If you haven’t read Reflections on Cancun – Part 1 you may do so now.

Shown above are some more pictures… mostly of Chichen Itza (ancient Mayan ruins) and the large water-filled sinkhole that the Mayans would use for human sacrifice.

I promised you I would mention the nude beaches. Well, in Cancun it seemed that anyone could go topless on any beaches if they so desired, but not very many women did. At first I thought that potentially topless women would be a major stumbling block for a foreign American boy like me… but really, it wasn’t much different than on American beaches. I mean, does a skimpily clad teenage girl with a tan go from 0% to 100% stumbling potential when she removes her top? Of course not… there was already a danger there. The beach has always been a place that a married Christ-following fellow like myself has had to keep his mind-filters on high-alert and eye-contact-avoidance-algorithms on hyperactive. In reality I got used to it fairly quickly.

However, there was one instance in particular that no preparation short of mammography training could have braced me. One day, as we were walking on the beach, I heard my wife say something like “Oh… my… word.” I followed her to gaze to the unfortunate conclusion… there was this HUGE woman with HUGE breasts the size of county fair blue ribbon watermelons. First of all, at rest state these things were totally succumb to gravity… Sir Isaac Newton had these weapons pointed directly at the Earth’s core. But the woman was vigorously putting lotion on them… and the activity caused these masses to violently swing in all sorts of trigonometric patterns. I can’t even imagine the rotational momentums being created.

So later on we went to the market in town. For those of you who’ve never been to Mexico you’ll need to learn fast to ignore local shopkeepers. While this may sound rude it is a necessary tact to preserve any enjoyment of the event. You are reduced to walking US currency, you see, and every shop you walk by has a shopkeeper that is willing to go for broke to get your bills. Even if you make no eye contact and are engaged in conversation with your spouse they’ll try and hound you. They’ll call you friend and say they have exactly what you’re looking for and tell you it’s free or nearly free or only one dollar. If you ignore them they’ll usually stop talking to you… but if you say “no thank you” you’ve opened up Pandora’s dialog box and they’ll hound you for sure because they play on your politeness as your weakness. If you make eye contact with either them or their wares they’ll hound you. If you look at their wares for a moment and then try and walk away they’ll hound you, even at great distance, until you are out of sight.

Now my wife is a good shopper. She didn’t put up with any of their garbage. We got $72 in jewelry down to $42 and a nice $40 plate down to $20. Those were probably fair final prices… but you have to work for it. One poor Mexican, after trying to get extra cash from my wife for the plate, asked her if she was a lawyer!

Later on in that same market I saw some T-shirts referring to Arizona and New Mexico as the “so-called Southwest United States” which was really just occupied Mexican land. *rolls eyes* There was one militant T-shirt that said Mexicans are NOT Hispanics and NOT Latin Americans…. and on the front were pictures of guerrilla fighters. Whatever.

All in all we had a great time and would go again in a second. The Mexicans at our resort were a hard-working bunch that seemed to sincerely want to serve and do a great job… and they did.