In only a couple of days that Irina and Thijs were here, I've discovered a ton of new places in Cozumel. Truly, the best way to learn about the place you live in is to have friends over. Normally, I don't ever go to the beach, because I'm not really a beach person – I dislike the heat and I really dislike the sand, especially when combined with salt water. But Irina and Thijs love the beach, so I had to find something nice. Luckily, I have Ana here who is a big fan of snorkeling, and following her suggestion we went to Playa Corona in the south of the island.
It's a tiny little beach with great snorkeling, a small café and – what's most important – hammocks. As long as I'm given a hammock, I can endure anything. Even the heat and the sand. They all wanted to snorkel, so I joined to give it a try. Well, it's nice. But really nothing to write home about. I quickly got bored and retreated to my hammock. The guys spent at least an hour in the water and came out all bubbling with excitement. So many fishes! Barracudas! Crabs! Sea fans! More fishes! This is spectacular! So beautiful!
Slowly, the excitement subsided, the heat and beer took over and imposed a contemplative silence on everybody… I was startled back to reality by Irina's surprised voice, "How strange that I've been swimming in different seas for so many years and never even imagined all this life below me… all these fish have always been there, and all I had to do to see them was to put my face in the water and look."
Really, how many things do we miss just because we don't look for them? Do we see only what we expect to see and miss everything else? How present are we really at every given second of our day? That's it, I'm going to set out on a quest for my own presence in this world. I'll report what I discover.
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