All week people had told me I would be seeing coatis, little cat-monkey things. Even though I searched them out I didn’t see any. As we were disembarking the tram after the whale shark excursion, I complained. It’s the last day and I still haven’t seen any coati!” I looked down the street, and there was a whole passel of them! They are called a “coatimundi” or “coati” or “tejon” in Spanish. They are related to racoons and have cute long tails. They roll around with each other and are so much fun! It was a great day, animal-wise.
The day finally was here! This is why I came to Cancun, and why I came in sweltering August! The whale sharks come to the waters of Isla Mujeres, about a 2-hour boat ride from Cancun. So, is it a whale or is it a shark? It is a shark, although it filter feeds like a whale. It is the largest known fish on earth. The biggest one ever recorded was 61 feet long and they can live up to 130 years! We had to go without sunscreen, even if it was reef safe because the whale sharks feed on the surface and can ingest the slick of chemicals. So I got a sunburn, but it was the least I could do for these glorious creatures. It was a gorgeous day out on the water.
We had to get up really early to beat the other boats there, but when we got to the harbor the guides spent about an hour and a half drumming up more business to try to fill the boat. So annoying. But I guess ya gotta earn a living. When we got to the spot there was a wide circle of boats, and plenty of whale sharks to go around. They were everywhere! At one point one came right to the boat where a guide and I were sitting, and I swear it was the size of a VW bug! We looked at each other agog, and I assume he has seen a lot.
You need the sound on to hear Bob flirting with the shark
Everyone is paired up, and you get two chances in the water. We were sitting on the edge of the boat, and as soon as a whale shark got close they yelled, “Go! Go! Go!” I didn’t notice at the time, but in the video you can see that the guide pushed me in! As the bubbles cleared I found myself face to face with a whale shark that was probably 5 feet wide. If its mouth was open I might have met Jonah. But I had swam with whale sharks in the Georgia Aquarium and was familiar with their behavior. So I opened my arms and legs wide and let my whole body float on top of the water. As expected, the shark gracefully slid beneath me. I floated there as its entire body glided beneath mine, blotting out the rest of the sea. All I could see was the beautiful gray spotted leviathon, maybe 2 feet away. In that moment I felt that I fully understood the majesty of nature.
The guide yelled, “Swim! Swim!” He wanted me to follow it to get video, which I guess had been impossible with the whale shark completely between us..
The other guide was excited as I was. He said, “When I saw you were going over, I swam beneath him!
I decided that nothing could ever match that experience and immediately got out of the water. As I stepped onto the boat I announced, “I have found my god!!”
Bob was videotaping me, but when the shark swam under me the boat lurched and he missed most of it. You can just see its tail as I float near a fin. The people on the boat were anxious, thinking I had been hit in the face with the fin. But some moments you can’t capture on video, especially religious ecstasy. All the action is in the first 23 seconds of video.
The diver got better video here
They kept wanting me to chase the sharks to get more video, but I kind of felt like they had given me my moment and I was done. We went to the Isla Mujeres and hung out in the harbor with a bunch of other boats. Lots of people were swimming, and the guides made us a ceviche lunch from fish they had just caught. It was one of the best experiences of my life.
If I ever disappear, you can be pretty sure I will be in a boat off of the Isla Mujeres living this guy’s life
We had rescheduled our snorkeling trip, and there were only four of us on the boat…a nice woman and her son, so we kind of lucked out. It was a gorgeous day out on the water. It was such a beautiful pale turquoise. First, we were going to see turtles. There were no turtles. We swam and swam and finally I gave up and went back to the boat. I had thought we were going to Akumel Bay, which is world-famous for turtles. I questioned the tour guy, and he threw his hands in the air, exasperated and said, “Akumel, Akumel, Akumel!” Exactly like the Brady Bunch “Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!” Maybe you need a special license or something to go there that he didn’t have and he was frustrated at his terrible dive area.
She looks angry, but she was just having trouble with her full-face snorkel. They aren’t the best, and have turned out to actually be dangerous.
