The announcement eMail for the
trip said it all...
After many many (many) eMails and phone calls to work-out the logistics, Nadir bowing out of the whole trip and a late scratch by Ken, Richard, Maziar, Babak, Dan, Jeff, Dave and Mark officially started the trip at National Airport (I refuse to use the name of a certain senile ex-president) on Thursday, May 24th. We had got off to an inauspicious start with me arriving with wet pants, Dan with a keg of beer, Maziar without his tickets and all of us in a mad dash at the Houston airport. |
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| We arrived at Merida late at night and the last member of the crew, the unnamed Red Van joined us for the trip to the hotel. The stench of the air freshener inside the car was the main topic of conversation. |
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| The next morning we were
HORRIFIED to find out that alcoholic beverages are not sold
until 11am!! Mierda!! We piled into the van and
started off towards the Caribbean coast, killing at least
200 butterflies on the way as they smashed into the
windshield. That seemed to relieve some of the anger
over the "dry" conditions. We stopped off in
Valladolid for lunch and the much-anticipated first beer and
then moved on to Cobá, a Mayan site surrounding a couple of
lakes close to the coast. A couple of rolls of film
later, we moved on.
We were planning to stay at one of the Cabañas on the beach South of Tulum. After a couple of false starts at lame-o places, we accidentally walked into what would become our home for the next few days, beautiful Tita Tulum...
Some highlights of the following days:
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| Did I mention it rained? The rain
didn't stop for two days and it was pouring heavily on the
third day when we set off for the interior of the peninsula
again. After a soggy, but delicious lunch in Playa del
Carmen, we took a vote on an attempt at a short-cut through
the forest as opposed to a comfortable ride on the
super-highway. After about an hour of a very bumpy
ride on telephone line service roads and other semi-cleared
passages (and a full-fledged mutiny), the self-described
adventurers finally conceded defeat (sure they did) and we
back-tracked and went back to Valladolid on the boring old
super-highway.
The skies cleared up as we went inland into the center of
the peninsula and we eventually checked into the
gorgeous hotel in Valladolid. Everyone
cleaned up and gathered in the hotel restaurant as the group
was in the mood for heavy eating, drinking and conversation. |
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| We persuaded the nice people at the hotel to ignore that night's local ban on alcohol (it was election night) and after a heated discussion on the relative merits of opera & Eddie Vedder, some of the gents went on to join the post election celebration and shook hands with various local dignitaries. |
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| We set off the next day to visit a couple of
ruins and we lucked into a newly "rediscovered" and deserted
one just north of the city. We had all of
Ek Balam to ourselves and spent a good deal of the
afternoon there. Highly recommended. Next was a
mandatory trip to Chichen Itza, which despite the procession
of tour buses, is an amazing place.
Merida was the last port of call and after some frantic last-minute gift-buying, we settled in a great local restaurant for too much food and beer. A couple of the gents finally found an active strip joint on the way back and it was officially a bachelor party (although the actual bachelors bowed out of the excursion). The next morning we said our farewells to the Red Van (which by then had taken on the stench of our collective body odor), flew back to DC, and officially ended the trip with a group photo at the airport. |
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| My take on the whole thing: Lots of laughs, great food & drinks, many compelling conversations, a couple of adventures and most of all, new and strengthened friendships. A wonderful way to send off a couple of bachelors. |
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