Burning the Other Cheek

It's bad enough that I have a raging sunburn on the bottom portion of my butt cheeks. Worse still, the folks down here who have spent top dollar to escape the sad realities of life for a week had to walk by and feast their eyes on those chunks of middle aged flesh poking shamelessly out of my bathing suit bottom.

My heart goes out to them. At least they can save some pesos; they got their whale watching excursion for free. For years, on family trips to Mexico, we spent hundreds of dollars on pointless and tedious excursions just to break up the monotony of seemingly endless days in the sun. As if we actually came down here for the purpose of expanding our horizons and soaking up local culture. At any rate, experience has made me wiser and far more frugal. I have discovered that a well placed umbrella makes the agony of a beach vacation far less excruciating, and even helps cut down on the cost of sunblock. OMG! I'm becoming cheap. Is extreme couponing just around the corner?

Today, since we've managed to be so careful with our pesos (and because we're a bit overcooked), we're going to head into town to do a little shopping. The new me is determined to haggle, to refuse to pay anything close to whatever ridiculous price the vendors ask for some worthless silver trinket. So what if they have ten kids to feed back in their tiny house in the village? So what if they have to trudge for miles in the heat carrying enough jewelry to fill a small store. At least they get to live in paradise. Am I missing something?

Yesterday, as my daughter and I strolled along the water's edge in an effort to stay cool, we saw a Mexican gentleman walking on the dry sand with no less than twenty Mexican wool blankets piled on his shoulder. I wondered how many blankets he could possibly sell in a day to sweating tourists who have no room in their suitcases for such a bulky item. I wondered whether he wakes up in the morning pondering how lucky he is to be living in paradise. And to think I went into a tailspin because I thought I might have to clean a bathroom at work. (As it turns out, I just need to make sure somebody else does it. Phew!)

Will I continue to resist paying hundreds of dollars on excursions to nowhere? Yes. Will I haggle today with the silver vendors, the tired looking souls who work long days in the heat just to scrape two pesos together? Probably not. In a few days, my singed butt cheeks will be sitting in first class on their way back to reality, and the folks who had to see them will have long forgotten the unpleasantness of the view. The blanket vendor will still be walking back and forth on the sand, the silver vendors will still be playing the age old bargaining game with well heeled Americans and Canadians.

Just another day in paradise.