The First Siesta of the Third Voyage (Day 51-74): A few (thousand) words about cena, skin care, and slowing it all down.

In our lubber days, the Captain and I were quintessential workaholics. We owned a successful printing company, I had a separate career in communications, and every hobby or interest the Captain had would inevitably turn into a side business (you name it: photography, sailing, hockey, CrossFit). When we weren’t punching a clock, we were ripping out floors, renovating bathrooms, and restoring woodwork because why buy a house when you can buy a 115-year old historic home in need of massive amounts of work. The purchase of Raven in 2012 and her subsequent refit added a whole new facet to “not enough time in the day”. Days were packed, nights were spent planning out the next day, and downtime was a euphemism for “pack up the car so we can go be busy in another city”. Needless to say, the closest we ever got to “siesta” was that one Sunday a month where we’d be too tired to do anything besides order a pizza and watch a Law & Order marathon on TV. And that was not so much “rest” as it was “wall”.

I say all this because slowing down has been one of the more difficult things to get used to in the year plus we’ve been on the boat. Now obviously there’s not a lot to do when underway but at this early stage in our cruising lives, we don’t consider it “slowing down” because it’s not exactly relaxing. Constant vigilance coupled with the incessant motion of the boat can be really taxing for both body and mind. But more than that, we felt compelled to fill up every minute of every day when at dock because that’s how we were wired. During the First Voyage there was always something to do, always something to fret about, and if there wasn’t, then we’d make up something to do so we could fret about not getting it done. It’s probably why we fast-tracked leaving on the Second Voyage—we needed to get back out into the unknown so there’d be more to do. But a strange thing happened down the coast of the western states—we started to loosen up a little. I guess we have the transmission to thank for that. All the time spent broken down in all those different ports showed us that it’s okay to spend a couple hours reading a book, or playing Angry Birds, or just taking long walks till the foreign became familiar. We started to realize that no one would think we’re slackers because we didn’t spend all our waking moments cleaning, fixing, or installing something. The seven months we subsequently spent in San Diego taught us how to chill even more (beaches!). But now, here in Mexico, we are learning what it’s really like to slow down. And nothing encapsulates that better than siesta. Now technically, a siesta is the nap you have after the midday meal because it’s too hot to do anything aside from digest (and even that can make you work up a sweat). The Deck Boss has siesta down pat (and the more wine she has with lunch, the better she is at it.)  I tend to retreat to the aft cabin where it’s dark and slightly cooler, rev up the laptop, stare dumbly at the screen hoping that somehow this blog will just write itself, make the mistake of going online to check email and…what’s this? The ultimate Lord of the Rings quiz? “The majority of Americans” can’t get more than 27% correct? Why yes, I’m game! Two hours and ten quizzes later and I can say that I know more than “the majority of Americans” about I Love Lucy, serial killers, the wives of Henry VIII, and budget airlines of the US (but apparently I need to brush up astrophysics, hedgehogs, and Murder She Wrote.) And just like that, the outside world has cooled down a few degrees and people emerge sleepy-eyed from their dens (if you don’t see your shadow, it means the UV index is too high and more siesta is in order.) Editor’s Note: The Captain is still working on his siesta. He’s decided that now that he’s got more free time, he’s going to revisit one his first passions…photography. Knowing him, he’ll have a side business set up in a month so you can go ahead and pre-order his first coffee table book: “Siesta: One Hundred Photos I Could Have Shot in My Sleep.”

Pictured: Edgrrr taking a siesta

Not Pictured: Siestas #2-28

So this is a nice place in the narrative to segue into cena. Cena is Spanish for dinner. Editor’s Note: Why didn’t I just call it dinner in the heading? Because I love me some alliteration. At any rate, we tend to have our main meal early in the day before it gets too hot to cook (so technically we should be eating around 8:30 am) and then have something light at night (light being something that doesn’t require heat of any kind nor much chewing because that takes too much energy). But at least once a week, we do like to go out. And this is where it’s going to get travelogue-ish because I’m going to promote two of our favorite restaurants here in Nuevo Vallarta. We stumbled upon both of them by accident and since they met the criteria—they serve cerveza and they allow D.O.Gs.—decided to give them a try. Glad we did.

