Dec. 16th, 2000

Back...

Dec. 16th, 2000 11:19 am
petermarcus: (Default)
...and exhausted. My Grandmother was 3rd last out of 17 kids. During the depression, they were the largest family in America, until another family beat them by one kid a couple years later. The last three are the only ones still living. The descendants, however, have all been fruitful and multiplied, and I can now claim half of Omaha as relative through blood, marriage, or ex-marriage. Just over fifty of these direct blood-relatives (and spouses) went to Cancun this last week, myself included. Most of them I hadn't seen in twenty years or more, some I had never met.

Very fun week, the Caribbean is georgeous down on the Yucatan, prettier than the Med and even the sea around Key West. Temps were in the low-80s the whole time, with a breeze to keep things nice.

Caught a four-foot barracuda that fought like a son-of-a-fish. We caught mostly barracuda on our deep-sea fishing, they were running for some reason. We caught a couple grouper, some georgeous triggerfish, and a yellowjack. The boat crew tossed the triggerfish, but kept everything else. Grouper and yellowjack are good eating, but there are rumors among American fishermen that barracuda meat has a mild nerve toxin. Latin America seems to love the stuff, though.

From 3rd grade to HS, I've taken roughly eight years of Spanish, on and off (spanish was a required course in my Miami elementary school). HS was 14 years ago, though. I can't believe how much Spanish has disappeared over the years. I'm pretty much stuck with present-tense. On the other hand, after a few days, I started dreaming in Spanish, and words would occasionally pop up out of nowhere. Everyone in Cancun speaks English, but most tolerated my 'espanol malo' and gave me a few language tips.

We snorkled off of Isla Mujeres in about 40' of water, with pilot fish and yellow triggerfish swimming up to us to check us out. The reef is a protected nature reserve, so they made us wear life-vests, to keep us near the surface. A few of us tried to dive deeper anyway, but it's hard when you have all that bouyant force trying to keep you afloat.

Played golf with my future uncle-in-law at the Hilton Cancun resort. Nice course, I did about average, which is a score too embarassingly high to post openly, but still not bad for an unfamiliar course with rental clubs. There were iguanas sunning themselves on every hole, some over two feet long with their tails. There was a ten foot crocodile sunning himself on the fairway of the eighteenth hole.

Caught a bit of Montezuma's on the last day, I think we had some bad sushi on the beach. Got a temporary henna tribal tatoo on my arm that's making me think about getting the real thing.

I'll link to some pics when we get them developed and scanned.

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petermarcus

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