Wednesday, April 19, 2006

On Wednesday, I slept in until the afternoon and passed on the beach.  I was
sore from the previous day's sandcastle challenge and tired from staying out
so late and drinking so much.  I wasn't really hungover and would not throw
up the entire time in Mexico, but I needed some extra recovery time.  I
don't think John went to the beach either, but everyone else did.

As it was getting dark, we all ate dinner at a fantastic restaurant called
Yaxche, famous for its authentic Mayan cuisine.  The bread and white garlic
sauce were delicious.  Several of us had pina coladas and I ordered the
chicken mayitas.  As almost every meal had been, it was quite tasty.  For
dessert, we split 2 of the flambeed fruit dishes with vanilla cream.  It was
so good!  Oh, I almost forgot to mention we were eating in the outdoor
section and for a couple minutes, we actually did feel a couple scattered
raindrops.  This was about as much rain as we'd see the entire trip!  The
weather was spectacular.

After dinner, we went to a place called the Tequila Barrel.  They had a 'buy
one, get one free' special for happy hour.  It was strange to see everything
in twos.  We chilled here for a bit and they played mostly 70s music at the
time.  After an hour or so, we went over to the Blue Parrot.  There was a
small cover fee to get in but 2 free drinks were included.  It was
definitely worth the price of admission here because the place was picking
up and fairly crowded.  We sat at a table on the sandy beach and enjoyed our
included drinks.  This place has a great setup.  When you first come in off
the street, there's a covered section with techno-type music that some
people enjoy.  At the end of that section there's a large, rectangular bar
just on the edge of the beach with swing-seats around it.  Then as you go
past that, there's a big, flat concrete slab as a raised dance floor on the
sand.  There's tables and chairs around it, between the dance floor and the
ocean water.

At the time we got there, there were only a handful of people dancing.  We
quickly spotted this one peculiar sight though.  There was this girl with a
Mexican hat on, wearing a tight black top and black leather hot pants.  She
also had a black fanny-pack around her waist.  She had a great body and was
a very good dancer.  What was odd though was that she was dancing with some
older middle-aged guy wearing a red fanny-pack.  And he couldn't dance.  She
even kissed him for few seconds!  But then it got even better!  After a
while, I guess 2 people he knew came and joined them in dancing, so now the
4 of them were dancing together in a circle.  There was this really old lady
with white hair out there on the dance floor and another older guy!  Looking
at these 4 people all dancing with each other, I realized that this had to
be the strangest combination of 4 people dancing - ever!  LOL!  We have some
pictures and video, so be sure to check them out.  Later those 2 left but
then there was this other middle-aged guy who thought he was a great dancer
and got in the mix.  Seriously, just watching that guy's moves were worth
the price of admission!  One of them was like he was trying to copy the
Michael Jackson 'Thriller' wolf dance!  We were all very amused!  I am
laughing just thinking about it now!  And while it was all entertaining to
watch, I have to give them all props and respect for going out on the dance
floor and just having fun.  Eventually, they all disappeared and other
people filled up the dance floor.  There were many cute girls out there in
dresses.  (Did I mention I love Mexico?)  After a while Dan and Amanda
decided to go back home.  The rest of us stayed and I danced with Natalie a
little, which was fun.  The cool thing about this place is they'd rotate the
music with like 30 minutes of American dance/pop songs and then 30 minutes
of Mexican ones.  I saw the scantily-clad fanny-pack girl later on by
herself.  Our hypothesis was that she was some kind of paid dancer or
something.  Maybe you pay her for 30 minutes of dancing with you and a kiss
is included in the package deal.  I have no idea, but she seemed out of
place and it was very strange.  We left after quite a while and picked up
some Pizza Pazza for the drunken walk home.

View pictures for the day here.