The first is La Isla on Paseo de los Cocoteros. It’s a palapa-style, open-air café with maybe a dozen tables and a small kitchen at the back. They specialize in straightforward Mexican comfort food. Recommended dish is the Camaron de Diabla (Devil Shrimp) which is simply fresh shrimp in a slightly sweet yet very spicy chili sauce. Full dinner for three with two rounds of cerveza is around $20.

Just down the street from La Isla is our most favorite place…La Dinamita. It’s slightly larger but still open-air. It backs up to the estuary so you can dinghy in from the marina if the “Precaucion! Cocodrilo!” signs don’t frighten you off (and yes, that does mean what you think it does.) Simply put…Best. Food. Ever. Don’t order off the menu. They prefer you just tell them what you like (meat-wise, seafood-wise, vegetables, etc.) and they bring out one dish after the other—each better than the last. The first course is always their signature appetizer which is seafood and rice topped in an unbelievably creamy queso. Following courses can range from marinated steak skewers and ceviche to tacos hand-prepared at the table and a bubbling cauldron of spicy, meaty goodness served with tortillas. After dinner, the Deck Boss is especially fond of the Spanish Coffee—prepared table-side with four types of liquor set aflame and finished off with a dollop of ice cream. Complete dinner experience with three rounds of cerveza and Spanish Coffee runs around $65. Resulting food coma? Priceless.

Editor’s Note: Remember that part earlier about slowing down? Take that to heart when dining out in Mexico. Meals are meant to be long and leisurely so you won’t find wait staff hovering at your elbow, you can expect a little more lag time between courses, and the bill will never arrive until you ask for it. Personally, I like it. My advice is, if you can’t spare a good two hours for dinner, maybe it’s a good day to order pizza.

Pictured: Hand-made tortilla! Wait...wait...wait...release!

Not Pictured: Otter places shot of Jameson Whiskey on The Captain's nose. Wait...wait...wait...release!

 

Now obviously going out to all these great restaurants entails just that…going out. And as I may have mentioned, it’s hot. But don’t let that stop you. Even when the sun is straight overhead and there’s not a cloud in the sky and you swear you can hear the rays of the sun scorching everything around you (don’t worry, those are just mosquitos), it’s amazing how much better you feel in the shade of a palapa with a cold cerveza in your hand and a breeze coming off the water and/or a well-placed fan thoughtfully provided by the proprietor.

Now this seems as good a place as any to segue into a topic that’s become very important to me of late…skin care a.k.a. the “No sh*t, Sherlock” segment of the travelogue.

Here’s a no brainer (but it always bears repeating)…don’t forget the sunscreen! The UV index down here frequently hovers in the 8-9 range. The higher the UV index, the faster you burn (with an index over 11, unprotected skin can burn in minutes). SPF should be used early, often, and in generous amounts if you want to protect your skin from damage. That and you don’t want to be the only person in Bahia de Banderas that doesn’t smell like an oily coconut.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t work on your tan. Even before 25 years of prevailing cloud cover in the Pacific Northwest washed all the color out of my skin, I was a borderline albino. When The Captain and I would go on a “warm weather” vacation (i.e. anything south of Portland, Oregon), inevitably he would tan and I would burn. It wasn’t until we spent a week in the Caribbean and used copious amounts of SPF that I came back with any kind of tan (Nancy, stop shaking your head. It totally was. If you look at the Pantone book, I had clearly progressed from a “Bright White” to a “Snow White”.) So knowing it could be safely done, I was really looking forward to finally having a little color.

Unfortunately, when you’re travelling from temperate (Washington) to tropic (Central Mexico) and doing it gradually and through all types of weather, it can have an adverse effect on your tan planning. An unobstructed sun down the upper west coast will touch an exposed face but nothing else. As the weather gets warmer, short sleeves replace long sleeves and eventually shorts replace long pants. Feet go from tennis shoes to flip flops. A t-shirt gives way to a tank top, then a halter top, then a halter top with crisscrossed straps, and so on. All the various configurations of clothing coupled with the time of year, cloud cover, sun reflecting off water, and the amount of SPF used on any particular day, means that every part of the body tans and/or burns at a different rate and/or hue. Add to this the daily bruises one inevitably gets from living on a boat (Where did that bulkhead come from? Has that always been there?), and the body becomes a canvas of white, red, brown, black, blue, ecru and various shades of taupe. So it’s not so much a “tan” as a “calico.” Except for The Captain of course, he seems to tan nice and evenly. Unfortunately, he always tends to wear the same type of sleeveless shirt so until he can get some serious pool time in, he’s going to continue looking like an advert for Hanes’ undershirts.

