Charlie has demanded more about the trip to Cancun. I'm not really sure what more to say! It was stunningly beautiful. The Mexicans are more relaxed than we are about nearly everything (which is actually quite enjoyable). I was fascinated by the language and it aroused in me a great desire to dust off my Spanish and really master it. It may sound silly, but I wasn't looking at the jungle on our trip to Chichen Itza. I was looking at whatever road signs appeared. Salida - that must be exit. Returno - a u turn spot. And I can't for the life of me remember the word for seat belt, but it took a bit of seeing the sign (no icons on the signs, by the way) to connect the word with cincture and then it made sense. It was centuro de securidad or something like that, I believe.
Listening to the language was hopeless. The words flew by at such a pace that there was no way to take them in. But it was fun to speak what little we could to the staff:
Mas cafe, por favor! : )
No, no leche. Negro.
Gracias!
So, for a language buff it was a hoot and a half that way.
What did we do? Aside from the daylong trip to Chichen Itza with the opportunity to swim in that enormous sinkhole (Cindi, Deb, and Doug took the plunge while I took the pictures), we also went out one morning on "an ocean safari." That was 55 minutes of riding wave riders (my favorite part) and then snorkeling at the barrier reef (second largest in the world). I did not enjoy the snorkeling very much because I am not a terribly good swimmer, and I couldn't get the mask to stop leaking and continued to get salt water in my breathing tube. Nasty! But I DID get to see some beautiful purple fish, and some fish that were white with a stunning yellow stripe on the back, and some boring fish that looked just like the coral. As I looked at the fish I remember thinking how UNREAL they looked - just like Nemo in the cartoon.
The rest of the time was really devoted to swimming in that beautiful gulf - how can any water be such a color!; swimming in the pools; laying out in the sun; and enjoying way too many tropical fruit drinks. I think our new discovery was the Mango Margarita. That was very good.
That's about it. Oh, at Chichen Itza, the guide was very entertaining, but I was not at all convinced by his account of the Mayans. I bought a book there by a Spanish bishop who had lived among them in the 16th century and recorded their current life and oral traditions about their past. THAT is a fascinating read.
That's about it, Charlie et al.
Pax!
5 comments:
We did a Cancun trip about 4 years ago. I was equally skeptical of the local guide's revisionism of Mayan history. ("They were a fun-loving, peaceful bunch, really. All those ritual 'sacrifices' were really just symbolic; no one was actually hurt." - kind of the Zwinglian version of human sacrifice, I guess.)
I got my Intro to Scuba on the reef off of Cancun. That turned into certification and a whole closet load of equipment last summer. The fish are magnificent there. I've come to appreciate water temperatures that don't require 7 mm of neoprene to keep you warm.
seatbelt = cinturon (de seguridad)
From a fellow language enthusiast who is fluent in Spanish and married to a Mexican : )
Glad you enjoyed your trip and congratulations to you and your wife on your anniversary!
William,
We should get McCain to plan a Blog of Concord retreat - IN CANCUN. We can discuss the BOC and drink Mango Margaritas and be reminded of Baptism with the beautiful sea at hand. What do you think? : )
Anon,
Thanks so much! What an unfair advantage - a wife that speaks the lovely language already! I am seriously pondering one of those computer programs to help relearn. It's been a LONG time since Spanish. I took two years in HS and then one year in college. But that was almost some 30 years ago!
Pastor,
What may benefit you even more than a computer program is listening to Spanish language media and music. Since you probably have a good grasp of the basic grammatical structure, hearing the language regularly and in context is what will take you to the next level. If there are no TV or radio stations available in your area several genres of Latin music are readily available via the internet.
Que Dios le bendiga!
Great Scott!
Now Spanish! I guess since I was outed on this very blog I'll have to tell you my Spanish name. Or honorific, more exactly.
El Teraco.
What? Well, there is no equivalent to Terence in Spanish, or my birth name Douglas either (which I did not know of during my years of Spanish acculturation) so the crew dubbed me El Teraco.
The crew? The Puerto Rican contingent at university, who took me in.
We have a different accent. And at some points different idioms and vocabulary. Mexican Spanish sounds very harsh and choppy to me. My theory is their accent derives from the emphasis on consonant sounds of the pre Columban indigenous languages, whereas ours derives from the sweet breeze of the sea and the movement of many people through the islands, leaning on the vowels and even leaving out the consonants if they hurt the flow!
Man now I'm ready for a little Salsa, and I don't mean chip sauce. Sure beats guys in cowboy hats and accordians!
Do you guys get Univision? I watch it all the time.
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