Mexican Adventure, Part III: Scuba: not a sport, but fun nonetheless

Poolside cheeseburgers and shameless gorging aside, our main activity in Cozumel was Scuba diving, which we did over two days. My first day was spent alone with an instructor, as I needed to complete two more beach-based dives for my certification. Luis, my instructor, was a young, cheerful bloke who was passionate about diving and was actually an ex-semi-pro surfer as well, so we had a lot to talk about. He was very impressed with the surfing-specific wetsuit I had brought from home, but I didn't have the heart to tell Luis that the suit was in no way an accurate indicator of my actual surfing ability.

So while I spent my first two dives off of the beach on the first day of scuba, Crystal, already certified, went off on the boat with 5 other divers, where they had hit the jackpot: no sooner had their boat reached their designated dive spot and floated to a halt, that half a dozen dolphins started leaping out of the water, mere feet away from the boat. The group's dive master had begun to go through their plans for the first morning's dive, but when he spotted the dolphins - an extremely rare sighting - the dive master went bananas. He was so excited by leaping dolphins that he ditched his dive safety speech and yelled for everyone to dive in the water, lest they miss the Vegas-grade show. They dove in, and had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Meanwhile, I was stuck on the beach, practicing breathing exercises and talking about my awesome wetsuit with Luis.

The second day's dive was none too shabby. I finally joined the rest of the divers aboard the boat, and we did see some terrific sea life: beautiful reefs, colorful fish, and one giant lobster. One fish in particular had me chuckling throughout my dive: it was scaled with a diamond pattern, and in the undersea light, the coloring of its scales had a distinctly 1970's bachelor pad, rompus room motif: subdued reds, burnt oranges and yellows, and shimmering quartz. I figured if any fish would evolve to have chest hair and drive a Corvette, it would be this one. I called it the Leisure Fish. I imagined it inviting other fish couples to it's little reef, and after some tasty krill cocktails, they would switch swimming partners at the end of their soiree. It's amazing what oxygen deprivation can do to the mind.

The diving really was good fun. When you finally learn to control your movements and maintain neutral buoyancy, it does feel like you're floating in zero gravity, and it's obviously a treat seeing the fish and other creatures in their natural habitat.

I think scuba is one of those activities that some die-hard devotees will insist is a sport, and not a mere activity. After my admittedly short stint underwater, I can now prove these people dead wrong. Any activity where an obese, 350 lb Texan can seem more graceful underwater than a healthy, physically active 175 lb. man, is not a sport. While I was struggling to maintain buoyancy and constantly adjusting my breathing and weights, the big Texan, one of the other clients in our boat and a seasoned diver, floated through the murky depths with the grace and agility of a shark. It was impressive. Back on land, of course, this husky gentleman moved with the typical, deliberate gait of a man who was trapped in his own cell of corpulence. I know it's a harsh observation, but I'm just saying I can understand why bigger people love Scuba.

Mexican Adventure, Part II

The Park Royal in Cozumel fulfilled its promise to us of affordable pampering amid a mildly ethnic backdrop. The lobby, the showpiece of any resort worth its complementary pillow mint, was impressive, dominated by an enormous, Mayan-style straw canopy. That roof, probably at least 50 feet tall, was impressive. It was, clearly, a nod to the cultural past of the region. It also had me wondering how much “Mayan” was left in the local sensibility. Were human sacrifices really a thing of the past? How was justice meted out​? If, for instance, the management caught me stealing the cashews from the mini-bar how would i be dealt with? would I be ritualistically filleted and offered to the Mayan sun god? I decided it best to stick to the complementary buffet.

Ah yes, the buffet: the anchor that holds together the glue for the gears of an all-inclusive resort. I realize I just mixed and mangled a bunch of metaphors there, but such a mixture of descriptors is the best way to describe the bottomless smorgasbord available to us. There was just so much food.

