Mexico 2011 - Part V

The next day our big plan consisted of eating, drinking, sitting on the beach and then, before dinner, getting massages at the "massage palapa" at the front of the resort:

They also have an indoor spa, but we figured it would be more memorable on the beach. I can get a massage in a small, stuffy room that smells like lavender and sweat right here in the States.

This beach option can be hit or miss, because you are still within a coconut's throw of the pool, and if the pinky-ponkey-donkey sisters were in, you'd have very little chance of experiencing anything approaching relaxation. We stopped in and spoke to the masseuse about scheduling, and she said that she was the only one working today, so we wouldn't be able to get them at the same time. There wasn't a waiting list so we decided to head to the beach and told her we'd catch up with her later.

My wife was still having trouble sitting and walking, so breakfast was short, since the wooden chairs were tough even on a non-boiled ass. You can't beat the view from the breakfast table though:

After breakfast we went back to the room and slathered up with 50 SPF sunblock, making doubly sure to get all the exposed but hard to reach spots. I had been doing pretty good with the sunscreen and was basically just as white as I had been before we left the snow and ice.

I think I scared the housekeeper one day because I walked out on the deck and she ran away screaming "Blanco Fantasma! Blanco Fantasma!" I thought she was saying I was fantastic, but it turns out that it meant something else entirely.

Rare sighting: Ghost of the Mahekal Beach Resort

We made some drinks and sat on the beach until it was almost too late to grab lunch, but we forced ourselves to eat some tacos (fish and chicken) and way too much guacamole. After lunch, we went for a little walk just so we didn't feel like total manatees, and when we got back, we decided it was time for the last little treat of the vacation: our massages.

My wife went over and talked to the masseuse, and she said she could take us right then. My wife decided to go first, and I grabbed a beach chair and read for a bit. It was a 40 minute massage, so I had some time to kill. I was pretty relaxed already, so I must have dozed off, because it seemed like only ten minutes had passed and she was back.

"How was it?" I asked.

"Amazing," my wife replied. "She said she's ready for you now. She didn't do much on my legs because they were so burned, but she was really good and the oils she used smelled great."

Now I have to tell you something about me and massages. I don't generally get them. One, I think they're kind of a waste of money, and two, I'm always a little uncomfortable with being rubbed down like I just won the Kentucky derby.

So this massage on the beach was going to be my second. Not my second on the beach, but my second ever.

The first was on a little anniversary getaway about five years earlier, and it was an "in room" massage at a hotel, and we were both there at the same time. It was OK, and nothing to write home about, but it turned out to be pretty relaxing. So I figured this one would be no different; some battle axe would pound on my back for 40 minutes and that would be that.

I walked up the beach and into the palapa and said hello, and she asked me if I wanted the same massage that my wife had -- the relaxation massage, I think it was called. I said yes and she pulled the sheets down over the doorways, handed me a towel and said, "OK. Please to remove everything, then lie down on the table under the towel."

"Everything?" I asked.

"Everything," she replied. "Your watch and ring, too. I will wait outside."

"Uh...what about my underwear?" I asked, just to be sure I wasn't misinterpreting anything. I didn't want to be the unexpected gringo penis she talked about at dinner that night.

"Everything," she said emphatically, then left the tent.

So I was standing in a building with two walls made of sticks in the sand, and the other two walls were made of sheets tied in the middle with ribbons. There were gaps between the sticks large enough to throw baseballs through, and the sheets were flapping madly in the breeze, opening themselves up to the beach and the pool in alternate flaps.

I quickly stripped down to my just my underwear, and waited for a break where nobody was walking by and the flaps were relatively calm and I dropped trou and climbed up on the exam -- er, massage table and lay face-down. I tried a few times to toss the towel over my ass, but failed miserably. I finally had to stand up, wrap the towel around my waist, then lie down again.

Finally, she asked me if I were ready for her, and I said "Yes, but this towel might not be." She laughed and came back in the tent. The first thing she did was untuck the towel and change its orientation -- she wanted it lengthwise, covering my legs from my waist to my feet. Then she put on some soft music, then adjusted the "face holder" in the table so it was comfortable. When I was situated, she got the warm oil and drizzled it on my back. She stood at the head of the table, and started working on my shoulders and upper arms, then moved to the side and started on my triceps and biceps, all the way out to my finger tips. When I was too tense, she'd shake my arm lightly, trying to get me to loosen up.

After a while, the hot oil and her strong hands put me into kind of a trance -- I was finally starting to relax. She hit the middle of my back, then my lower back, then walked around to my feet. She put oil on them too, and massaged the soles. Then she moved up my calf, and suddenly there was a blast of cold air on half my ass as she flipped the blanket over and started massaging my upper-inner thigh. She was getting right in there, too, and I must have tensed up because the next thing I know she's jiggling my butt cheek just like she did my arm earlier, however in this case her little universal signal for "loosen up" didn't work. Probably because I was lying there with a strange woman's hand on my ass and I knew she was staring directly at some pretty major back-ball and (oddly) I wasn't completely comfortable with that.

She flipped the towel over to the other side, and then did the same thing to my other butt cheek. It was this sliding, pressing motion that started at my knee and ended just shy of my prostate exam. I tried to go with it, but I felt a little like I had been abducted by aliens and was being prepped for my probe.

After she covered my butt with the towel again, she did a little percussion solo on my back again, and then she was done. She didn't actually tell me she was done -- she just stopped. I lay there for a few minutes waiting for her to say something but she didn't. Finally, I just looked up and she smiled and said, "You have a lot of tension in your shoulders." I think the tension probably came from somewhere a little farther south, but I didn't say anything. I thanked her, tipped her and walked back to my beach chair.

"How was it?" my wife asked.

"Um, pretty good, " I said. "Very relaxing, except for the part where she told me to get completely naked and then used my grundle as a stop block."

So then it was all over but dinner at our favorite pizza place one last time, and the trip home the next day. That will be my final installment, probably tomorrow if I can get to it. Don't worry, it'll be short because nothing major happened, other than they apparently give free plane tickets to homeless deadheads now.