Omigod–I nearly forgot! I actually had a stupendously good meal: lunch at this little restaurant in some woman’s house. Salpicon (shredded beef with a vinegary sauce, radishes and cilantro) preceded by this really nice creamy black bean soup. All the jamaica (hibiscus) I could drink.

Really, you open up the woman’s front gate, traipse into her living room, get waved through the kitchen, and step out into this huge backyard. In the kitchen, several women are just sitting around chitchatting and maybe prepping something or other. Looking for the bathroom, I got to ogle the CD collection (lots of Andrea Bocelli) and the porcelain figurines…and run into some strange 4-foot-tall completely hairless old man, who was on his way back to his hammock.

Thanks to Eyal (see below), I know that this woman’s husband just died, and she started up the restaurant because she’d always wanted to, but now everyone in the neighborhood thinks she’s making a fast buck because she got a new car with her husband’s pension money. So I’m rooting for the whopping success of her restaurant (Sabores, Av 5 between C3 and C5 in San Miguel, Cozumel) and the demise of all backstabbing neighbors.