Hitchhiking To Guatamala Part 16
Booze Cruise!!!
We grabbed the bus back into the area with the bars and hotels. There were college kids bungie jumping from cranes. The bars were still full of drinkers but things were definitely more quiet.
“Hey, you guys looking for the booze cruise? I got your hookup.” a thirty something black man with an American accent pushed glossy brochures towards us. I wondered if he’d come down for a visit and been offered the chance to stay and help wrangle in American tourists as we had been.
“Alright, so What is a booze cruise.” I asked.
“The boats gonna take you out in the gulf, it’s beautiful, all you can drink. There’s snorkeling.”
“Snorkeling? Really? You get people drunk and then let them snorkel?”
“Nah, well maybe. I think most people snorkel and then drink. You go into any bar on this strip and buy two beers and you’ll have spent more than the booze cruise costs you. It’s the best deal in Cancun, even if you don’t drink much. It’s an amazing deal if you do.”
“How long is the cruise?” Windy asked.
“About 4 hours.” We had a full day to fill with very little money and being out on the ocean sounded nice. Lo and Anna agreed. After the previous night, I was a little concerned with Anna having unlimited access to booze.
“Let’s go get hangovers.” Anna proclaimed and climbed aboard the boat. There were maybe a dozen passengers on the boat. It could hold easily three times that many. It was mellow and quiet, not quite as rowdy as the name Booze Cruise suggested, which was exactly what we were looking for. They had a very limited selection of booze. Coors, Coors Light, and Tecate in scratched glass bottles. We sat on the deck drinking cold beers looking out over the blue water. It was not a bad way to spend a morning.
A few of the other passengers were starting to wake up and get the party started. There was some whooping and slamming of beers, but there was enough room to keep a comfortable distance from them.
After an hour we reached an area of shallow water and some coral reef. Snorkels, masks and flippers were made available. They tried to charge us extra for the snorkeling gear. I argued with them that it had been offered with the price of admission. I pointed out that we did not drink much and were mostly in it for the snorkeling. Eventually they decided it wasn’t worth continuing to argue with me and we got our flippers, snorkels and masks without paying extra. The reef in this area was nowhere near as colorful and varied as in Belize but the water was cool and clear and it was very pleasant to explore. It reminded me of walking through a museum, going from one display to the next. A large man was sitting on a brain coral drinking a beer.
“Excuse me, that’s a living coral you’re sitting on.” I told him.
“This? It’s fuckin’ rock, dude.”
“No. It’s a brain coral. You should hop off it.”
“Well I feel like sitting on it, bro. Why are you making it your problem.”
“Okay. Okay. No problem. For the rash, I would recommend aloe if you can get it, but the pure stuff, no alcohol.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, it’s stinging you literally thousands of times right now. You’ll start to feel it in about 4 hours. By tonight it will be burning and itching and your skin will start peeling. Within 3 days though you’ll be fine, right as rain, less if you can get some aloe. Remember, pure aloe vera, no alcohol. I hope you’re not alergic.”
He hopped off the brain coral. “That sounds like bullshit, dude.” He said as he waded off through the shallow water.
“Was all of that true.” Lo asked.
“It was a little bit true. They do have stinging cells. But he’ll hurt it more than it’ll hurt him.”
“That was very funny.”
I liked it much better in Belize where they were recognizing the value of their coral reef and taking care of it, not giving people all the beers they could drink and then setting them loose unsupervised to sit on animals they thought were rocks.
We climbed back on the boat and enjoyed some Mexican hip hop while having more beers. As the boat got moving again two Mexican men dressed in over the top “Aztec” costumes came dancing toward us with wild drums blasting from the boat’s huge speakers. They danced a circle around us and then smacked a shot glass against a board, filled it full of tequila and shoved it in our direction. Anna took the first shot, then Lo, followed by Windy and myself. They danced off to another group of passengers.
“It’s actually fairly accurate historically” I said. “The Aztecs as you know were famous for their booze cruises. It is speculated that the Spanish explorers might have been less surly had they not been served so much tequila.”
“That and they were mad about being charged extra for snorkeling gear.” Windy added.
“Yes, plus their butts hurt from sitting on corals.” Lo added.
We had a good laugh, and the sound of the laughter caught the attention of our “Aztec” hosts, who danced their way back to us with more tequila shots. I pointed out to Lo the man who had been sitting on the brain coral twisting to try and investigate the backs of his thighs for a rash. “I predict he will be buying some aloe soon.”
“Yes, the pure stuff with no alcohol.” she snickered. I liked Lo and Anna a lot and was happy we had traveled with them. Windy and Anna sat on the edge of the deck, her head resting on his shoulder. “Why don’t you come to Cuba with us?” Lo asked. “We’re having so much fun traveling together.”
“Ah, that sounds wonderful but we’re out of money. We’ve already gone way over our budget and I’m going home owing Windy a small fortune.”
“Yes. It is the same with me and Anna. I love her. She is like my sister, but I think she takes advantage of me. She just assumes I will take care of everything and she doesn’t have to worry about money, especially when she is drinking.”
“Well, do you? Take care of everything, I mean.”
“Someday I won’t.”
“Well unless you want two more people to take care of, Windy and I will need to go home.”
“Let’s go find those Aztec warriors. I want more tequila.”
“Booze Cruise!” I yelled.
“Fuckin’ Booze Cruise!” the other passengers yelled back.