??? (Day 2)

I gave the pax a late start today so that they could scoot around the zocalo and have a little time to check out the city. The road from Merida to Bacalar is pretty slow going so we had a lot of van time to get to know each other. The first couple days of every trip usually follow the same format. You find out about all the pax travels, what they do for work, where they live, some about their families. If the pax had done another trip with our company, you definitely hear about it right away. They talk all about their last group and eye me up in a silent comparison to their last leader. Then they start in on me with the questions - Where are you from? How long have you been doing this? How did you find out about this job? How old are you? How many trips have you done? ? ? ? Every trip I answer the same questions 10 or 15 times.
The questions that pax ask actually become one of the most annoying things about the job. Answering the same question over and over (Where are you from? How did you get this job?), people not listening when I answer questions and then asking the same question that I just answered seconds later (Example – “Hey guys we’re leaving at 8:30 tomorrow”. Then, ten seconds later from the girl sitting right next to me – “Hey Dave, what time are we leaving tomorrow?), people asking questions that they could easily have figured out on their own (asking “Hey Dave, where are we going tomorrow” while they are sitting next to the posted itinerary), people asking unanswerable questions (How many acres of jungle are there in Mexico? How old is that church?) and of course, people asking stupid questions (If I call my mom in England right now, will she answer? If I eat now will I be hungry later? At what altitude to deer become elk?

When we arrived in Bacalar I gave the crew a lesson in how to set up camp and then I started cooking up our first camp meal. Chicken breasts on the grill and Micheladas. I tried to sleep in my new hammock that night but fairly early into the evening I jumped into the van because I was getting devoured by mosquitoes.