So we got off at the airport, grabbed a cab to the hotel and checked in. Way earlier than expected. After examining the hotel room for snakes and spiders, and finding none, we changed into our swimwear and huaraches and hit the beach. I recall thinking that we were starving to death, but the water distracted us…the water on the island’s west side is amazing. It was so clear, so blue with just a touch of clear greenness to it. The island itself is just a big flat rock, with very little surface water, i.e., no rivers or lakes…it’s just a great big plateau sticking up no more than 49 feet above the sea. There is some soil, lots of trees, but it’s really not very habitable…the drinking water comes mostly from a desalinization facility located on the island’s south shore. All the food is flown in from the mainland. The hotel served an odd kind of cuisine, food that wasn’t indigenous to the island, cooked by local cooks who were…to be eaten by tourists who, by and large, weren’t all that interested in local food or not local food to begin with…and yet, it was quite good…grilled beef steaks marinated in Dos Equis beer, slabs of grilled onions, canned diced tomato and canned pickled jalapenos, mixed together with fresh cilantro into a kind of de facto pico de gallo…long curly yellow fried plantains, fresh panela cheese from the mainland, packaged white flour tortillas and fried jalapeno poppers (the manufactured chile popper product having come from a box)…K. and I were surprised at the dearth of local culture here, but when you follow the tourists, that’s what you get. We stayed in the water till we were burnt to bacon. Next morning we got back in the water again. We still had a lot of Mexico to take care of but being in the ocean here, with its subtropical weather and underwater visibility like maybe a hundred feet, maybe 200 feet…swimming in this crystal water seems more like flying…it’s hard to just get up and get out, put on your sandals and simply walk away.