November turned out to be an exciting month for me on a personal level.
I went on vacation to Cancun, Mexico. Now, folks, did you think I was going to talk about something else? Visiting Mexico was definitely the most interesting thing to happen last month, ranking way ahead of the election of Donald Trump.
I have Mr. Trump to thank for motivating me to go on this trip. After all of Trump’s anti-Mexico ranting and raving, I felt compelled to do something, in my own small way, to respond and show my solidarity with the Mexican people.
Besides, I had never been to Mexico before and I finally decided to see what the place was about.
Finding a deal for Cancun took some looking around. In the end, I booked a hotel at the outskirts of the hotel zone that catered mainly to business people.
It fit my cheapskate budget and the location was right down the street from the Plaza las Americas Mall, which had plenty of Mexican and American chain stores.
I soon fell into a routine for “life in Mexico,” developed mainly to minimize my chances of food poisoning, getting robbed or being swallowed by crocodiles, which is a real hazard down by the lagoon.
I would spend the afternoons riding a bus into the “Hotel Zone,” where I would eat at American-based chain restaurants and gawk at local Cancun landmarks like Coco Bongo, Senor Frog’s and other establishments.
The rest of the time I would sit on my balcony at the hotel, enjoying 30 C heat while the TV was tuned to Mexican all-sports channels.
On those channels was coverage of soccer games from Mexico or Europe, or NFL games from the United States.
I will say this about Mexico’s TV sports networks. They focus only on the sports that really matter to people in the world. It is also painfully obvious hockey isn’t considered one of them.
I didn’t do the fancy excursions to see the Aztec ruins or any of those. My goal was to decompress and enjoy “summer” again, and do some shopping. Mainly, I wanted to find one particular ornament.
Years before, I received a souvenir from former reporter Jayne Foster after one of her many trips to Cancun.
It was a keychain, and attached to it was a flat, rubberized cartoon frog wearing a hat.
I named this creature “Sombrero the Frog.” But in reality, this frog wasn’t wearing a sombrero at all, but a big straw hat.
Somehow, “Straw Hat Frog” doesn’t roll off the tongue quite so well.
I was quite delighted with the frog souvenir, which I attached to my collection of keys. But the story took a tragic turn.
One day, Sombrero the Frog disappeared. My guess was that he had fallen off at a North Battleford parking lot.
After a brief and futile search of local parking lots, I finally knew where Sombrero was. He had gone back to Mexico!
I realized there was one chance of getting him back, and that was to go to Cancun and try to find him in a souvenir store there. Now I had my opportunity.
There were no shortage of stores and flea markets in Cancun’s hotel zone. I walked by one of these artisan markets and the proprietor literally dragged me off the street to show me what he had. “Give me two minutes of your time!” the guy said. “Oh, all right.”
It ended up being three or four guys in there, spending 10 minutes trying desperately to sell me something. They had mugs, they had blankets, all sorts of things. When I told them I was from Saskatchewan, they pointed out an unusual item for sale.
It was a skull, with a Saskatchewan Roughriders helmet and logo painted onto it.
Considering what the fans go through in following the Roughriders, I thought this was oddly appropriate.
In part because I was impressed they had a Roughriders skull for sale, I finally agreed to take a tequila glass and a T-shirt with a Corona logo on it. Then they told me the price they wanted for these items: “Sixteen fifty!”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “One thousand, six hundred and fifty pesos?!”
Indeed.
Boy, was I insulted. These guys claimed 1,650 pesos was a good deal when you took into account the exchange rate, but I knew full well what the exchange rate was and there was no way it was this bad. This wasn’t Venezuela.
What happened next was the uniquely Mexican shopping experience called “bargaining,” where the customer and merchant negotiate and barter for a price they can agree on.
Finally, we struck a deal. I would have the tequila glass and the T-shirt for $20. Better yet, they even agreed to accept the amount in Canadian currency!
I handed them my $20 Canadian bill and got the heck out of there before they tried to sell me something else.
As I headed off, I took one last look. One of those guys was staring at the $20 bill and clearly had a look on his face going “what the heck is this?”
In reality, these guys should be pleased with how they made out on their sale, because I’m sure I overpaid by at least $10.
Worse yet, I didn’t find what I was really looking for — the keychain of the frog wearing the straw hat.
Finally, I went into one of the many Plaza la Fiesta souvenir stores in Cancun. It was inside the building across the street from Senor Frog’s, where the Hard Rock Café was also located.
I was hopeful because I was told before the trip this was likely where they had the frog keychains in stock.
After searching all over the store, I found the keychain section. Sure enough, my search was over.
There was Sombrero the Frog, on the shopping rack, looking quite pleased with himself.
You know how this story ends.
Sombrero the Frog is now happily back home in the Battlefords, in a secure undisclosed location where he won’t run off back to Cancun in a hurry.
