OK, I lied....

...the next installment is more Progreso!

So we walked back towards the beach, finished shopping at the mercado, and decided we needed some beach time. So we head towards the beach, past all the vendors on the streets selling "ice cold beer, lady?" or "sterling silver, guaranteed!" or souvenir T-shirts and hats. One industrious guy was actually weaving hats out of some green, fibrous leaf. Reminded me of a palmetto leaf, but wider and greener. I never saw anyone wearing them, but I appreciated his talent.

We arrive at the beach. There are some constructed "tiki huts" for lack of a better term that I would guess locals can rent for the day to sell their wares. A massage on the cruise ship was around $150.... on the beach in Progreso, it was only $15. Just don't ask for a license to practice massage therapy, because I'm sure it didn't' exist. We found a nice spot in the sun and sat down to enjoy some snacks we'd brought with us. I swear, we never had 5 minutes alone to talk and soak it all up without someone walking up and saying "hey, lady, hey ladies, I have beautiful sterling silver here." Or authentic sombreros. Or carved foam lizards on a stick, spray-painted in wild colors. We had a guy come up and swear he was Mayan, and showed us photos of some traditional Mayan ceremony. We had a girl come up and offer us a "couples massage, only $25." Our immediate response was "um, we're not gay!" She gave us a nod and a wry smile, letting us know she didn't believe a word we said, but her offer still stood. One friend exclaimed "We're married!" The massage girl walked away, and I told my friend not to bother, that they probably assume we are married.... in California... to each other.

We had little kids, maybe 5 and 6 years old, come up peddling conch shells and necklaces of shells. One set of kids had on a single pair of flip-flops between them. One wore the right flip-flop, one wore the left. We could only assume they swapped shoes after an hour or so. If we had given money to everyone who appeared to need it, we'd have been broke in 15 minutes. I recalled to mind that old saying "Start out like you can hold out." I didn't have enough single dollar bills to hold out for the next 3 hours, so we just said no to all of them.

The best sales pitch of the day came from a fellow we dubbed "Pedro the Poet." This guy walks up, clearly out of breath from walking on sand. He kept trying to pull his pants up high enough and his shirt down low enough to cover his belly, but it wasn't working. He came up and said he'd write us a poem for a dollar. In retrospect, that probably would have been the funnest thing to spend a buck on, but we were still in shock about being thought a gay threesome. One of my friends had enough composure to say "well, I don't know... give us a sample of your prior work." Her deadpan humor was lost on Pedro. So she said "tell us a poem you've already written." He then thought WE were the slow ones, because he said very loudly and slowly, "NO! I write YOU poem. In ENGLISH." Armed with his memo pad, a golf pencil, and a clear command of the English language, we had no doubt he was up to the job, but by that point we were tired of being hassled. Then he switches tack and says "You rich Americans. We poor Mexicans. You need give us money." Well, that attitude we get daily in the USA and we became indignant and ran him off. Which is why we have no poem from Pedro the Poet.

The sand in Progreso was not fine. It was quite coarse, actually. Not gravel, but not superfine sand. Turns out it was a good thing because we had not brought beach towels, and the sand easily brushed off of our legs and feet. The Caribbean ocean was very cold in early February, and it was about all you could stand to let the waves brush your feet and ankles. The people selling rides on the banana boats (inflatables pulled behind a speed boat) had a hard sell. No one wanted to get wet in that cold water!