Next we were going to the reef, but there was just a depressing black-bottom. At one point I saw a giant barracuda and started chasing it, I looked back for the photographer and he was shooting B-roll of ugly dead coral. Later he asked me if I was crazy following the barracuda, I was thinking, “Well, I expected you to take a picture of me with it!” I was also thinking barracuda aren’t really dangerous. We had them in the water at the beach where I grew up. Although one time one did bite my friend on the tit, but it was funnier than it was scary. Anyways, in spite of the photographer’s barracuda fail, he did get this absolutely awesome picture of me.
The final dive was an old shipwreck, but it was a very small boat that sunk in the 80s and you just swim around it. It’s not some big galleon you can swim through. I decided to save my already wobbly legs for the next day’s whale shark excursion. We enjoyed just hanging out in the boat a lot.
I booked two excursions for Saturday–snorkeling the reef during the day and a food crawl in the evening. We had to wake up super early and take two trams to get to the pickup spot for tour buses. The bus was late, and when it finally came there was only room for one of us. They hadn’t counted Bob. So, we decided to reschedule for the next day and went back to hang out at the pool until our evening tour. There were pools all over the place, but we went to the smaller one nearest to our room with less kids than some of the others. There were cement chaise lounges built into the pool, but it was hard to relax in one without sliding down into the water. They needed handles or foot pegs or something. There was a swim-up bar but I wasn’t really in the mood.
We ordered shrimp tacos poolside and I found a little cove with those white canopied beds you see in all the Instagrams. No one was around, so I had some time to just relax by myself and enjoy the mild breeze.
We got ready and made our way back to the bus pickup. We waited for the bus. And waited. And waited. I had texted with the people earlier in the day, but now my texts went unanswered. We finally returned to the room and ordered room service. This is the only trip in my entire life where I stayed ensconced in a resort and never made it into the actual city. I always believed that line about being a “traveler, not a tourist,” and seeing the REAL country and the REAL culture. But I guess when Covid is still raging and you are exhausted and stressed out, there are worse things than eating ceviche and lounging by the pool at a resort all day. The resort had a “Mexican Village” down by the water. It turned out to be like Knott’s Berry Farm’s “Old West” town. There was something so sad and ironic about little pretend shops and restaurants in the safety of an enclosed resort, that was honestly pretty hard to leave even when you are really trying. At least they had ice cream. And Churros.
They even had Gouda cheese ice cream.
It was too surreal for us though, so we didn’t eat dinner there. We probably should have. We went to the Italian restaurant, which was terrible. I started out with burrata, which I guess was OK, but there was a burned kind of balsamic. They had a nice harpist. But the risotto was like glue. I can see why so many contestants go home on Top Chef or get yelled at by Gordon Ramsay due to risotto. It can go really bad. They had the same crazy ass bread basket as the Cirque du Soleil.
We went and checked out the alligators before turning in early.
We had been ordering room service breakfast, because honestly, it took at least a half-hour to get to anywhere that had food. This was the mediocre to bad cafeteria-conference meeting fare I had been expecting. I guess the breakfast comes from a different restaurant than the dinners. but then we hit the pool and the nearby restaurant, Limon y Sal, which specializes in Ceviche. It was awesome. probably the best meal of the entire trip.
We had the Mixed Yellow Ceviche with scallops, octopus, grouper, salmon, yellow Peruvian chili pepper in a citrus sauce and fish tacos.
We wandered along the beach, then took a tram to the resort’s Cirque du Soleil show, JOYA. There were a few bars to hang out in while we waited we ordered a couple of very strong drinks and enjoyed the moonlight.
A 3-course meal of trippy food was included and served before the show while we listened to an awesome jazz band. Everything was really creative, with a lot of molecular gastronomy and food that was disguised as other things. But the flavor wasn’t there. You could eat the menu, and we were given huge appetizer plates with crazy concoctions.
Our main dishes arrived in big gold nuggets.
My braised short ribs in Mayan spices were pretty standard, but Bob was not into his salmon dish. Although he had a cool molecular gastronomy “pearl”
Our desserts arrived in a giant book.
After dinner, things got really weird.
“Prepare for a fantastic adventure that will take you through the jungle, under the sea, and across the pages of history. Each night, acrobats perform dizzying flips and leaps, contortionists bend impossibly, puppeteers make dinosaurs dash and cockroaches dance, musicians fill the world with song, and the very stage comes alive to lead you on a journey that dazzles the senses.”
The design and effects that made it seem like we were all under the sea were awesome, with the acrobats moving as if they were swimming.
