Geocaching with "thepaytons"

When our cruise ship docked at Cozumel, my wife and I were going separate directions; she to the Mayan ruins at Tulum, and me to geocaching in the port.  She really wanted to see the ruins, and my legs just wouldn’t handle all the walking we anticipated based on the excursion description.  But there was an interesting cache here and I figured I’d enjoy my day anyway.

Again, I had a piece of paper where I’d printed out the description of the cache and a section of Google Map showing the satellite view and the location of the cache, plus a picture some previous finder had uploaded showing the place where this was kept.  I wanted all the hints I could, because I was doing this without my GPS.

Near the El Cid hotel, there was an information desk at the street, and a nice lady asked me if I needed some help.  So I gave her my story and my map, and she and her colleagues tried to figure out where the spot on the map was.  They agreed it was at a place called Blue Angel.  I thanked them very much and headed on out.

The cache description said to ask for Danny when you’re at the coordinates and he will get the cache for you.  Sounded very spy, cloak-and-dagger stuff.  "Go to the drop point and ask the clerk for Danny. He’ll take it from there."  Danny works from 7am to 4pm, so the description said if he’s not there and you can’t get to the cache, take a picture of the big white thing nearby.  So I was also looking for a conspicuous big white thing. 

I continued down the street peeking in here and there when passed by shops but really had my mind set on the Blue Angel.  There was a long stretch of rocky beach I passed, and finally I found it, and it was quite near a very large, white lighthouse.

"This must be the place", I thought.  I went in and grabbed a quick seat.  Because of some physical issues, my walking looked rather labored and silly, even though I’d been taking a break every so often.  A lady who worked there saw me come in and quickly offered me a seat.  We started talking and I told her what I was doing.  She didn’t have any idea about it, nor knew a Danny.  I showed her the map and the picture of the location.  She wasn’t sure about the map, but was pretty sure the picture was taken at a place back the way I came, at a location with a barracuda out front.  Her husband was just going that way to gas up the car and she offered for me to go with him, but I declined, thinking it really should just be back past the rocky beach, as I didn’t really think I was that far off.

I walked back and looked in a couple of the places on the beach, but nobody knew about it, so I went back down the street, past the Blue Angel, and past the lighthouse.  The ‘big white thing’ was, according to the description, at the coordinates of the cache, not (supposedly) significantly before or after it.  Well, I went to the first restaurant past the lighthouse, at the "Beach Club Los Girasoles", and went in.  I explained myself to the waitress and she and her fellow staffers discussed, in excited Spanish, where this might be.  They all agreed that it must be back the way I came, but they weren’t sure where.  I thanked them very much, and ordered an overpriced glass of Coke; partly because they were so helpful, partly because i needed a drink, and partly because I hadn’t had a soda in almost a week.

While I was drinking my Coke, one of the staff asked if I was going to be there for a few more minutes.  I said I was, so he offered to take the map to a taxi driver friend of his just outside the door.  I let him, and when he returned, he said that the driver recognized the place.  It was about a 10 minute walk back the way I came, at a place called ‘Sunset’.  I thanked him and went on my way.

One 10-minute walk later (that is, 20 minutes later), after looking carefully in every shop on the way back, I finally came to "Sunset".  And hanging outside; yea, a cartoon barracuda.  I had passed this place about 2 hours earlier.  I stumbled up to one guy and asked for Danny, and he pointed him out for me.  I went over and said, "Danny, I’ve read a lot about you."  He smiled and asked in his Mexican accent, "Geocacher?"  He walked over to locker 11, opened it up, and handed me the cache to peruse.

I looked at the log book and noticed another entry from today.  He said they had come by that morning.  Heck, I would have been there in the morning too, if I’d stopped there the first time I passed it.  It was now about 12:45pm. 

I looked through the tub for some of the trackables that I had considered taking. 

Some that I had noted were in there last week wanted to stay in the Caribbean and other such things, so I’d written down which ones I could take back to Georgia.  None of then were there; must be a busy little cache.  I took one that said it wanted to go to North or South America ("Not Europe", it said; likely where it started).

So I took that one, signed the log (adding "Happy birthday to me" under my log entry), closed it up and handed it back to Danny.  I thanked him, and set out back for the ship.

Oh, and the big white thing?  The hotel across the street, I’m guessing.

As I passed the El Cid information booth, they remembered me and asked if I found it.  I explained to them what my day had been like, and let them know where to send anyone who mentioned geocaching in the future.

All told, I think I may have walked 2 to 2.5 miles or so.  I got more exercise than I’d gotten in a long time.  I didn’t go on the Mayan ruins tour because of all the walking that would be involved, but what I did today was all on the nice, flat sidewalk, so it was a bit different.  And that last half mile or so back to the ship was noticeably more difficult.  But it was an interesting (and cheap) excursion of my own.