My husband was invited to a conference in Cabo last week, and spouses were encouraged to join the attendees. Never one to turn up my nose at a free mini-vacation, I had my passport in hand and my bag packed within seconds of reading the invite. I even did some uncharacteristically girly fussing over appropriate “resort wear,” and almost as much fussing over which knitting project to pack for the three-hour plane ride. Hint: It was this one-
Imagine my horrified disbelief mild surprise when upon our arrival in sunny Mexico we were asked to sign an agreement not to swim in the sea that glittered so temptingly just beyond the resort’s infinity edge pools. Evidently the undertow was deadly and the resort did not want the liability if one of us was to do something inconvenient, like drown. In the next breath the concierge assured us that all the water at the resort – even the ice! – was filtered and purified, and therefore safe to drink. Methinks she doth protest too much! whispered through my mind, but only once and without sufficient foreshadowing to make me limit my water intake to that in the bottles provided to us in our room. Big mistake…
Anyway, our room was lovely. Marble floors. Bed big enough for an entire flock of these:
Whirlpool tub and private balcony with a view out over the water!
A welcome platter of guacamole, salsa, and chips! I entered, dropped my bag, and decided to suspend disbelief for the weekend. What the hell. It wasn’t until the next day that I even noticed, across the highway – literally right across the street from the resort – a vast desert of scrub and cacti as far as the eye could see, which made it obvious to anyone with a brain that our verdant resort paradise, and all the other equally lush resorts that shimmered one after the other up the coastline, were works of utter artifice dependent upon the importation of millions (billions?) of gallons of water, without which they would quickly devolve back to scrub and cacti.
Anyway, suspension of disbelief shakily reinstated, I enjoyed the meet and greet, not to mention the mojitos. The deep sea fishing excursion the next day was kind of fun, mostly because I love being out on the water (with no immediate need to fear the undertow). I’d been led to believe it was a “catch and release” policy, but from the way our crew wrestled those yellowfin tuna and mahi mahi into the hold it seemed pretty obvious to me that he intended to sell them on the dock the minute we were off the boat.
About halfway into the plane ride home, I started to feel suspiciously like I was about to hurl unwell. We actually made it home in time to take photos of my daughter and her date before they headed out to the junior prom (because I insisted that we take only carry-on luggage, if you must know)
and that activity distracted me momentarily from my nausea. Couldn’t eat any dinner, just went to bed early so my poor patient husband wouldn’t have to listen to me moaning. An hour or so into my self-imposed exile, I staggered out of bed and into the bathroom, suddenly jump-started by the need to purge – everything. The only question in my mind was which end would explode first. I’ll provide no further details except to say that by 2 am I was basically empty. Most of yesterday I couldn’t eat, but my legs stopped wobbling and my stomach stopped aching by dinner time. And, mirabile dictu, I got on the scale this morning to discover that I weigh less now than when we left for our trip. So Cabo was good for something after all!
Comments welcome