1-7-09 Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Charlie, Luis and I packed up camp in Tulum and rode to Playa del Carmen, about an hour north.  Charlie had an Italian friend who lived on the outskirts of town, another BMW owner, so we went to his house first before all riding out together.

We stopped at a Yamaha dealer where we chatted with the manager for a while, he was interested in our trip and Luis had a broken shift lever that needed to be welded.  The manager offered to change my oil for next to nothing so I took him up on the offer.

An employee took our picture as he wanted to start a wall with international riders and also gave us some size medium Yamaha scooter T-shirts before we left.

Next we rode into town where Mateo, the Italian, showed us a great little campground/hostel on the beach, some 30 seconds from the main drag.

That night we decided to go our separate ways. Luis was going to salsa dance, Charlie was going to meet up with some bar-owner friend of his and I was going to do a pub crawl.

The pub crawl was amusing for various reasons, I was the only American.  The rest were belching Kiwi girls and Aussie blokes which suited me just fine.  The guide was some average guy from Canada who was rather boozed-up himself at the start of the pub crawl.

Two bars later the guide disappeared so I asked Nick, my new Aussie mate what had happened.  Apparently, the Canadian guide was hitting on Nick who was not too amused about the matter, causing the guide to run off half-way through the night.

Nick and I decided to take off and find another bar when we ran into Charlie on the street who recommended we go to the Blue Parrot, a large hacienda-style club with a huge outdoor dance floor and sand around the bar.

We grabbed some Cuba Libres and walked over to the dance floor where I immediately saw a tall,stunning, dark-skinned girl who I assumed was Latina.  Upon talking to her I found out Natasha was not Latina, but rather from London, with parents from Britain and the Caribbean.  We talked and danced the rest of the night having a great time until around 4:30 am when we decided to take off.

Natasha's hostel was almost next door to where I was camping so we walked together on the beach towards our places for the night.  Somewhere along the way we decided to enjoy the waves and watch a few minutes of the sunrise which had just started warming the horizon.

I walked over to a hotel and rustled two of their lawn chairs and placed them a few yards from the water where we continued chatting about the strange colloquialisms of our respective homelands.

Within minutes a bright flashlight was flicked on behind us, casting our long shadows onto the surf.  I hopped out of my chair and found 5 men had surrounded us, three wearing police uniforms, two without.  Two of the cops had Uzis with extended mags with the paint worn off, the other had a Beretta, I wondered if it was a 9mm or a .40 cal.

'Um, shit?' I thought.

"Gentlemen, how may I help you?" I asked in a friendly voice in Spanish.

There was a brief silence.

"We have a problem." Said a voice from my right.  "It's very serious."

"And what's that?" I inquired

"The manager of the hotel says you stole the chairs from the hotel."

"I'd be happy to put them back if you'd like."

"No, this is a very serious problem." He repeated.

"You will be deported!" Said the voice as he walked into the light, tapping his handcuffs in his palm.

"I don't think you're going to deport me for sitting in these chairs" I said smiling at him.

It was very apparent that this was a little 'shakedown' by the Mexican cops, at least that's what I was betting on.  I've heard of this quite a few times.  They attempt to bust you for some obscure infraction then try to leverage as much money out of you as possible in exchange for your freedom.  The last one I heard about was when a guy had a dog in the front seat of his truck which the cop insisted was a 'Very serious problem."  He had no money on him but said that he could get them cash.  The drove him to an ATM in the next town, took $300 and left him.

Another long silence passed.

"There is a fine of 3000 pesos (about $250 US) or three nights in jail." Said another voice.

"Ha!" I laughed out loud. "Is that a joke?"

"Sorry, I shouldn't be lauging, but I've lived in Mexico long enough to know how this works and we both know you're not getting 3000 pesos out of us."

"Then you must spend 3 nights in jail."

"Let's go to jail, but I can only stay one day, my tourist visa expires tomorrow." (a total lie)

"The Commandant is waiting."

"I'd love to meet him" I fired back.

"Good."

"Good!" I replied nodding.

"You must pay us the money!" said a new voice.

And here was the problem, I only had 50 pesos in my pocket.  I never take much with me when I go out for reasons exactly like this.  I pulled off my sandal and looked inside it and shook it before shrugging and saying, " I usually have some pesos in here."  (which has never happened)

Natasha had stood up by now and I was able to catch a glimpse of her face, she was composed though clearly was not enjoying her time at the beach.  I knew she didn't speak any Spanish, which I was grateful for as I doubt she would have been very happy with me for volunteering us to go to the clink.

I asked Natasha what she had on her in a mumbling voice so the Mexicans couldn't understand even if they spoke English.  "They want 3000 pesos, I've got 50."  She briefly rooted around in her purse and provided three wrinkled 20 peso bills and a few coins.  67 pesos, better than I did.  Yes, we're high rollers.

I had 117 pesos in my hand, some 96% less than their asking price.

I went over to the guy who had spoken last.  "Listen, chief" I said, putting my hand on his shoulder which was shrouded in a bulletproof vest, "This is all we have, if we had more we'd give it to you guys. I know we've done something wrong, I feel bad (lie) and we need to pay you for it. But like I said, this is all we have."

"What else do you have of value?"

I opted not to inform him of the iPhone in my pocket.

There was another long silence.

"OK, if you deport us, you get no money, if you put us in jail, you get no money. Your shift is almost over, so go find some other tourists with more money.  I'll buy you breakfast with what we have" I said smiling at the guy who smiled briefly before looking towards another guy.

"Good, I'll bring the chairs back, have a good day" I slapped the money into the last guys hand, grabbed Natasha and the chairs and started walking away expecting them to step in front of me.

Dragging the chairs the 10 yards back to the hotel seemed to take forever.  I kept listening for footsteps behind me but nothing happened.

"What the HELL did you tell them?" Natasha hissed through pursed lips as I dropped the chairs."

"All kinds of things, let's go."

After dropping the chairs we took a few more steps before rounding the corner of the hotel, walking through some condo courtyard, directly away from the cops.

I then saw the silhouette of a man step out from a shadow a few yards ahead of us.  He told us we couldn't walk through to the road which was some 5 yards in front of us. 

If we turned back, we'd have to walk past the cops again and I didn't want to give them a second chance.

'What is this, some kind of video game where everyone is after us?" I thought to myself.

"Uh, no speakey Spanish" I said and kept walking.

He repeated himself and again we didn't stop until we broke out onto the street where we both let out a sigh of relief.

"I cannot believe that just happened!" Natasha gasped.
"Oh, and since when do you speak Spanish!?"

"You never asked" I replied

We darted away from the beach and the cops for a few blocks before making our way down towards our hostels again, our nerves gradually relaxing until we were able to laugh about it.  "I will never forget this as long as I live." she said.

We finally made it to her hostel.  "You know this was entirely your fault, don't you? And I hope I never see you again!?" I said laughing.

She shot me a feisty look before giving me a hug.  "Goodnight, Benjamin."