Diving and Español

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  Akumal, Mexico
Sunday, January 20, 2008

We´ve just finished our second week in playa del carmen studying spanish and we now officially have un poco español, which should be enough to get us through South America - with one more week to go, we´re sure to be almost fluent .... or at least be able to ask for dos cervezas por favor muy rapido!  We´re doing ok in grammer class (3 horas cada dia), however, the 2 hr conversation class is something else.  On Friday we had 2 teachers and 2 other students join the class, all of whom appeared to be fluent in espanol.  We were each tasked with taking a turn on doing a wee exercise on the white board and being interrogated in spanish by our classmates to guess what the item was.  Whenever it was Dave or I up there, every one of our responses began with another question......namely ¿qué?!  Didn´t have a scooby what they were saying to us.  So while we´ll be able to ask some questions (although it does take us 5-10 minutes to create a question or sentence), the chances are slim that we´ll understand the answer, unless it´s sí, no, or no, se!

Our weeks have consisted of 5 hours in class studying, followed by a couple hours of homework along with the mandatory lie on the beach and swim in the sea (when it hasn´t been raining, which has been far too frequent of late).  When we don´t head to the beach, we´ve been trying to get out and have a bit of a run.  Initially we ran the regular route down through ´5th Ave´which is touristica capita, so there was much dodging to get past them.  Fortunately we were introduced to an alternative route later in the week.  Our friendly hotelier has friends staying from Italy.  One evening, when Dave and I were limbering up for the run, he came out and asked whether he could join us (in español of course).  So off we set, struggling to have a conversation with him in spanish while trying to make sure we could breathe at the same time!  We said at the outset to Mr Italia that we were only heading out for 30 mins, but he didn´t seem too keen on this - he was electing to go for a longer run..........20 mins into the run through the ´hotel zona´ (read the really posh and swanky hotels that are muy muy caro) I volunteered that we turn round and head back.  So retorno we did, but 2 mins later Mr Italia signalled to us to go on alone.  Message to Steve W - perhaps you´re right about me and running partners.  Dave seems to be the only one that can maintain the running pace!!

To break things up on the weekends, we have been doing a bit of diving / snorkeling - David diving and Kirky snorkeling.  Kirsten came to the momentous decision that diving was not for her and has been happily snorkeling ever since.  While Kirsten was having this epiphany in a diving centre swimming pool (clearing the mask exercise had been giving her horrible nightmares), Dave was diving in Cozumel at the worlds second largest barrier reef - which unfortunately was heavily damaged (all the big corals were washed away) during hurricane Wilma a couple years ago. 

Yesterday we went to the Dos Ojos (two eyes) cenote (a cenote is a limestone cave.  Please note that it is not filled with ´snot´.  When phoning home last night to wish K´s mum a happy birthday, her brother communicated to all gathered that K & D had been diving in a snotty!!!) which is the worlds third largest cave system (no. 1 & 2 are also in Mexico) - Dave dove through the depths (well 12m anyway) seeing underwater limestone stalagtites/mites and columns, while Kirsten snorkeled around the structures near the surface and popped up to view the bats (see piccies).  Beautiful, but a bit eerie.   

Anyway, we´re looking forward to heading off on our travels (but K is slightly nervous about the carrying of the backpack!).  We´ll be in Tulum for 2 nights at the end of the week, followed by 2 nights in Merida, then a wee night in Cancun (we fly out from there the next day which is the reason for that venue.)  Then it will be off to Miami for a night.  We already have a shopping list for our very quick American stop - as many bottles of non greasy coppertone factor 40 as we can carry (the Boots stuff is like paint with a continuous supply of grease built in), and claritan (one of our friends at the school has been having a hard time with mosquitoes). 

Stay tuned for more.

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Cenote dos ojos	Cenote dos ojos 2	Dave y español	Diving the bat cave
Dos Ojos	Dos ojos cave	Dos ojos diver	Dos Ojos Snorkelers
Happy snorkeler - no mask clearing!	Kirky Snorkeler 2	Kirsten y español	Los batos
The angry diver	The happy snorkeller

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