The One Ring

"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

Why am I quoting Tolkien while traveling in Mexico? It´s a good story.

For the last few days we have been in the town of Xcalak, in the very southeast tip of the Yucatan peninsula, near Belize. We´ve stayed a nice small hotel, Tierra Maya, owned by a couple of ex-pats, Dave and Kim. Six rooms, right on a small white sand beach, the Caribbean beckoning right outside our door. There is a small reef about 500 yards off shore and Amy and I rode some plastic kayaks out to a buoy where we tied the kayaks up, jumped into the beautiful warm, clear water and started snorkeling. The water is about 15 feet deep and on the way swimming out to the reef I saw a big conch shell on the sandy bottom. I asked Amy if she wanted me to try to get it and she said go for it. So I took a deep breath and swam down to the bottom, got the conch shell and headed back to the surface. I started swimming back to the kayak to deposit the shell when my wedding ring slid right off my finger and dropped to the bottom!!!! It seems that when I´ve lost my 20 pounds the last year or so my fingers have gotten a little smaller and there you go. But I could see it right on the bottom, so I dropped the shell next to it so I could remember where it was. By this time I was totally freaking out and screamed to Amy to come back towards the kayaks. I was drifting all over the place in the current, but because the big shell was there and the bottom was sand, I knew about where it was.

Amy made it back to where I was, but since I was breathing so bloody hard from my swimming and freaking out, I pointed to where I thought it was and said you have to try to go for it. I pointed to an object I was pretty sure was the ring, she swam the 15 feet down and grabbed the thing, then came back up. It wasn´t it! Damn! I kept looking down at the bottom and then spotted it for sure, the whole ring was visible in the sand. She swam down again and grabbed it and brought it up safe and sound. As Amy was grabbing the ring it looked exactly like the scene in The Return of the King where Smeagol grabs the Ring in the river. Sorry for all you non Tolkien fans, but I´m sure a lot of you have seen the movie.

So then Amy put the ring on my middle finger, where I was sure it wouldn´t slip off and we were off for some nice snorkeling.

Xcalak is a very small town of about 400 people, right on the Caribbean sea. North of town there are some nice small hotels. Ours had a few old rusty bikes that we could cruise the dirt road that went up and down the coast. So yesterday we rode about 13 kms up the road and visited a lot of deserted beaches. Unfortunately, this area is right off the gulf stream, so all sorts of trash litter these beaches. Lots of plastic bottles, baby chairs and A LOT of shoes. You could start a store with all the darn shoes on these beaches.

Mostly for the last few days we´ve just hung out on the beach, done some bike riding and had some great food and some AWESOME margaritas made up by the hotel´s owner, Dave Cawkins. Dave is an old Texan with some great stories including one that has to do with the fact that he was slightly responsible for Townes Van Zandt´s death (he of "Pancho and Lefty" fame). Another nice little restaurant in town, the Leaky Palapa, run by a couple of nice lesbians, had some unique Yucatecan fare, including quesadillas with shrimp and lobster. Marla, the owner, apologized for the fact that they only had lobster, no shrimp. DARN!! And the other nice thing about this restaurant is that the tables and chairs are right on the sand right on the sea, so you can eat your lunch as your toes wiggle in the marvelous fine white sand. To me, there is nothing better (well, almost nothing better) then eating some delicious seafood as you wiggle your toes in the sand.

Today we got up early as another local restauranteur, Toby, was driving into Chetumal today and when we were talking to him about coming here to Bacalar, where we are now, he said he´d take us. So now we are in the nice small town of Bacalar, which is located on this incredible lake, which is about 50 kilomters long and about 4 wide. The town is up on a hill with an old fort from the 17th century, which used to fight off pirates all the time. We are staying in a nice little place called Casita Carolina, run by another ex-pat American. She has 6 rooms and a big lawn that goes down to the lake. Just marvelous!

The town is great. Very few tourists, not spiffed up for us, which we love. Small taquerias and restaurants serving tasty food. Today I had salbutes, which are like a taco, but with more stuff on them like meat, salad, tomatoes and avocado. Amy had a poc chuc, which is a Yucatecan dish of pork marinated in amazing spices with sauted onions on top.

Later we had a really good fish soup at the local cenote. Cenotes are sink holes filled with fresh water. The one here is the largest in the Yucatan and is about 900 feet across and 500 feet deep! The water temperature is perfect, maybe mid 70s, and there are fish swimming all over the place. This one is right on the surface, as opposed to many cenotes which are in an underground cave.

Of course it´s Virgin of Guadalupe time, her day is coming up on Sunday. So tonight we joined a procession singing songs with a crowd of about 50 locals following a pickup truck with Guadalupe on top. There are a lot of pilgrims in town, the guys that go on bicycles all over the place, eventually ending up on December 11th at a church somewhere around that is dedicated to Guadalupe.

We´ll be here for a couple of days and then it´s down to the Rio Bec area, which has some amazing ruins. Looking forward to that!