Trials and Tribulations

A great view, while it lasted....

Not four hours after my last, lonely post from July 3, as we wrapped up week one in the Yucatan and prepared to spend a carefree, first-time-ever week at the beach with the kids, we were robbed of most of our earthly possessions, including the computer from which I had planned to document our summer.  Yup, we arrived at a condo on the Riviera Maya, in a place called Puerto Adventuras, which we would never have visited again, even if we hadn't been robbed.  We are not beachy resort people it turns out and this place was so not Mexican it left us feeling gross.  We unpacked everything (save a portable DVD player which was our saving grace, for one day, until we left it in the hot car and it self-destructed), plopped it all down in our new lodgings, headed out for a swim in the clear water before us, and voila, in the short time we spent frolicking in the small surf, someone entered through our sliding glass tours, pocketed all of our cash, credit cards, drivers' license, bank cards, cameras, iPods, watch, laptop, and anything else that might be considered useful to us during our seven-week vacation.  Boring story so I'll just include the email we sent out to our families informing them of our desperate situation.  Then, it's onward to the rest of the vacation, which, surprisingly had a marvelous silver lining and was all quite dandy in the end.

While we were swimming, an evil spirit was pawing through my underwear drawer.

The freshwater lagoon at Bacalar.  Is this really Mexico?

We had a little setback in our trip but I am amazed at how quickly we bounced back.  Our first hour at the beach, on the riviera Maya, last Saturday, we were completely robbed in our condo.  Went out to take a swim as soon as we arrived, walked back in and found everything we owned, save our clothes and books, etc. GONE.  What a total bummer.  computer, ipods, camera, all our money, bankcards, credit cards, Sam's wedding rolex, wallet, drivers license, stolen. To top it off, the owners accused us of staging the robbery, even after we spent two fruitless hours at the police station, leaving our kids in the condo alone! (I knew there was a reason we don't like the beach!)  He threatened to kick us out and bring the police to us to evict us.  The wife was a piece of work too.  I nearly ripped the guy's head off.  He ended up apologizing and giving us back our money for the week so we left  immediately and hit the road like vagabonds.  Bo was such a dear.  At the point where we were throwing everything into our bags the morning after the robbery (we got exactly one night there out of what was supposed to be a week of sun and fun at the beach, with anger and disgust, Bo says, "This has made us closer as a family. " Then he adds, "Well, looks like it's sun, fun and run!"  I thought they'd all fall apart since we were dragging them away from what was really the most gorgeous beach and lovely sand but they decided they didn't like the owners either and were fine with going.  Also, we told them they could watch a movie in the car (we'd left the DVD player in the car, fortunately) with the air conditioning on and they were happy as clams!

But it's turned out great. Found a neat place for one night on the beach and are now near Belize on the most gorgeous freshwater lagoon called Bacalar.  Staying in a huge cabin by the water at a place, Rancho Encantado.  It looks like Tahiti but is totally freshwater.  Sam's off at the lavanderia right now washing some clothes.  The boys each have their own computer in this internet cafe so they couldn't be more satisfied."