At one point skeleton pirates came out on a giant ship. Then they suddenly slid down from the ceiling into the audience on ropes. One was right behind me and freaked me out.
I have a roach phobia, so the singing cockroach puppets also freaked me out. Luckily they were far away.
I don’t know if our tram driver was in a rush to get back and pick up more people, or he was just having fun, but he drove back like a bat out of hell. I didn;t know those things could go that fast, and I was certain we were going to flip over as we took some of the corners. The wind was in my hair and it was awesome.
Vidante Resort had an assortment of international restaurants that I viewed with a jaundiced eye, but you can’t eat tacos 24/7 (or CAN you?). We called for reservations, since some restaurants were only open on certain nights, and some had closed due to Covid. We ended up with GONG, an Asian-themed spot. A large part of this vacation is tram-riding and walking and trying to figure out where you are.
Walking, walking, walking…
Where are we???
We were told the restaurant was above the boutique, so we got in the elevator and pushed the button for the second floor. It was just a bunch of offices and their call center, with operators busily working in windowed rooms. There was no third floor. So we took the stairs down, and there it was! It was on the 1 1/2th floor maybe?
GONG is superfancy and decorated with a lot of Buddhas. We had a lovely table in the corner watching the kitchen, and I got to sit on the banquette. I was excited about the dim sum, so we decided to order a bunch of appetizers and see if we were still hungry. Then this guy appeared in his leather apron and leather gloves.
I said, “Bob, this man has come to kill us.”
Bob assured me, “I think he is here to make cocktails.” not wanting to cross this man, I ordered a lychee margarita.
It packed a wallop, and even only drinking about a third of it between the two of us, I had a pretty good buzz going. The food arrived and it was awesome. These dumplings were filled with short ribs and a little hoisin sauce. The combo of richness and sweetness was inspired and made one dumpling perfectly delicious and gorgeous, but you couldn’t eat too many of them.
This was not true of the shrimp and pork pot stickers, with a kiss of ginger and garlic in a paper thin wrapper that was almost like a crepe. I could have eaten them all night, and in fact, I ordered some to go for the perfect midnight snack.
Bob loved his hand roll, and we rounded out the menu with tempura shrimp and Vietnamese Spring Rolls. We definitely didn’t need to order main dishes.
We did decide to continue with our prudent consumption of alcohol and sugar by splitting an irresistible-sounding cacao and ginger mousse/creameux with macadamia nuts. It was served with vanilla and ginger ice cream. A lovely finish.
The pools looked dreamy and inviting with the soft lighting and without the crowd.
Too inviting for me to resist. I had foolishly ignored someone’s advice to always wear a bathing suit, but that never stopped me before. Especially after a lychee margarita.
At this point, I was about ready to sign up for a time share.
I had booked a couples massage for us, and we woke up less than an hour before the appointment. We had to rush and then take two trams and walk a ways, so we were a little late. They nevertheless accommodated us and gave us the full treatment. Starting off, they blessed us with elements of Earth, Fire, Air and Water. For fire, they used flameless candles, which I found hilarious, but it’s the thought that counts, right? It was a long and thorough massage, and then they gave us macarons. When I was booking the treatment in my terrible Spanish, I couldn’t understand what “macaron” was. Some exotic body treatment? Then I realized, “You mean cookies???”
I had wanted to lunch at Havana Moon, the resort’s Cuban restaurant on the beach, but they were closing up as we arrived. The beach was beautiful, but due to a buttload of a seaweed-like algae called Sargassum, it wasn’t really swimmable.
De rigeur feet on the beach shot
There had been a lot of pictures online of a hut at the end of a dock, taken from the other end of the dock. I went looking for the dock, for the ‘Gram, but it wasn’t going to happen.
We ended up at Balche, the poolside cafe. Even though it was open-air, they run a lot of fans and keep it cool and comfortable. They also have a very convenient box of outlets to charge your phone, and cute little birds flying through. Although when one flew right at my face full speed it was a little startling. I avoided a Fabio incident though, just by a beak. I ordered the ribeye tacos, and Bob had a shrimp burrito. Once again, every single thing, down to the french fries, was delicious. If this place were near my home I would definitely eat there again.
