I'd never traveled by bus in Mexico before, and was pretty late getting to the bus station in Cancun, so it is not surprising I heard "Last Call for Bacalar" in español while standing in what turned out to be the wrong line. Panic! Wait for me!
The people in line ahead of me had backpacks - young adults and seasoned travelers, I supposed. They heard my exclamation, looked at my ticket, pointed me toward the obviously labeled departure gates and watched me speed away with my one big roller bag in tow.
Good luck was with me because before I reached the line at the departure gate, I saw a worker, showed him my ticket and cried "Ayudar! Voy a Bacalar". I followed him out a side entrance to the loading area and got to my bus which was running, but still at the curb. The driver had to exit the bus, look at my ticket and open the luggage compartment for my roller bag before he got back in the driver seat and drove away. That was a close one! (Plan B would have been much more difficult:)
The five hour bus ride from Cancun to Bacalar was very comfortable. Air conditioning, bathroom, cushy seats and countinuous movies which I half listened to while I wrote my last blog entry ( This writing stuff is time consuming, but what else do I have to do? I'm on vacation!). The movies were all Spanish, no subtitles, of course. The first two were action flicks - not my genre - but I am interested in renting the 3rd movie with Spanish subtitles - "Bobby" - about the tumultuous year 1968 through the lense of Bobby Kennedy's campaign. We arrived at Bacalar before that movie ended, but I can guess the closing scene.
Upon arrival I took a 20 peso, five minute taxi ride to Casita Carolina where I checked in to Cuarto Verde 
which has a shared kitchen space in the building's entry with Cuarto Azul ( the room Mike and I stayed in last year when we were here after Eric and Claudia's wedding.). The green room also has natural air conditioning from the stiff breeze blowing in off Laguna Bacalar - the lake of seven colors.
First thing I did was to walk the 1/4 mile to El Centro to get a six pack and a good batch of guacamole to go from a local restaurant so I could enjoy the rest of the afternoon until sunset
while resting in the hammock in Cadita Carolina's front yard.
Someone was missing, though (Here is a picture taken almost exactly one year ago. Mike needed help getting in and out of the hammock, but he enjoyed the ride)
Lucky for me, Eric and Claudia showed up after I'd been here two nights.
That day after a cooling swim in the Laguna we watched the property's gardner shake down some coconuts from one of the coco trees,
open them with a machete and share them with the few guests in attendance at the time
The locals know to be wary of falling coconuts. They could do damage if some unwary tourist was at the wrong place at the wrong time under a fully laden coconut tree like the ones in Casita Carolina's front yard. But when a coconut is invited down by an experienced machete wielding gardener? The unwary tourist who is at the right place at the right time gets fresh coconut from the nut after drinking the coco water - priceless!
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