Hello everyone! My name is Ximena and I grew up in a ranch in the southern part of Mexico, where my life happened among trees, insects, cows and books ... sometimes all together in the same situations, that can't be helped. And I love water as you have no idea. But I was never a good swimmer, although my curiosity was always greater than my mistrust and I dared to swim in places where my poor dad would almost have suffered a heart attack when catched me swiming. I think saying swimming is too much, but I managed to float, move forward and survive (as I said before, thanks to my curiosity).
But one day I had an accident that left me a few months without moving, left me without a father and many wounds in the soul that have not healed yet, but that is another story. After this accident and a lot of suffering, after the first part of my recovery process, one day I wanted to go swimming to one of the places that I liked the most: a river in Chiapas, near Palenque, where there is a kind of well at least 80 meters deep. For security, they have, between one shore and the other, a thick rope for people to lean on if they are tired. I was recovering and it felt easy for me to go “swimming”. How I missed it! And how much I enjoyed getting into the fresh water and feeling like a fish (a bit like Nemo with his happy fin and much less graceful). As I said before, I never knew how to swim but I managed. And when I was a little tired and stopped on the rope to catch my breath, something happened: I could not move anymore. Someone, playing, stood on that rope that was placed on the surface and, of course, it was now sunken more than a meter into the water. That would not have been a problem if I could have moved. But I could not. No matter how hard I tried, not a single muscle would moved. My brain sent orders and my body did not respond. Anyway ... I almost drowned that day. Someone helped me, fortunately, and the incident did not happened to be something more serious.
After this experience I spent many years being unable to enter the water if I could not, at least with my toes, touch the bottom because, of course, my body was completely paralyzed again. It gave me an indescribable terror. I spent 9 years of my life, living other adventures, and, suddenly, I arrived to the Mexican Caribbean. Playa del Carmen, where there are more divers than grains of sand (it seemed to be like that since almost everyone I knew was a diver). I worked in a tiny restaurant / bar in a tini tiny hotel that housed basically people who came to dive cenotes, do their diving courses or their IDC and it was a torture to fall more and more in love with the underwater world through the photographs they showed me, the conversations I was listening, and knowing that I could never do it, out of fear. But I told you I am curious. And I'm stubborn too. So the day that a dive instructor offered to give me my discover scuba diving experience as a gift, I said yes immediately, without even thinking about it.
The excitement of being able to see the fish and other reef animals was so strong that I forgot to tell my instructor that I DON'T know how to swim. That I paralyze in the water. Come on, I said yes to the idea of diving because I said to myself: myself, what scares you? Being paralyzed? to sink? and not being able to breathe? ... Of course! But I also thought: to dive, you have that thing that gives you air constantly straight into your mouth (at that time I didn't know that that something is called a regulator !!!), therefore, I would have breathable air. And anyway, I had to sink. GOOD!!!! Sure ... and on the surface? Ah, well, that thing like a jacket that those who dive put on has air inside (I didn't know that this was a BCD either) and, therefore, it would help me to float. READY!!!
I decided to go diving and, although I was the most clumsy in the universe (I still am) I enjoyed life so much in such a different way: seeing the reef, being attacked by several damsel fish, laughing underwater, being shoot to the surface like a baloon and try to go down "swimming", thus causing a disaster for my poor instructor and his other students but, finally, it was a glorious day. I finished the dives happy, crying with joy. Knowing that I had taken a first step to overcome my fear of water. Proud of myself. And my day ended up having a small party at the hotel / restaurant / bar pool , laughing, singing ... and breaking my instructor's lip when, playing, he wanted to push me into the pool. Because, of course, I had never told him anything about my fear of deep water and not knowing how to swim.
Now, 9 years after that experience, I am an advanced open water diver (not that it means much: i am still clumsy and compare my diving skills with those a potato would have), I have dived in different places (all here in the Mexican Caribbean), I have been sorrounded by few bullsharks and have one of those magnificent animals less than a meter away from me, I have enjoyed the breathtaking experience of diving in a few caverns in the Sacred Mayan Cenotes. And, although I still don't know how to swim, I really enjoy the underwater world. And that is why I decided to start this blog where, mainly, I would like to talk about what I like most about diving in the Riviera Maya, its underwater fauna, places that I have fallen in love with in this area.
Let's see how it goes!!!
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