The beauty of the all-inclusive resort is you can eat whatever and whenever you want. It took me a few meals – or “sessions” as I liked to call them – to realize that I could bring bizarrely assembled plates of food back to my table, and the waiters would not judge me. That is a key difference between a buffet layout and a proper, sit-down establishment. Just try piling on your own, brought-from-home chipotle sauce on your "steak frites" at your local French bistro, and your snooty French waiter will shoot eye-daggers at you until you cease and desist such nonsense.

At this resort buffet, conversely, there were no such restrictions. I ended up trying to see how many different foods I could smother in guacamole, and I found the sky was the limit. Guacamole soon became a sort of all-purpose lubricant, not unlike WD-40, that could help me transition from one food type to the next. Indeed, nothing quite diffuses the acidity of a citrus salad and readies the palette for seafood pallella like a generous helping of guacamole.

But the dining bonanza did not end at the restaurant. Instead, it reached it's climax when we learned, on day 3 of our stay, that it was actually possible to order a cheeseburger, nachos, and a lime daquiri (full disclosure: 6 lime daquiris) without ever having to exit the hotel pool. In fact, I soon discovered there was no reason to leave the pool at all, as after daquiri #5, I decided that the closest urinal, located in the restroom 50 meters away from where I was floating, was simply too far, and that the chlorinated pool would do just fine, thank you. I'm not proud of this, but let's be honest: pride goes straight out the window when you order that first poolside cheeseburger. Indeed, the Park Royal had us in it's lime-flavoured, death-grip of sloth, and we were only too happy to comply.

If you'll forgive the random analogy, our all-inclusive resort experience reminded me of Kobe beef. This is the Japanese beef that is coveted for it's unrivaled tenderness and rich flavor. The secret to Kobe beef's deliciousness is in how the cows are treated: in short, they are treated exactly like guests at an all-inclusive resort: The cows are raised on a steady regimen of plentiful, delicious food, beer (yes, beer) and are encouraged to do as little exercise as possible, so as to keep their muscles soft and tender. Complementary massages are also part of the deal. Sound familiar? Let's not forget the mandatory wearing of colored bracelets within the resort, akin to being tagged like animals under observation. Still, did I mention how good that guacamole was?

Coming in Part III: Scuba Diving

Mexican Adventure, Part 1

I've never been one for beach vacations. There are countless other holiday options that pose more attractive than the prospect of spending a week in the hot sun, splayed out on the sand like a beached whale, exposing my near-translucent epidermis to the sun's unkind gaze. Having said that, I believe such a holiday to be a rite of passage for the upwardly mobile North American – just as it is standard, office cubicle procedure for said North American to have photos of such a vacation festooning one's office cubicle.

So, with my main motivator being to upgrade my office décor from motivational poster purgatory to a collage of idyllic beach shots and candid photos of me and my girlfriend sipping on fruity bowls of booze, last week we embarked on a 9-day trip to Mexico, where we'd travel through the Mayan Riviera and a good chunk of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Things got off to an inauspicious start on the night of our trip. Flights to Mexico out of Montreal had become increasingly expensive in comparison to flying there from other cities in the Northeast, so we opted to fly down to Cancun from Boston. Our flight would be at 10am, a sensible hour...if you live in Boston. We threw logic to the wind, however, and decided to drive down to Boston from Montreal at 2am on Friday night/Saturday morning, after we had both logged full days of work, a brisket dinner at my grandmother's house, and farewell drinks earlier that night.

The obvious downside to this idiotic travel plan was that, despite having the equivalent of Red Bull intravenous drips attached to both our arms, my girlfriend and I were both dangerously exhausted for most of the 5 hour ride. The upside, of course, would be a cheap flight out of Boston, and repeated moose sightings throughout our drive down. The reality of this last advantage, of course, was that there weren't any actual moose spotted, but rather the delirium of our shared fatigue had manifested itself into hallucinatory wildlife sightings. Indeed, by hour 4 of the drive, we had counted 5 moose, 2 jackalopes, and, curiously, a polar bear riding a pteradactyl. Thanks, Red Bull.

