Day 11

Cat and I wake and walk down to the beach for a morning swim with Alex, the dog. Her house is 2 blocks away from the coast. The beach here in Puerto is much nicer than that of Cancún, except for possibly the place my sister and mother stayed earler, but much less touristy and the beach appears to go on for miles. No chairs, no hotels. Just white sand.

She brings her snorkel gear, the water is crystal clear today. She hands me the mask and points out an angel fish and a small stingray. There's almost more sea life here than I've seen in Cosumel; she tells me not to tell anyone. oops.

When Cat originally got Alex, Alex had no experience in water, and was quite timid about it. Now she'll swim from shore out to where Cat is to 'rescue' here. Alex expects Catriona to hold on to her tail and she tows her back to shore. It's adorable.

We make our way back to wash up, Cat's off to track her builder down for some unfinished business, I snooze for a bit.

In the early afternoon we make our way out to the country club to see her horses. It's George's birthday today, the local vet, and we stop there at his home first to say hi briefly.. He's having a barbecue, and we say we'll stop by later after riding to see if they're still around.

We make our way out to the El Rey country club where they're expected to practice before next week's match against the Mérida team, although, all of the members brought a beginner. A girl from Belgium, living in Puerto, Phillipe from Venezuela, and of course, me. The other's have had experience riding before and wanted to try out polo, this is my first time on a horse.

From México

About an hour later, the horses have been fitted with their European saddles, and I´ve been fitted with polo gear. I guess I learn to ride a horse and play polo the same day! After riding Cat's horse around in circles in the parking lot at the stables, I´m starting to get the hang of this. The club's grass polo field is expansive, but we'll be practising on the sand field today. Cat demonstrates the basic 5 moves for hitting the ball, and we're off to play polo.

The others are obviously better riders than me, and I'm having a little trouble with the galloping thing, but I'll figure it out eventually. I wasn't much help in the game, per se. After an hour or so in the field, it's beginning to get dark and we make our way back. We all change and make our way the bar at the club for a drink. This was a workout for me, I'm fairly exhausted.

From México

On our way back, we stop back at George's place, and we're warmly invited by their family. They insisted on warming up the grill again and cooking us arancherra steak. I have to wonder if this is what they had earlier. George's mother then brought us more meat, then we heard her asking something about chorizo (MORE meat) and we had to insist that we were done, and 'no mas!' We hung around and talked with their family in their kitchen for a few hours. I stepped back and realized where I was. Cat turned to me and whispered, 'you're having one of those real Méxican moments with me, aren't ya?' Yep. It was a little surreal.

We made our way back home, I ran out to a tienda (shop) down the road for ice. Fixed a couple of drinks and chilled out to an old movie on cable. It's been storming here all night. The rain feels warm and the sound is soothing.

This has been a great day.