They're tagless!

Here’s another skin tip…when dining out, if a can of bug repellent suddenly appears on the table, use it! The first time we went to El Dinamita, a can of “OFF!” inconspicuously arrived with the first round of cervezas. Amusement gave way to conversation about zika, malaria, and dengue fever. Unfortunately what it didn’t do was motivate anyone to actually use it. Big mistake. About six hours later and the first twinges of irritation began—a tickle here, a tingling there—that promptly gave way to intense itchiness and indiscriminate, hardcore scratching. Fingernails just couldn’t cut it (and neither would forks, cheese graters, and industrial-strength sandpaper…I tried.) Cortisone cream and anti-histamine tablets provided some relief but it was still an uncomfortable couple of days. When the redness from overall scratching receded into individual swollen bumps, I counted at least eight bites on my lower legs alone.

Editor’s Note: There may have been more. I had one of those allergy tests once where they prick your forearm with about 40 different substances—from pollens and animals to molds and foods—to see what you’re allergic to. It’s supposed to take about 20 minutes to see results. Within three minutes of the last puncture, both forearms had swelled into a single irritated welt. By the time the doctor was able to differentiate one bump from the other, it was determined that the only thing I wasn’t allergic to was dust and cockroaches. So when the world turns into an apocalyptic wasteland, I’ll be all set.

Since then, we’ve taken care to apply bug repellent along with the sunscreen, especially if we’re going to be anywhere near an estuary, river, or undeveloped area with stagnant water and overgrown vegetation (aka The Land of Nopes). Even the beach is iffy as that is the territory of the noseeum. Editor’s Note: If you’ve never heard of a noseeum, you’re not alone. I hadn’t heard of them until I started reading the guidebooks. Apparently it’s a teeny-tiny, biting machine that can really pack a punch. My guess is that they started out as a mosquito’s mosquito before graduating to humans (i.e. big game). Before you come to Mexico, I highly recommend purchasing an assortment of products as we’ve found that bug repellant—like fine wine—should be paired thoughtfully with foods. OFF! Familycare has a faint, almost citrus-like smell that complements fresh seafood nicely whereas we’ve found the baby oil bouquet of Skin-So-Soft Bug Guard pairs well with gringo beach food like hamburgers and hotdogs. Repel 100 Percent DEET should only be used when consuming authentic Mexican cuisine that’s heavy on the habanero because when your lips, tongue, eyes and nose are burning you’re less likely to notice the “bad day at a chemical plant” smell. (It’s also wise to avoid sitting on lawn chairs as the stuff can melt plastic.) But whatever you choose, reapply often. It’s hot and humid down here (no, really?) and bug spray will sweat off faster than you can say, “Ow! What the hell was that?!”

Pictured: Victoria Beer with an OFF! Chaser

Not Pictured: Noseeums. For more reasons than one.

And as long as I’m insulting your intelligence…be sure to stay hydrated! Yes, it’s very exciting when you sweat off three pounds of water weight and it’s easy to think, “This is the best diet I’ve been on since I got Norovirus!” but losing so much bodily fluid is a dangerous thing. For starters, when you start to dehydrate the first thing to go is rational thinking such as, “I should really put on some sun screen…and bug spray.” Disorientation follows soon after and instead of walking into a bar, you wander into someone’s living room and ask for a table by the window. Once Juan and Maria have safely deposited you at the cantina next door, you will find that your body is so starved for fluids, those five shots of tequila are absorbed right into the bloodstream immediately throwing good judgement out the window. Which is why six hours later, you wake up on the beach and find yourself lying in the surf fully-clothed with a crowd of people standing around and hear someone remark, “At first I thought it was a giant, red tick. Then I realized they just forgot the sunscreen…and bug spray.” “Yeah. But what’s up with the donkey?”

Raaahr! Anabolic steroids a.k.a. another poor decision
(But don't worry. They also sell ExtenZe for the side effects.)