One real benefit to traveling alone: I can double-dip my chips in the guacamole as much as I please. And I can order fizzy water without having to consult the table on bubbles vs. no bubbles. This trip is only making more set in my ways.

Anyway, I weathered, even enjoyed, my visit to the Pedro-and-Eyal Show, the guys who own this hotel in Cozumel that I was bracing myself for visiting again only because Eyal is the biggest motormouth ever–but they had been incredibly nice and helpful on my last trip, and were happy to have me visit again. This time it seemed like I maybe got two words in edgewise with Eyal, whereas last trip I got none. But it really was nonstop commentary from this red-haired Israeli guy who lounges around in linen pants and shirts unbuttoned down to his navel (though he’s not as sleazy as that sounds [ED: No really, he’s not sleazy at all, and is in fact quite great–I was exaggerating solely for the sake of the story]) and says, ‘No, 8:30 isn’t too late for dinner–we’re European!’ Pedro is from Mexico City. I think I’m European too.

Over dinner I asked Pedro, a gentleman with a white beard and glasses, an innocuous conversation-starting question, and all he said was, ‘I’m the quiet one, you know.’

But they bought me dinner, and gave me lots of dirt on the Cozumel scene (well, Eyal did–Pedro looked shocked that Eyal knew so much gossip) and hugged me good-bye and were very charming and hospitable. Funny how the things I’m most worried about turn into the brightest spots of a trip.

Tonight is less exciting, though I did have dinner and drinks in a club in a cave. I feel jaded that I’m not more thrilled by this, but I have been to another club in a cave, in the Dominican Republic. The trouble with drinking in a cave in the tropics is that you get extremely hot and sweaty very easily.

And I was still carrying some of that humidity when I got in my car, and I played the ‘what’s missing from my dashboard?’ game: in this case, any kind of heating system, including a defogging setting. Duh. I have one of the old-style Beetles (called a volcho: Volkswagen + bicho[“bug”], I’m guessing), which they just stopped making in Mexico last year. They’re cute–the only modern functions they’ve added are a nifty anti-theft lock and intermittent wipers. (I had an even cuter convertible one in Cozumel.) But they’re a bitch to steer. At least I’ll be doing a little upper-body workout.

Off to visiting spas tomorrow–this is my last dip into Playa del Carmen for a week or so…where is that Italian guy with the wrench set?