To get there we took a bus through the town of Tizamin, just another small colonial town a little northeast of Merida, had some lunch and took another bus to El Cuyo. We had about two hours in Tizamin before our bus for Cuyo left, so we hung out and did some grocery shopping since Leah's host parents told us there wouldn't be a grocery store in El Cuyo. That probably should have been our first hint as to how small it really was.
When we got there, after stopping at least twenty other times at tiny little roadside villages to drop people off, we found El Capitan the caretaker of the house we were staying in and owner of one of the restaurants in town. He showed us how to get to the house, which was past the tiny town square that consisted of a church, a basketball/soccer court and a little criss-cross pattern of sidewalks. The road to the house ran parallel to the coast and was entirely made of sand.
After about a ten minute walk we got to the house which was this cute little place with a porch surrounded by palm trees, a big common room with the kitchen, dining room and living room type area with two day beds, then a bathroom and one small bedroom with two small beds and PLENTY of places to hang hammocks. I guess Leah's host parents, who are anthropologists, used to actually live there while they were writing some of their books.
Right away the girls claimed the living room and stuck the guys in the little room in the back- they were definitely outnumbered so they didn't have a choice. Once we set up a little and put away our groceries, we set out to find some booze for the weekend. By the time we finally found some I'm pretty sure the whole town knew there were eight gringos in for the weekend looking to buy tequila. We also hit up a few small stores to finish stocking up our amazing food selection, which basically consisted of hot dogs, pasta, tortillas, fruit, eggs, graham crackers, strawberry marshmallows and cookies'n'cream chocolate bars for s'mores (they were out of normal chocolate bars and marshmallows- let me tell you, they were some interesting s'mores).
We made a pretty interesting dinner that night as well- spaghetti with hot dogs. And strangely enough we were all pretty proud of it, haha. We also made our own Jamaica that night, which is a kind of tea made out of hibiscus flowers served cold with a little sugar or honey- its sooo delicious and you can find it everywhere here. I will most definitely be hitting up Pilsen when I get home to look for it.
That night we just kind of hung out, had our family dinner, walked on the beach and made s'mores over the stove and played in the hammocks. None of us really understood why so many people here like hammocks until that weekend- I promise you the most relaxing thing in the world is laying in a hammock strung up on the porch under a palm tree overlooking the ocean. Pretty damn great. I plan on buying one before I get home.
The next day we all made breakfast and started to wash the dishes when the water stopped working. None of us really thought much about it, I guess we just figured it would start working again, and if not we would just go talk to El Capitan. So we walked the 50 yards or so out to the beach and layed out for a bit and went swimming. The beach was SO beautiful and completely empty. Well… almost. There was "Naked Man" as we came to call him. Some European guy in the house next door who obviously enjoys skinny dipping and chilling in his beach chair butt naked. It was pretty strange walking out to what seemed like a completely empty beach, and all of a sudden looking over and seeing a naked person staring at you. But other than Naked Man and a few other people, the beach was free of tourists and hotels. There was a small hotel that was being built down the beach from us, but it wasn't anything like a resort.
When we decided to go in for lunch the water still wasn't working and we had a lot of dirty dishes, so someone went to find El Capitan to see if we could get it fixed. And he couldn't fix it. Not having running water wasn't really that big of a deal, except for 1.) we couldn't wash any of our dishes 2.) some of us hadn't showered since the morning before, and 3.) the toilet didn't work. El Capitan said he would send someone on Sunday morning to fix it, and until then he pulled a few buckets of water out of the well. So, we all decided just to be covered in salt water, sand and smell together. It was quite the bonding experience.
Saturday, after spending the day at the beach, we walked into town to try and find some more hot dogs to cook over the bonfire we wanted to build and found the entire town at a Quinceñera or hanging out in the church yard. We couldn't find anymore hot dogs, but for the second night in a row the entire town had to have known what we were looking for . That night Luke and Joel made a bonfire and we made s'mores and roasted hotdogs on the beach. It was pretty perfect.
The next day El Capitan tried to fix the water again, but no luck. So we resorted to rinsing our dirty selves off with cups of water from the water we could pull out of the well, and washing our dishes in the ocean. Naked Man (not naked this time) and his family were watching us wash our dishes, and we had to look pretty ridiculous. We had all the dishes spread out in the sand or on towels and were washing them in the waves. A lot of them had been sitting out since the morning before so there was a lot of caked on food. We had to use shells and scrub them with sand to get them clean. It was very Swiss Family Robinson of us.
When we finally left El Cuyo, which was very sad- we all could have easily stayed there for another week in the hammocks, and got back to Merida we were all SO dirty we couldn't stand it. I walked into my house, said hi to my host mom and went straight for the shower.
But I think out of everything we've done, the trip to El Cuyo was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was nice just getting away and finding a beach that wasn't swarmed by tourists. After that weekend, we traveled almost every weekend after, so I have plenty to tell you about still!
Up next: Chiapas!
Family dinner! From left to right Bea (furthest left), Bianca (closest to camera), me, Leah, Missy, Jeff, Luke and Joel
Our amazing dinner
Leah, me and Luke hanging out in one of the hammocks.
Bea and Joel in the hammock. We all really liked the hammocks.
Our little casa- hammocks, palm trees and all.
The view of the beach from the house.
Bianca and Leah at the beach- one of my fav pics!
Luke playing on the pier.
Sunset at El Cuyo!
