Mexico: Part Dos

Can someone please sign me up for some Spanish lessons because I just had to use google to translate the number ‘two’ for my title? Although Spanish wasn’t the second language I learned in school, I still feel kind of ashamed, especially with the amount of Pitbull songs that are floating around that references “uno, dos, tres….”.

But not only that, I never fully realized just how pretty the language sounds. While we were in Mexico, I honestly could have listened to someone speak alllll day long, even if I had absolutely no idea what it was they were saying to me. Unless, that is, they asked me a question because then I would get completely nervous and flustered and start looking at others with panic written all over my face.

In fact, the day we left the resort is one particular day that comes to mind.

We were told to meet our travel guide (Juan) in the main lobby, so that morning I went to the lobby and told him that four of us were booked to go with him but I was still waiting on three other people. But Juan just looked at me, so confused. I realized then that he didn’t speak any English so I was going to have to try my best to get my message across. So I began speaking slowly to him, using very few words. “Tour.  Waiting on three people”.  But that caused him to start speaking to me even faster in Spanish, which resulted in me being the one looking so confused. So I tried again, with even fewer words. I then pointed to his clipboard. I held up three fingers and then pointed to the hotel. Again, he started speaking back to me using only words that made no sense to me. I could feel my face turning red. I started turning in every direction to see if there was anyone around who could help us understand each other. But nothing. And after a few minutes of sweating and trying to use every different word that I could think of to get the message across, he was gone.

At this point, it never once occurred to me how strange this seemed. After all, this was the man who we would be spending the entire day with. This was the man who was supposed to be showing us parts of the city and maybe even sharing some history of Mexico with us. But no, not once did this cross my mind. Oh, hindsight.

When my friend met me in the lobby a few minutes later, Juan was back in my sight but he had gone over to another couple that was standing right beside us. And then I heard it. The most plain English vocabulary I had ever heard was coming out of Juan’s mouth. And before I even had the words, “where the hell did that just come from?” out of my mouth, he came back over to me and started laughing. A lot.

As it turned out, Juan was very much fluent in Spanish and English, but he was also quite the actor and jokester. How that man kept a straight face the entire ten minutes he was talking to me is something I’ll never know. Needless to say, we immediately knew this day was going to be nothing but FUN.

Then we were taken to another (very, very deep) cavern to do some snorkeling and then it was on to ziplining.

And then it was time to rappel to my death down 170ft. Not gonna lie, this part made me a little nervous, especially when my lovely friend Juan yelled out on the way down that one of my harnesses wasn’t connected. Did I mention he was a jokester?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go book the earliest flight out to Mexico.  😉

I have one more part coming so check back soon for that!