Then we walked, we walked and we walked. We passed a big swimming pool full of revelers. Not as many kids as drunks, especially some howler monkey guys near the swim-up bar. I told Bob, “That’s somebody’s vacation, but it’s not mine.”
We took two trams back. You always have to go to a central station and then you can take a tram to wherever you’re going. Riding through the jungle, it’s kind of like being at Disneyland. In fact, if the tram is your favorite thing at Disneyland, and you think, “Like Disneyland, but every. single. ride. is a tram,” this is YOUR place. Numerous iguana sightings made it more fun.
In fact, they also had coatls, a relative of the racoon that look like monkey cats, that everyone kept insisting I would see, a crocodile pit, a “flamingorium,” Cirque du Soleil, a water park, and trees randomly dropping coconuts. I even saw an employee board a tram with a falcon on his arm.
During the height of Covid, a lot of places were offering ridiculous deals, with the promise of traveling any time within the next two years. One place advertised on Facebook. A week in Cancun for $250 bucks. I decided I would take that bet. Well, here we are almost a year later, and I am comfortably ensconced in a big comfy bed, full of margaritas and ready to go out looking for little local racoonish cat things. We ended up paying $250 more for an upgrade to a much nicer hotel at the resort. Well spent. I never used to like the idea of resorts because of this philosophy, nicely summed up by Camper Van Beethoven:
We had a long and annoying flight, with the people in front of us slamming backwards in their seats at random, and a coke spilling all over me. Changing clothes on a plane is not fun. My friend asked me to have a mango margarita for her, so I had that handled before we even left the airport.
The check in process was extensive, with us being dropped off by the van, doing paperwork with a bellboy, then taking a tram to our hotel’s check in. The bellboy told me to take a picture so I did.
Then I realized that he meant I should take a picture of the number on our luggage cart so we didn’t forget it. So yeah, I was tired. By the time we got to the check-in around 10:30 pm we were so done. It turns out the resort requires a $1,000 deposit on your card. I only had $500 on my card, and I swear he was just going to kick me off the resort and let me sleep on the beach. No one warned me of the deposit, and he insisted they did. Luckily Bob had his work card, and I hope he doesn’t get in trouble for using it for the hold. But when we finally made it to our room it was really nice. Everything was marble, which is so refreshing in hot weather.
I immediately called room service, then took a soak in this giant tub
Room service blew my mind. It was awesome. The steak was accompanied by a mole enchilada and a little hard taco. The guacamole was fresh and flavorful.
This did much to improve my mood and my estimation of touristy resorts. The bed was firm but gentle and I slept until noon the next day. The view from our window:
When I was buying a ticket online for the Van Gogh Museum, I saw an ad for something called “Taste of Amsterdam.” How could I resist? The event was held in a large, gorgeous park, and included a market as well as a food festival with food, drink, music and dancing. The entrance fee was minimal, and you paid for small plates.
When I walked into the festival, I shouted to myself, “Yes! This is my JAM!!!” Which is something I have never said in my life.
There was a lot of Italian, middle eastern, and especially Indonesian food. One man was making Takoyaki, which he billed as “Japanese Poffertjes.”
I tried some Iberico cold cuts and croquetas from Pikoteo.
I enjoyed a BBQ sandwich from Pig n Punch.
I tried some Indonesian food.
And a pork bao
This chef also created dishes that fooled the eye, looking like one thing when it was really another, like this vegetarian Coquilles St Jacques.
When I asked people about Dutch cuisine they laughed and said there is no such thing. They said the only native dish was “stamppot,” where you just mix the meat and potatoes and everything together.
There was a band playing “Sweet Caroline,” and suddenly, all around me, every single person sang the daa daaa daaah” part.
Bob’s Band, The Freeks, played this psychedelic metal festival with his band … It was located in a camp, perhaps a camp for disabled kids because there was some accessible playground equipment. It was a nice location, with a big green meadow, and backstage there was a school building with flush toilets and showers. I cannot express enough the importance of flush toilets. And it was nice for musicians on the road to be able to have a shower. I was so excited to see Bob again!
I had gotten a little B&B and all of the other guests were Dutch. The hosts were super OCD about cleanliness and we all kind of snickered about it. Bob was going to come back to the B&B with me and the band would pick him up in the morning, so I had to give them the address, but no one carries pens anymore. Someone suggested, “Take a picture!” So we posed.
