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Sorry for the long delay between posts, everybody. In fact, I’m still not even totally prepared to write an intelligent treatise on cruise food. But I am going to write briefly about one of our ports-of-call, Costa Maya.
The town was ravaged by Hurricane Dean in 2007, but has been steadily building itself back up since they added a big port for cruise ships. Right at the port, there’s a very touristy shopping area and a pool with a swim-up-bar so that you can enjoy “Mexico” without actually having to go into Mexico. I, of course, took a cab into town as fast as possible. The town was really interesting— part shanty, part tourist trap, with people trying to sell you things everywhere: “Cigar? Cigar? Funny cigar?”
We paid $30 for the day to sit on beach chairs by some truly stunning water and have all the booze we could drink. I took advantage of that. Then I wandered around the town, carrying my 458th beer with me and drinking it until I found what seemed like a good place to eat, so I gathered the crew and brought them over.
Our server was the only guy at the restaurant who spoke English. He brought over a beautiful, big red snapper that had been caught the night before. I could tell it was really fresh and got excited. I’ve had whole fried red snapper at a lot of Mexican restaurants, but was never really blown away by the execution. Here, I had a feeling everything would fall into place.
We started with a really nice shrimp ceviche, which was served with a dangerously spicy salsa. But then came the fish— which now holds the unofficial ranking of Best Whole Fish I’ve Ever Eaten. It was cooked perfectly, fried beautifully and served with fresh corn tortillas, lime wedges and pipil sauce, a dark, murky, coriander-filled sauce packed with onions and chilies that balanced everything out in a really delightful way.
After stuffing ourselves silly, I wobbled back to the beach, grabbed another beer, and laid out under an umbrella for a while. Life was good and I was a very happy man.
Then, a little later on, Jackie’s brother had wanted to buy some stamps so that he could mail a postcard from Mexico. I decided to go back to our wonderful, friendly server, who seemed like a man who knew how to get things.
“Hey, man.”
“Hey! How you doing? You like your lunch?”
“Oh, yeah. It was beautiful. Thanks so much.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Do you know somewhere I can find some stamps? Postage stamps?”
“Stamps?”
“Yeah. Postage stamps? For the mail? For mailing letters?”
“Oh. You mean cocaine?”
I laughed, then declined. But needless to say, I now solely refer to “cocaine” as “Mexican postage stamps”. Please spread this new term to your local neighborhoods.
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