After a couple of flights and layovers, we finally landed in Cancun. From there, we cabbed to Playa del Carmen, and from there we caught the ferry over to Cozumel, where we would stay at the Park Royal all-inclusive resort.

When I think of Cancun and the surrounding beach side towns, I think of drunken Americans and Canadians, making asses of themselves in impossibly large hats. I doubted I could confirm the validity of this stereotype, as it was still the low season and the boozing gringos had not yet invaded en masse. Fortune smiled upon us, however, because as we waited for the ferry in Playa del Carmen, we did spot one not-so-elusive North American boozer: easily visible through the large, open windows of the legendary Senor Frogs nightclub, our specimen was the size of a Macy's parade-float, hoisting a colorful glass not much smaller than the telescope I received for my Bar Mitzvah, standing on a chair and singing along to the Britney Spears tune that was playing in the club; a true bon-vivant, this guy. As I watched him gyrate and air-guitar his way to glory, I knew that Brad (i decided to name him Brad) and I were on divergent paths for the night; within 2 hours I would likely be fast asleep in my hotel room, and this bro would likely be vomiting into his sombrero. Vaya con Dios, Brad.

Coming soon in Part II: tales of pool abuse and Kobe beef

Non-lethal technology…OLÉ!

If you’re sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, thumbing through old copies of Popular Science, you will quickly learn 2 things: 1) If you agree to send a certified cheque (or money order) to a P.O. box in Akron, Ohio, it is apparently possible to build your own, totally safe, working jetpack for $399, and 2) for decades, governments and private defense contractors have been hot on the trails of developing various, futuristic, non-lethal weapons. These are weapons whose use would, when put in the hands of trained military and law enforcement officers, greatly reduce the number of casualties on the battlefield and on North American city streets.

There have been lots of different weapons explored, and each of them, if you`ll excuse the cliché, have less in common with science than with science fiction: You've got your standard stun guns, your laser guns, your immobilizing goop, your heat rays, and, my favourite, the nausea ray. This last one is not really a ray and more so just a powerful flash bulb that, when pointed at an assailant, will temporarily blind him or her, induce vertigo, and, if all goes according to the $1-million plan, will make them immediately vomit on the spot. To be fair, such a device sounds more like the product of the ultimate prank machine than a battle-tested alternative to a taser gun or rubber-bullets (what’s next, the nuclear powered whoopee cushion?). Having said that, I guess a ‘perp’ blowing chunks is a perp who is easily subdued, and that’s what counts in these things.

I thought of the puke ray last night as I struggled to make my way through the tapas I had ordered at a local Spanish restaurant. I don't want to be sued for slander, so I won't mention the restaurant's name, suffice it to say it was called Red Room, in Spanish. Fuck it, it was Sala Rosa on St. Laurent boulevard. I was out for dinner with a friend, and I had recommended the place based on a previous, positive dining experience. We ordered 5 tapas, which included chorizo (greasy), calmari(simultaneously rubbery and soggy), rappini(so-so but not terrible), tortilla (quite good), and sardines (horrible!). The plates all came at once, which I appreciated, as it feels like you have the whole meal gauntlet laid out in front of you, and you can plan your food assault accordingly.

Things had started out well enough as I took bites from all 5 dishes. It was around the time I took a second bite out of the sardines, however, that it felt like someone had zapped me with a puke ray. It wasn’t only nausea that I felt, but a brief sense of incapacitation. I was in mid-sentence and then I just froze: as if the puke ray was hunting me and I believed it would leave me be if I remained motionless. My dining companion immediately sensed my discomfort, especially because I had stopped speaking, mid-sentence. “shit, are you gonna puke or something?” she asked. “No,” I assured her, as I took deep breaths (those familiar deep breaths tantamount to puking). Sure enough, seconds later, I was fine again. I had lost my appetite, but the compulsion to blow chunks had completely subsided. Sure, it could just have been the sardines. Indeed, they were disgusting enough to have had such an effect. But then how did I recover so quickly? It was a puke ray, my friends. Trust no one.


FS