is that I really don’t want to operate anything motorized. Maybe that is because I don’t care to be sufficiently alert to be responsible for the operation of a motorized vehicle, or perhaps it is because I just don’t like the noise. But after much deliberation, I succumbed, agreeing that a golf cart was probably the best way to tour the island, but if in the future, we had a specific destination in mind, we would take a cab. So, walking back to the hotel after breakfast, we decided that this would be a good day to rent a golf cart and see more of the island. About the time that we made that decision, I looked around the corner, and saw Sol Rentals, where they were lining up their golf carts on the street. I walked in, asked one of the men there how much for a one day rental, and the said 300 pesos. From what I had read on the board prior to coming to Isla, that sounded like a pretty good deal, so nodded in approval. A few minutes later, Ritsuko and I were “mobile and motorized”. Driving this thing didn’t exactly conjure up lyrics to “Born to Be Wild” in my head, but hey, it was transportation.
On the short drive back to the hotel, I quickly discovered how useful the rear view mirror is ... HOLY CRAP, the taxi drivers will drive right up your exhaust pipe, and these things don’t take the speed bumps very well!!! We got back to the hotel, put on sun screen, gathered up some things for our morning outing, and took off to see the some more of Isla.
Isla looks like a really nice place to live. I don’t know enough about the island yet to understand it’s economy, but it seems like the people here enjoy a decent standard of living when compared with some other places in Mexico and the Caribbean. As we drove through the colonias, we did not see any destitute looking people. Many people live very simply, but not in the dire condition in which I had seen so many living in north central Mexico.
After making a circuitous trip through the colonias, we backtracked and got on the road that goes along the Caribbean coast. FANTASTIC!!!! what a spectacular view of the sea and the rocky coast. We decided that this would be an area where we would return later. For now, we just wanted to drive the perimeter of the island, and then return later to places that looked interesting. As we approached the south end, we saw the bizarre looking “space needle” that I had read about ... WHAT THE HELL WERE THESE PEOPLE THINKING??? was the first thing that came into my mind. Making the turn at the south end of the island, we drove past Garrafon park marveling at the beautiful water on that side of the island. We stopped at Playa Lancheros for a while to sit on the beach. This was the first morning in which we did not have any beach time, so I just had to stop, get wet, and soak up some sun. We had thought that we would have lunch there, but it was too early for lunch, and we wanted to see more of the island while we had our golf cart, so we took off, driving up past the turtle farm, some really nice hotels, and the “dolphin discovery” place that gives me the creeps just to drive by.
I wanted to get back into town before noon in order to change some money. I knew that the bank was open on Saturday, but was unsure about how long it was open, and we were running low on pesos. So, we went back to the hotel to get some travelers checks and passport, then on to the bank we drove. Panic struck as I walked up to the door of the bank when I heard some fellow tourists cussing the door being locked. What a relief when I saw that instead of the bank being closed, those people just hadn’t figured out the security system of the bank teller not allowing both sets of doors to be unlocked at the same time. Apparently these folks couldn’t get into the rhythm of the flow.
Armed with a pocket full of pesos, we went on to the supermarket to load up on the heavy stuff, like water, juice and most importantly, cerveza. Stocking up while we had the golf cart would spare us a few days of carrying home water after breakfast. After dropping off our supplies in the room, e went to El Mercado for a lunch of fish tacos, and a couple of cold cervezas.
Of the places that we had seen during our morning drive, there were so many to which we wanted to return, and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would just have to do most of that on a subsequent trip. We did, however, want to go back to the Caribbean coast, and explore along the deserted beach. Parking at an outlook point, we climbed down the rocks to the beach, and began to explore. What an interesting place this was. We found a lot of shells, waded through tide pools, and just wandered down the beach, climbing over rocks, talking to the iguanas, and generally admiring all the wonders around us, both great and small. We climbed back up the rocks and made our way to the road, finding that we had wandered farther than we thought. Several taxis stopped as we walked back up the road, hoping that our golf cart was still there. We got back to our cart, and headed back into town with our bounty of sea shells. It was about 3:30, so I dropped Ritsuko off at the hotel, returned the golf cart to Sol Rentals.
Returning to the hotel, I found Ritsuko at the pool, chatting with some of the other guests, showing her new collection of shells. Paul and Wendy were a very nice, and most interesting British couple who had been living in Japan for the past few years, and were taking a few weeks off to tour Mexico. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool chatting with them, drinking cerveza, sharing stories of Japan, listening to their stories of travel in Mexico, and watching the frigate birds and iguanas as we lounged about in the cool fresh water of the pool. As the sun got lower in the sky, we all walked over to Sergio’s for more cerveza and a better view of the sunset.
After enjoying a glorious sunset, we went our separate ways. Ritsuko and I stopped at Jax for some ceviche, nachos, and a few more cervezas. We walked through town making a couple of stops along the way. The band at Isla Tequila was in fine form that evening, so we sat for a while, watching the people walking up and down Hidalgo as we had another cerveza and listened to the music.
Even though the beer was cheap, and the music was rocking, we were so tired by this time that we were almost catatonic. We returned to the hotel at about 9. It seems that we have a hard time staying up past 9 or 10, but when the body cries for sleep, I think that it is a good idea to answer the call.