Rainy day at the beach

Today we planned to take an excursion to Tulum, but the weather forecast this morning led us to change our plans. It started raining yesterday, and the rain can come down pretty hard here. Fortunately it's still reasonably warm out and it's not raining all the time. But anyway, we didn't want to spend an hour and a half to get to Tulum only to discover that we'd arrived at the time of a deluge. So we made other plans.

It was almost sunny first thing in the morning, so I decided to go for a walk while Alla went to yoga. I put on my "rashguard" shirt (intended to get wet) and my board shorts before setting out barefoot to walk down the shore to Blue Dolphin beach, where the locals hang out south of us. I had almost the entire beachfront to myself as I headed down, the humid wind pushing on my back. As I neared my goal, raindrops began pecking at me and I considered turning around. But why should I? The rain felt good.

By the time I did turn around, the rain fell heavily, blowing into my face. I wished I'd brought my dark glasses, not to protect me from the sun but from the heavy raindrops. I made a visor of my hand and started walking faster. To my right, I noticed that the waves now had texture. The water rippled in the wind, and many shapes and colors tumbled over the waves' basic geometry. "Ooh," I thought. "This is new, and I like it."

I got back to the hotel way too soon, so I continued about the same distance in the other direction, figuring I'd prefer to finish by walking downwind anyway.

As I returned, I passed four intrepid women doing yoga on the beach, and a fisherman trawling his baited hook over and over in the surf. He told me it's possible to catch big fish here, but he had nothing to show today. I came home wet, completely wet, head-to-toe wet as if I'd been swimming. It was great.

Later, we went to have lunch at Pescadillas el Galeón, a fish joint recommended by a local we met at another tiny lunch spot. This place is so basic, it has no electricity and no running water, though we didn't lack for water in general because rain washed down heavily on their thatched roof. I had come dressed for walking in the rain, so I had no camera with me. I felt sorry about my lack of camera when we got there, because the place is totally cute. Cooks worked over open fires while a worker kept the woodpile stocked and the waiter kept the tables. I wasn't terribly impressed by the food, but would love to show you a picture of the place. Here's somebody else's photo, courtesy of Trip Advisor.

We worried that today might be boring, but we're having an excellent last day.