Friday, February 19, 2016

The resort pool scene in Mexico.

I'll preface this post by letting you know that I have a phobia of public pools. Which is odd. I was on swim team all through high school. I think the only reason I was a somewhat  decent swimmer was wanting to get the hell out of the pool before I contracted anything.  I've never understood people who plan out extravagant seaside vacations with the intent of sitting the entire time in a resort pool. Ewwwww.

Just a quick photo of the resort we invited ourselves to for my 40th


I approach resort pools the way someone might approach a trash heap in the hot sun. I crinkle my nose and brace for the smell while scanning the  water looking for the eyesores, wads of hair floating around, light weight trash spinning near a filter,  possibly a slight oil slick from the sunscreen. Just last Christmas (Barra Navidad) while walking by the pool at night, I spotted it. "It" being the diaper clinging to the filter at the bottom of the pool. An entire diaper. The pool light showing it off against the darkness. The swim up bar covered with bloated beer bellies is the double whammy of all eyesores. Not one of those people has moved all day. My mind can't fathom the amount of urine swirling in the pool.

I almost hate how much our daughters love to swim in the resort pools. As we approach and I'm trying to control my "I smell shit look", they're ripping off clothes, hardly making the pool lounger as they toss everything into a huge heap and jump in. Like a pregancy test that turns blue once submerged, Jessica's hair turns green after an hour in one of these pools. This is a good sign. Her hair turning green means there's chlorine in the pool and lots of it, hopefully enough to kill whatever our daughters have been wading in for the past 8 hours. Me? Well, I flirt with the idea of cooling off and sometimes I bite the bullet and go in.

Often I like to find a lounger and play my favorite game, the one game so easily played at a seaside Mexican pool resort. I like to call it, Midwest Meets Mexico. I'm not bashing anyone from the Midwest, I like the midwest and have many friends from there.  But, like a turd in a punchbowl, Midwesterners are easy (for me) to spot near the resort pools. Not only can I spot them, I can tell just about how long they've been on vacation.

Day 1:  The cab can't get to the resort fast enough. There's a mad sprint from the hotel room where tags have just been plucked from newly purchased bathing suits. With a resort towel in hand, it's time to head to the pool or beach and practice the only Spanish they know, "un mas cervesa por favor".  A few cold beers into the day, and the idea of slathering sunscreen is hardly mentioned follwed by a, "we need a base tan anyways", there's never any sight of sunscreen being put on.

Day 2/3:  Day 2 reveals the ugly truth. Base tans are developed over weeks not hours. Writhing in pain, the Midwesterner is waddling around the pool as would a woman who's 20 months pregnant. Arms are all but straight out as not to touch any lobster red skin. It's painful to look at, literally, my eyes burn from the radiation.

Day 3/4: Thing are getting better for my Midwesterner friends. Tucked under a palapa, cold beer in hand, head bouncing to the beat of their "Mexico Vacation Mix", they seem to be having fun. Their bodies reek of coconut smelling sunscreen. The sunscreen they should have considered 3 days ago. I pass by and raise a cold beer to them as a "Cheers!" and think, base tan.

Day 5/6: A day before my Midwest friends are to go home and shed skin like a snake, they're braving the sun again and head for the oversized hottub. I've yet to approach an occupied hottub and not see it as a cauldron, boiling up some Midwesterners. This is when the game gets real fun. I'll sit on the side of the hottub with just a toe in the water or sometimes I throw caution to the wind and join them. With a friendly wide smile, I'll ask,

"So where you from?"

"Nebraska"

There really ought to be a prize for "winning" this game.

Again, I have absolutely nothing against anyone from the Midwest... I just get a good giggle out your sunburns.


A better place to be...in the Sea of Cortez


5 comments:

  1. Ha ha hilarious! My friend Tracy has the same aversion to public pools. She calls them human soup and she is afraid of the P's... What is that I ask?
    Pee
    Puke
    Pubes
    Plasters
    Periods

    Ugh. I can't get that out of my mind now when ever I'm in a public pool...

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  2. I can attest that you've hated public pools since you were a little kid. The time your babysitter let her granddog swim in our own pool you were grossed out for weeks. You kept looking for fleas in the pool.

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  3. 😎🌴🍷🇲🇽 having now being in Mexico almost a year, I can relate. Hahaha. Your honest approach to how we see others now is so funny and I think back to all of those all-inclusive holidays we had before we decided to become cruisers and you have hit the nail on the head!! That was me! I thought a sunburn gave me a glow, and those high barriers were to protect us. Now I know the sunburn was self abuse and the barriers were to keep me in and ignorant of the beauty around us. Thank you for a funny look at gringos by the pool!

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  4. I agree that most bays are gorgeous in the Sea of Cortez. Occasionally though, you will enter a bay that the nearby town uses as a sewage dump site...I have the same aversion to these. A.k.a. La Cruz...a.k.a.Matanchen...

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  5. So interesting! Love to be there.

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