We loaded up the crew, grabbed all the dirty laundry we could carry, and headed back to town today. Apparently it’s Easter week, Semana Santa, and things around here are hopping to say the least. There are thousands of Mexicans on the beaches and I have yet to see another gringo that didn’t belong to one of the four boats in this gigantic bay. It’s a fun place to be. On the ride in to town the traffic headed for the beach was backed up for a mile and our taxi driver told us to expect a two hour ride back. It’s normally a twenty minute ride so this made us a little nervous. Two kids, two hours in traffic, not a good combo.
San Blas was hopping today. The plaza was filled with families and plenty of vendors to serve them. We dropped off laundry, and then just wandered the streets. We stopped in at a papaleria and bought Ouest a pair of scissors (our pair would lop off a finger and she’s been getting a little carried away with them). She was ecstatic. It cracks us up how easy this girl is to please sometimes. She carried around her twelve peso treasure in it’s plastic case the rest of the day. When we were hanging out at the plaza she got involved with a group of kids who had obviously all been bought a new toy for the day and they kept sticking them right in her face as if to show off, but Ouest remained completely oblivious to their helicopters and stuffed animals because she had a brand new pair of orange scissors.
Both Lowe and Ouest got the royal treatment from the locals. One lady in particular struck me today. She had to be in her eighties or nineties, had chocolate colored skin, and hands with wrinkles so deep they looked like canyons. I was about fifty feet away and turned around to see she had stopped Ali so she could place those hands on Lowe’s head and then stretch them skyward as if she were reaching out to shake God’s hand. Her back was to me so all I saw were those two huge dark hands. One thing you get here in Mexico is a true and deep sense of love for family and children. Meanwhile Ouest was running freely around the plaza and from a distance I could watch as young girls poked their boyfriends as they watched her, or men smile and reach out to touch her hair as she ran by, or ladies look around for her parents as they picked her up after yet another fall. A busy plaza in any Mexican town is about my favorite place to be.
At the end of the day we finally found a cab willing to drive us to the beach after we negotiated an hourly rate instead of the normal sixty peso straight rate. And then we drove straight home without slowing for another car the whole way. Apparently by the time we went home everybody else had already made their way there. It made even a heathen like me want to reach for the heavens.
