Week 1 in Pez Maya– Settling in, Plympcs and toga party!

All the volunteers arrived at base on the 8th to find paradise on a beach. Little did we know that we were in for a big surprise (well, actually a whole lot of tiny, stinging surprises). After a delicious meal cooked by the lovely staff, we had our first briefing and got our aims for the week. Lluvia took us for a tour around the base, during which our wonderful 20th volunteer, Maja, arrived! The group rejoiced, as we were almost complete. It did take another day before Chloe arrived and made a total of 21 volunteers, but once we were settled in it didn’t take long for everyone to open up and after only a few days we were the happy little (big) family we are today.

After one of our members suffered the wrath of the mosquitoes we all soon came under their sights, being bitten from the tips of our toes to the edges of our eyelids. The mozzies weren’t the only thing getting us down though, bad weather kept us from diving for almost half the week. We did try once, but the currents carried us so far down shore that it took us 20 minutes to walk back to base, wearing all of our gear. However, the (according to Caribbean standards) crappy weather wasn’t all bad as it gave us time for other activities, such as volleyball and Playa Olympics (Plympics). We all put a massive effort into our costumes, theme songs and mascots (one of which suffered a dramatic turn of kidnapping, ransom and a final (tearful) reunion with its team). We can’t tell you the results of the Plympics as it is still an ongoing event, but we can say that the Teenage Nappy Ninja Turtles are currently in the lead, although they will soon suffer the terrible wrath of the Loconuts…

Although most of us didn’t get to dive due to the bad weather, the Open water groups got the special pleasure of doing our confined water training at the Cenote. A beautifully crystal clear underground cave system, which by the way is the longest in the world! One group even got the privilege of conducting a open water dive through these magnificent waters.

Every Saturday we do a beach clean, removing trash, bottles and surprising amounts of flip flops from the beach strip where we live, but on Friday we decided to do a bridge clean, picking up trash from the area where the lagoon and the road meet. It all went well except for one severe ant attack on one of the trash bags and Maja got to have a accidental (or was it…?) shower from a bottle with an unknown liquid inside of it. Some of us even made a couple of new signs to encourage people to pick up their trash after them rather than throwing it into the bushes.

When we finally got into the water, we found out that it was all worth the wait. Not only is the reef a beautiful place to dive, but in less than a week we got to see a Green Moray eel, a baby ray and a nurse shark! After experiencing the wonders of the reef, we now get to enjoy food made on our brand new cooker which was paid for by our bar- and tuck-money (mostly Charlies). We are now truly in paradise as it no longer takes us an hour and a half to boil some water, and the food gets cooked in a fifth of the time it used to take.

All volunteers, and staff, got to let their hair down on Saturday night in celebration of Frodo, the 25-year-old hobbit, with a massive toga party. We can’t give you all the details as we, quite frankly, don’t really remember most of them, but we can happily say that everyone did a lot of dancing, descent amounts of drinking, and Frodo even got his own private lapdance, complimentary of three of the male volunteers (yes, we’ve got pictures)!

To sum up, we don’t mean to brag, but it is pretty hard coming up with things to write about whilst lying on a gorgeous beach, under a burning sun, with no mozzies in sight and about to eat a delicious dinner (guaranteed, with the new stove):.. We’ll get back to you once we get out of this extremely comfortable sofa, and tell you all about the exciting adventures that await us in week 2 at Pez Maya!


Peace and love, Crouz & Maja

Week 1 in Pez Maya– Settling in, Plympcs and toga party!