Redhed's Rambles: Jiminez, Mexico June 1, but later....

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Jiminez, Mexico June 1, but later....

Nice beach, eh??

Guatemala, Colombia, and Guatemala again..keeping me safe...

Blondy is hiding...

Guess who fell asleep in the Sun??

Now to set up camp and have a peaceful night on the Cuban coast, away from the cares of the world....

It was so warm, I was cooking, that I decided that a tent was not necessary. 10 minutes later, a flight of mosquitoes descended on my baked skin and started to feast. I decided that a mummy bag was in order, so I climbed into the bag, and did it up to my nose. Suitably embalmed and secure from the invading mosquitoes, I thought that my night would be peaceful, with the lapping of the waves and nothing to disturb me...

About 3 hours into a deep sleep, I was awakened by two large headlights right in my face. I was entrwined in my mummy bag, and as I heard half a dozen voices in Spanish yelling and screaming, I thought that this was it..the military were going to bayonet me for sleeping on a roadway on a beach. The more I struggled, the more I could not get out of the damded bag. A mean looking guy leaned down and yelled at me: "Hablez usted Espanol?". I wasn't too focussed as by now I was hoping around with the damded bag around my knees, ready to be bashed about without even getting my feet free. I rolled to the side of the road, as I was sleeping in the track, because no one would be using the beach at 12 o'clock at night, right??

The yelling voices calmed down a bit when they realized that I was not a dead body wrapped up in the middle of the road, and when I had hopped onto the side of the road, they suddenly lost interest, jumped in their truck, and drove the final 30 meters to the beach, where they struggled to turn around the truck and their trailer.

I thought to myself, these guys are smugglers or contrabandistas, or something. What in hell are they doing out here at 12 oclock at night? They had a powerful flashlight, and I could see it in the mangrove swamp near where I sat. What is going on, I wondered. After calming down, and realizing that I was not going to be beat up by God knows who, I decided to take a peek at their truck, and try and figure out what they are up to.

If you have any idea what a 1927 Chev truck and trailer, full of 6 guys with flashlights are doing on a remote beach at 12 o'clock at night, you have a clearer idea of what was going on, than I ever got from this little scare.

About an hour later, I heard the group come back out of the jungle, crank over the truck, and as they passed Blondy and I, saluted me with a Beunos Noches.. Jeez thanks guys.

Well I thought that was exciting and at least I can get some sleep now. I fell into some sort of slumber for about an hour, only to be woken by the snorting and snuffling of what turned out to be two very big and black oxen, who were of course pulling a cart. Well, this experienced traveller was fully used to being overwhelmed by surprises such as this, and while these guys were not nearly as noisy, they basically repeated the same process as the Chevy. I did not bother getting a picture of the two snuffling oxen, but I did finally break down and put up my tent, because the everpresent Mozzies were having a field day on my crispy skin..Sometime during the early morning darkness, the second set of beach intruders left for parts unknown..and I had a snooze..