And this is the exact moment we both realized he meant take a picture of the address.
There were just two food stalls, but backstage there was a vegan buffet, exciting a lot of vegan musicians.
There were a lot of cool-looking people, but I had discovered on this trip that Germans, especially those who had lived under Soviet rule, are really uncomfortable having their pictures taken, so I didn’t even ask. The band was on fire, and of course, let me take their pictures.
Some very drunk German guy recognized Bob and shouted, “Are you rockin’ in the free world???” He noticed my camera and demanded I take his picture. Gladly.
Thursday evening we landed in Riga. Bob’s mom picked us up at the airport and we checked into our hotel, The Radisson Blu. The Radisson is a good mid-range hotel. They are clean and reliable, and more upscale than a motel. Our room was on the small side, but it was exactly the cozy little space I needed to crash.
We walked around old town looking for a place to eat.
We landed at Ezitis Migla, Although it’s a chain, it’s kind of a hipster place. It took around 45 minutes to get our order. We had a nice little patio to wait in and enjoyed talking, but even for Europe it was a crazy long wait. I had some lovely potato pancakes, Bob had a crispy chicken sandwich that seemed like it sat too long waiting for the other dishes to be ready, and his mom had a pasta with onions and bacon, which she told us was a very Latvian combo.
Bob’s mom ordered a Kvass, a low-alcohol fermented drink made with rye bread. References to kvass go back as far as 996. Bob had a Diet Coke. References to Diet Coke go back as far as 1982.
We passed a trippy shop window that caught my eye.
When we got back to the room, I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Remember when cabbies used to know their city better than anyone? They could take you to the best steakhouse and knew every shortcut to the airport. They could even get you hookers and blow, or so i have been told. After walking 10 thousand miles yesterday I didn’t want to walk 10 thousand more so i asked the front desk “Callenze taxi?” I can’t remember the vocabulary from my German tapes, but i got a sense of the rhythm. And they humored me.
The cab driver was angry because i didn’t have the exact address to the East Side Gallery, aka the Berlin Wall. Dude, it’s only the most famous goddamned site in the entire city. When I finally brought up The Berlin Wall on my phone and showed him, he said accusingly, “You said gallery!” I also said Berlin Wall but whatever. As he drove angrily through the streets, I thought, “Oh, road rage! I remember this from back home.”
The interwebs tell you not to be disappointed because not much of the wall is there. But it’s a good 2 or 3 city blocks of amazing murals, which is plenty for me. People were taking turns posing in front of “My God, Help Me Survive this Deadly Love,” Dmitri Vrubel’s famous mural of Breshnev kissing Hoeneker on the mouth. It’s from a real photo. The “Triple Breshnev,” as his “fraternal kiss” was known, frequently raised eyebrows.
It’s so cheesy, but I even took a selfie there too. There are just so many things you gotta do, even though they are a cliche, like buying Mickey Mouse ears at Dismeyland or ordering a hurricane at Pat o’ Brien’s. They became a thing because they are rad.
As I wandered along the wall, I started wondering what was on the other side? There was a break in the wall at one point and here it is…raw, non-mural graffiti.
Then I noticed the small section of the second wall. I guess they left it there to show the kill zone between the walls. I realized I was in the kill zone, and immediately started weeping. It’s especially poignant right now with what is happening in America. They are building a similar wall between the US and Mexico. I considered buying a chunk of the wall and sending it to our dictator in chief. And I kind of wished everyone would do that.
Across the bridge i found the Ramones Museum. The owner was really cool and was playing the Dead Milkman. He declined having his picture taken for this blog though. Whereas Dutch people posed for my camera, German people are not into it. Maybe it comes from a culture steeped in memories of surveillance. The Ramones Museum had a little cafe where they sold coffee drinks, beer and vegan treats. It had a really comfortable sitting area.
There was a lot of cool stuff there, including set lists, lyrics, some clothes and musical equipment. I bought a T shirt there because laundry is so expensive at the hotel, and I had packed light. But everyone wears Ramones shirts now. It’s become so cheeseball. What does a rebel do when everyone gets into their thing? I didn’t notice until later it was actually a museum T-shirt made in the style of the Ramones T-shirts, which once again made it supercool.
