72 Hours in the Life
Hitchhiking with three is a helluva lot harder than just one, even if one of the three is a friendly broad. The three of us were making our way south down the west coast of the island of Cozumel, trying to find some snorkeling off the reefs. We had 36 beers, a litre of shitty tequila and a ton of sammich material – we were stocked.
We thought it’d be no problem – how often had we seen a pickup truck full of people in the back? Plus the island is covered in dive shops, which have dive trucks, which are driven by what we thought would be copacetic expats who might take kindly to some poor suckers on foot (with beer).
No such luck. Selfish bastards. The worst was when people would give us the thumbs-up back, like we were applauding them for driving that pimping rental jeep. “Look honey, those friendly hitchhikers like our jeep, wave at them!” Not cool.
Eventually, after about a 3km walk, two young locals picked us up in an old beater. We crammed into the back and it pulled away, laboring on maybe 2 cylinders to haul the five of us. They asked if we had seen the “movie of wolf?” “Wolverine?” “No no, fancy wolf!” “Teen wolf?” “No, we are the wolf of bank!” “Ooooh, you guys are the wolf of Wall Street?” “Siiiiiiiiiii” and they cheersed each other with their roadies. They dropped us off near what was supposed to be a hard-to-find but public beach.
We spent the afternoon drinking and snorkeling and getting in trouble with the private beach guards on either side of our abandoned public beach. The snorkeling wasn’t great, but the weather was perfect, and hell, it was a litre of tequila.
Getting home proved to be a lot easier than getting down. Two sweet Mexican cougars (is there a Spanish word for cougar?) spied the lot of us and pulled over, and had lots of room in the back of their SUV. They said they’d take us to town, but we had to stop to watch the sunset with them on the beach first. No problem. Connor (our Australian) took the opportunity to do a couple backflips (“gaynuhs”) off the sign at the end of the pier.
The friendly old gals then told us that we had to come back to their home for dinner. Nobody was arguing about that. Turns out one of the two had just bought a gorgeous house just outside of downtown San Miguel. The five of us were joined by one of the girls’ friends, and we had an awesome meal around a big old wooden dinner table, largely in Spanglish. Then we sat on the roof and drank more while considering jumping into the pool three stories below. The pool wasn’t much bigger than a hottub, and didn’t look very deep. Logic somehow won that argument.
Now, I was supposed to get up at 5am to catch a boat to catch a bus to catch a flight to get to Toronto to surprise my bestie on her wedding day (they thought I was going to skype in). So when Pammy the sweet old Mexican lady dropped me off at the hostel at 4:30am (we all went dancing at Senor Frogs), I knew it was gonna be trouble. I needed a quick nap to gather my thoughts. I woke up at 7:30am. Fuck.
I was right and proper screwed, so I didn’t bother rushing. I packed up my stuff and sauntered to the docks, caught an 8am boat, had a lovely cruise across the straight between Cozumel and Playa del Carmen, where the water was so much the archetype of navy blue that I felt there were probably copywrite infringements going on, grabbed some breakfast beers for the bus, and made it to the airport about 2 hours after my flight had departed.
Much blue.
Now, most people probably go through life never missing a flight. It’s a stupid thing to do, right? I figured they’d admonish me but be taken in by my boyish charm, and find me a seat on the next or next-next flight. That’s a big nope good buddy. They gave zero fucks and told me the next seat would be $900. I nearly choked on my breakfast burrito and slumped down to scour the web for a way to get from Cancun to Toronto within the next 24 hours for a not-unreasonable price tag. Almost immediately I found exactly what I needed – a 1:30pm departure on Westjet, direct to Toronto. I paid, and hiked over to check in, and realized the airports and time (and price!) were right, but the date was wrong. I had bought a flight for the next Thursday. I was in some sort of clusterfuck zen state though, so I just shrugged and kept plugging away. I would get home for that wedding.
Eventually, I found a cheap flight on American, connecting in North Carolina, leaving that evening. After double-checking the details, I paid and hunkered down to wait. For the first time in my life, I was that dude sleeping on the floor of the airport with his head on his backpack.
Charlotte, North Carolina, was charming. Some young Persian dude decided he was buying beer and food for the bar before anyone had actually exchanged a hello, so I had more tacos and beer. I almost missed a second flight that day when I forgot about the time change and had to run through the terminal to make my boarding gate. I think I’ve mentioned that planning isn’t my forte, ya?
Anyway, the story turns out pretty fucking well, because I arrived at Bray & Reka’s wedding just in time for them to head into the ceremony. They were totally surprised – success! We all laughed and cried a little, cuz it was awesome, and then I saw my soul-sista get married to her best friend. And then I returned the jacket I was wearing, tags still on, back to the shop two hours after I had bought it.
Surprise! Teehee
