So this morning, Jeff and I were sitting on our patio, drinking coffee and eating breakfast tacos, when these two guys came up the public beach access near our house with bulging grocery bags of produce and a dozen roses. They stopped at the water's edge and began to rub their entire bodies with what looked like bunches of cilantro. Then, they tossed the bunches into the sea. They then repeated that process with a half-dozen or so other produce items, including what looked to us like whole onions, apples, bananas, some things we couldn't identify, a small watermelon, and a larger watermelon. Each item they threw into the sea after rubbing it intact all over their bodies. Except the watermelons. These they threw down hard right at the waterline so that the melons burst open. When all the fruits and veggies were used up, they went through the whole ritual again with the roses. Then, they took something that might have been oil or honey or body wash, for all we know, and doused their heads and bodies and rubbed it in. Then, they waded out into the water, up to their waists, and stayed there for a few minutes and then came back to the shore and left as if nothing happened. We have no idea what they were doing, but our curiosity was certainly piqued. Jeff surreptitiously took a
short video of what we were seeing, just so we wouldn't sound crazy when we tried to tell people about it later. If you know anything about this ritual, we would love it if you could shed some light on it for us.
The rest of our day was pretty low-key. We read our books and went into town for Mexican food and took a nap and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the sea. But, around 5:30, we started to notice a lot of traffic to the beach from that same public access point. Families and individuals kept appearing and staring down the beach. Some were pointing. Some were clearly taking photos with their phones. They were all chattering in Spanish, using words we couldn't make out. The next house over blocks our view down the beach, so we couldn't see what was going on, and, though we were curious, we didn't really want to snoop....until we saw the bomberos' (firemen) boat zip up to the beach. This brought us down to the sand with the other onlookers. There was no fire and no smell of smoke, but there was a bevy of police officers crowded around one of the fishing boats down the way. In very short order, the bomberos had tied a line to the smaller boat and were speeding away with it in tow. A couple of officers remained in the little boat as it was headed back toward Progresso. Our quiet little beach has certainly been a hotbed of intrigue today, and we have absolutely no idea what has been going on.
In other news, the Mexican food has been amazing!
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| Lunch on the beach yesterday. Our free appetizers included baby shark empanadas and an amazing calabasa dip. |
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| One of my favorite beach things is coconut water out of a green coconut! |
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The atmosphere and food were full of personality at Maya-Ka, where we had dinner last night.
We had three kinds of kabobs in a flaming pineapple for our meal and a flan and a "Carlota" for dessert. |
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| We love Progresso! |
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| Lunch at Crabster's, consisting of a "Mexican-sized" margarita, shrimp guacamole, lobster tacos, and coconut shrimp |
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| The bomberos towing off a fishing boat |
