Cancun

National Review, May 31, 1985 by F. Reid Buckley.

We ate. How we ate, dear merciful God! We had the best crab legs either of us, Tesa or I, can remember, at the La Vela restaurant in the Hotel Club-Lagoon. If you like Mexican food country style, go to La Casita. The nicest people. Cheerful smiles, no matter how late you may linger after supper playing liars' dice. Their specialties are grilled pork and mero (grouper), which we liked very much indeed, but we can also vouch for their enchiladas and tacos.

Almost everyone we met in Cancun was pleasant; many went beyond simple courtesy. Mayan descendants predominate in the most servile jobs. (The cosmopolitan modern Mexican makes a profession of publicly detesting his Spanish forebears while exalting the noble Indians, whom in the contemporary flesh he despises, treating them like serfs.) They may seem surly, but they are not: They are bashful. Speak a little Spanish to them, and big grins reward.

The first excursion we bestirred ourselves to sign up for was on a sailing trimaran to the Isla Mujeres, where there is good snorkeling, heady wine, and the best grilled fresh scampi I have ever tasted. Do not miss this. If, like me, you get acute claustrophobia sucking air into your lungs through a rubber tube, leave that to younger folk, and hop up the several flights of stairs to the fisherman's restaurant above the reef. (It's not on the tour, beats understanding why.) We lunched at another port of call, at whose pier we were greeted by a villainous-looking "pirate." He was five feet, four inches tall and nut brown, and he wore a patch over one eye. Greasy strings of coal-black hair escaped from under a tightly knotted kerchief. His mustache was barbarously long and filthily lank, his pants scarlet and voluminous, ending at the calves, below which his legs were bare. The soles of the feet were horny, the nails cracked and blackened. When he grinned, it was most evil--gold teeth, rotted gaps. Imagine him forcing his kisses on Virginia Mayo!

But his business, on this sunny afternoon, after helping to catch our lines and moor our ship fast, was selling conch shells, for which I was the very first sucker, since I wanted two to hollow out into hunting horns for sons. Tasa did the bargaining, at which she is shameless, revealing the otherwise discreet Levantine bubbles in her blood. Our pirate had not exchanged three words with her when he exclaimed, "You must be Spanish! So am I! My grandfather came over here from La Coruna--just a little after Cortes." The bargaining proceeded to a mutually gratifying conclusion, and a storm chased us dramatically back to the mainland, but we were entertained by a very funny American who kept talking about his visit to "Chicken Pizza." He meant Chichen Itza, which is by far the most impressive of the Mayan ruins, but there are archaeological digs closer by.

To wit, Tulum. The tour we picked left the Sheraton at nine the next morning. Our guide was a pretty blonde Mexican girl in her mid-twenties. She began by ritualistically explaining to us what we must be presumed blind, if not idiots, had we not known: that Mexico is 70 per cent "of mixed blood, Spanish and Indian mostly, which we call mestizo. There are 15 per cent pure Indian, or almost pure, and 15 per cent white. I am white."