The monkey made me do it

SHARK!

While attending school in Texas, I made the happy realization that it was cheaper to fly down to tropical Cancun than to fly up to my parents in semi-Arctic Washington for Spring Break. What was a girl to do? I went down there twice with different humanitarian groups (cheap AND rustic), once building part of a dormitory in a hospital (ain't nothing like mixing concrete with shovels in the middle of the hot, hot street) and the other time working with kids and repainting part of their school. Both trips were packed with work, but the Mexican guys we stayed and worked with made sure that we got out and at least saw some of the coastline and countryside. They brought us to their family rancheros, to local celebrations, and on one memorable occasion, on an exploration of the non-tourist waters of the Carribbean.

There is an island off of the coast of Cancun. (There are probably more than one but one was all we saw, so shhh) This island is not incredibly well-known or well-traveled. To get to this particular island, you have to know someone with a strong boat and a lot of free time. The island has gorgeous natural beaches free of the pale, bloated tourist corpses that are found littering most of the hotel sand. I found a foot-long perfect conch shell just sitting there on the beach as we wandered around. I played Lord of the Flies and accused our guide of having ass-mar. He didn't get it but smiled anyways.

During our wanderings, I noticed that the docks in one section looked a little funny. There were fences that extended out from the main path and formed gigantic pens in the water. A man noticed my interest and offered to let me swim with his shark for $5.00. I then saw a silhouette of an 8-foot-long shark, complete with knife fin and overwhelming sense of bad-things-about-to-happen. I asked him if he had just offered to let me die a horrible death for $5.00. He smiled and hopped into the pen, eventually corralling the shadow and lifting up its weakly thrashing head to reveal the oval gaping mouth of a nurse shark. To further illustrate his point, he put his hand in its mouth as all of us gringos and gringas simultaneously flinched. But how often do you get the opportunity to swim with sharks?

After a long discussion with myself about how giving him money would further the imprisonment of these animals and encourage the local population to go further and further in the entertainment of those freaks to the north, I caved. I couldn't pass it up - I'd seen sharks in the ocean before and wanted to get close to them but had never had the absolute knowledge that I wouldn't be eaten. That puts a damper on things sometimes. So I compromised with my conscience and gave him a lecture about the treatment of his shark (which he of course said was happy, well-exercised, etc.) and then jumped in the water. It was pretty deep in there, there was a small section where I could stand but mostly I was treading water trying to see the tell-tale fin pop up. The shark was continuing to circle (of course) slowly under the water, doing its best to avoid any contact with its "owner" or the mysterious white kicking blob that had just plopped into its world. I swam up alongside it, peeking under the water at my new buddy and tentatively touching its alien skin. The man sensed that I wouldn't pick up the shark (which I guess was his idea of a good time), so he jumped in with us and cornered the shark again, both arms around its body, and swung it around into my reluctant arms. I could barely hold on to the squirming beast and tried desperately to avoid the toothless-but-still-scary head. My friends snapped photos and I quickly released the shark, ashamed that I had forced it into a pose that must have been horribly embarrassing for its shark ego (it weighed far more than me, teeth or no it was probably higher up the food chain).

Other Cancun memories involved wild-pony riding with nothing but a blanket for a saddle and a small rope for a bridle, swimming in a caldera formed by a bubble in the rock that had the very tip sheared off, allowing rain water to come through the tiny hole and make a gorgeous, clear lake that you had to go far underground to find, and climbing the big Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza and trying to reenact the old Reebok commercial by running to the top (warning: the steps are VERY HIGH, we collapsed at the top and took two hours to sheepishly get back down).

posted by LadyJay @ 7:20 AM