Across the street under the railroad tracks is Burgermeister. They are famous for being housed in a former public toilet. When I mentioned it to Jonathan Gold, he scrunched up his nose and said, “Charming.” For some reason, that made me want to go there even more. It was indeed a public toilet, but a damn fine public toilet, with wrought iron embellishments.
It also turned out to be an excellent burger, with a charred patty, crispy bacon, and enough cracked black pepper to be noticeable, but not enough to ruin it. It was like that was their signature taste– something that regulars would miss if they stayed away too long.
Often when I try to plan an outing using google maps, I misjudge the distance between things. But this trio of delights was all within a few blocks of each other. Or less. I highly recommend a day out combining a leisurely stroll along the Eastside Gallery, a coffee or beer (or three) at the Ramones Museum, and a killer lunch at Burgermeister. Depending on how long you linger, it’s a three to four-hour jaunt.
Potsdamer Platz was also the location of a Dali Museum. In a mall. And that is why I was there. There were some nice sculptures, and an unreal amount of book illustrations. Naturally, I loved the Alice in Wonderland illustrations best.
Just so many amazing works…
The main figure in this work seemed so unlike Dali’s usual style.
Tiles were also kind of an unusual medium for Dali
This is the lithograph machine he used
There was a little theater where they were showing the films Dali collaborated on. There was a little boy of perhaps 7, swinging his legs and watching the Disney film Dali did. When Un Chien Andalou started, I whispered to the boy that he might not want to watch that one. He trotted off, and a lady sitting nearby asked, “Why do you say that…” just as they sliced the eyeball. She interrupted herself with a wordless utterance somewhere between shock and disgust.
This morning as I headed out for the day at the crack of noon, as my dad used to say, i chatted with an Italian couple who had just arrived. After i set out for the street market a young German guy with beautiful eyes and seriously fucked up teeth stopped me. He was so nervous his voice wavered. “Are you in Berlin alone?” He asked me to go back to the hotel with him!
I hate to admit it, but I laughed right in his face. It was harsh, but he is going to just ask someone to have sex with him off the street like that? But I didn’t feel threatened. He didn’t seem like a jerk who does that a lot. He looked scared.
When I finally got to the Winterfeldt Market in Winterplatz after so much walking that Angelenos just don’t do, i was starving. The smoke from a BBQ hit me immediately. I got a giant meat sandwich. And I got an amazing sausage.
As expected, it was SPARGEL SPARGEL SPARGEL
They had some cool graffiti. It was a hip neighborhood.
If you ever find yourself in Berlin, you absolutely must go to Monsterkabinet. It was the most creative and fun attraction I have ever seen. It is something of a cross between a haunted house and an art exhibit. It is quite literally underground, which makes it a little spookier. All i knew about it was that an artist’s collective had made giant machine monsters that move. I arrived early and had a moment to chat with the tour guide and she promised that nothing would touch me.
There are about a dozen people on the tour. We are all gathered near the entrance, and the next thing you know, a giant spider the size of a VW comes crawling menacingly towards you. And it doesn’t stop. A lot of people screamed and tried to back away as far as possible. I broke into hysterical laughter. It was shocked laughter, my mind was more blown than frightened, but there is a little edge to it. It was just so outrageous. I haven’t had a full body laugh like that in i can’t remember how long.
I don’t want to ruin all of the surprises, but after the spider they have lost your trust and there is an overlay of uneasiness and excitement throughout the rest of the show. At one point a mechanical monster was grabbing at us, and another person in the crowd tried pushing me in front of them. Every man for themselves!
Each of the mechanical monsters has a spiel and hidden talents. There is a lot of cool music and some compulsory dancing involved. One of the last monsters reminded me of being in the tiki room. A scary tiki roof with gnashing jaws and unpredictable movements, but it had that same sense of fun, plus good harmonies.
There are no pictures allowed during the show, but I was allowed to take a few on my way out.
All week people had told me I would be seeing coatis, little cat-monkey things. Even though I searched them out I didn’t see any. As we were disembarking the tram after the whale shark excursion, I complained. It’s the last day and I still haven’t seen any coati!” I looked down the street, and there was a whole passel of them! They are called a “coatimundi” or “coati” or “tejon” in Spanish. They are related to racoons and have cute long tails. They roll around with each other and are so much fun! It was a great day, animal-wise.
