Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Oh dear. Perhaps it was drinking super-sized coca-colas well past midnight or the lingering traces of jetlag still messing with our system, but we're both awake soon after 5am and while Coman manages to drop back off for a while I'm not so lucky.
At least we have the breakfast buffet almost to ourselves, learning that lots of the other guests were all so drunk by midnight that they jumped into the pool fully clothed. And it's not just the guests who partied through the night. A few members of staff confess that they've barely had two hours sleep as they headed into Playa Del Carmen for the festivities and had to be back at work at 6am. Poor buggers!!
We check in with Carlos on the front desk about our upgrade and he has some rather good news. Rather than move us to a Honeymoon Suite today, he asks if we can wait one more day and then he'll give us one of the Governor's Suites for the rest of our stay. They're the biggest, most well-appointed suite in the entire resort, so we say "yes" without a thought. Seems like after yesterday's beach farrago we are now honoured guests!
And sure enough when we head down to the sand Jorge has been as good as his word and arranged our very own area, with a sign saying 'Reserved for Luff family', towels and books unfurled on our daybed to signal our occupation, a parasol and ice bucket full of chilled waters standing proudly next to the bed and he's even there to greet us and ensure we're totally satisfied. Oh yes, we are!
Lynne and her partner David are also there, grinning at our decisive victory in these beach wars. There's no sign of Mr Asshole and as we stretch out, gazing at Cozumel on the far horizon across the gorgeous Caribbean sea, we do feel childishly triumphant. And very, very chilled!
David, bless him, has even brought us a set of golf balls to use next week for our lesson. Apparently they sneakily try and extort $20 from you for your very own balls once you're on the course, so we'll be forewarned and prepared. He even wanders over later that day with a half-finished bottle of fine New Zealand sauvignon blanc he's upgraded to, announcing that he and Lynne are going shopping and they'd like us to finish it off before joining them for dinner in La Terraza later on.
After a hard day's beach-side relaxation I persuade Coman to go back to the art gallery we'd visited on our first day to see if we like the works of Ricardo Campero enough to buy one. En route Coman's seduced by some ceramic Mexican skulls and a hard bit of negotiation later means we walk out with one for less than half price. It should make a great candle holder.
At the gallery we can't decide which piece to buy. We're certain we love his work - all done in polyurethane and acrylics - but we're split over our favourite and spend a good 30 minutes going back and forth between pieces while Jesus, the assistant, looks on with patient amusement. Just as we're finally about to settle on an artwork split across four canvasses, one of the other assistants starts hanging a striking six-piece design entitled 'Danza', of a Mexican lady swirling her dress around her; a riot of reds and blues that due to the materials used changes colours and textures dependent on how it's lit.
Coman instantly falls in love with it so rather than hesitate any further we buy it on the spot and hurry back to the hotel. David and Lynne are already at the table in La Terraza and it's obvious that David, in particular, is totally smashed. Well, this will be an experience!
Dinner lasts about three hours and is highly entertaining. Turns out they're both divorcees, have only been together two years and are determined that second time round it's gonna be all about having fun. Too damn right!!
She is a high-flyer in credit-risk analytics based in Chicago and he is a gerontologist who now works in real estate, building houses for elderly, disabled people in Michigan. By the looks of him he'll need to be moving into one of his own buildings soon. Speaking with the drunken slur of a stroke victim and changing topic of conversation mid-sentence Lynne has to keep reminding him, "Be succinct, David!!"
But he's very amenable and reveals he's been a timeshare member of Palace Resorts for 12 years. We can't quite get our heads round the financials of it as he tells us about the hundreds of thousands of dollars he pays to basically get the same holiday we're doing, but he and Lynne seem very happy with their "VIP status", although a little confused about us getting a Governor Suite without forking out the enormous sums they have.
Lynne by now is fast catching up with David on the booze front, and is delighted when our waiter Javier makes her a paper flower using serviettes from the table. She also has an alarming propensity to hi-five and fist-bump whenever either of us says anything witty, which means we spend the entire evening having to slap her outstretched hand.
While we eat, a lone violinist in the corner plays melancholy versions of House Of the Rising Sun, My Heart Will Go On and Somewhere Over The Rainbow. This limited repertoire gets repeated frequently but provokes Lynne to tell us she's related to Judy Garland on her mother's side and apparently Betsy Ross too, who stitched together the first ever Union flag a few centuries ago. The fact we're 'Friends of Dorothy' keeps her amused no end.
We finish the meal with pyrotechnic displays of Mayan coffee and mango flambe, and hugs and kisses all round. The pair of them have been great company, if utterly trollied, and the next morning David finds us with candles for our room and contact details for them which is very sweet. They're heading back to the US so we won't see them again - which is probably very good news for our livers. We sink into bed and get the first full night's sleep of our stay.
