Coconut water

After swimming at the cenote Dzitnup for a couple of hours, Tobias and I decide it is time to leave. As we walk out from the park, we realize how hungry we are. Around the corner we see a woman with a small wood-burning stove, some plastic tables and chairs selling food.

“I could have some salbutes” Tobias says. Of course he can. Even though he’s the German and I’m the Mexican, anyone who would have seen him eat would think otherwise. He’s got a strong appetite and an even stronger stomach. He eats habanero chilli like candy and shows no regrets afterwards. As we wait for our salbutes and panuchos –fried corn dough with fresh chicken, beans and salad on top- to be ready, we talk about the place where we’ve just swum. It’s such a different experience to see our Earth from its insides, the life that still exists within.

We’re not the only costumers at this pop-up restaurant. There’s another man, around his forties, who keeps glimpsing at us. I’m sure he’s puzzled by the way Tobias looks and talks. He looks just as the stereotype of a German you’d have in mind but speaks fluent spanish with a strong, nearly perfect, Colombian accent. The bystander decides to make a move. “So you liked the place? I’m from the town of Dzitnup, further down the road. Around here we’re all Mayans.” I remember we’re on Yucatan, a Mexican state known by its open people and their pride in their roots. “Where do you folks come from?” We explain. I’m originally from and currently live on Mexico; Tobias is originally from Germany but is currently living in Colombia. The man looks sceptical at us.

I start talking to him; ask what he does for a living, if he likes it there, if he visits the cenotes often. We learn he’s a taxi driver and a farmer, currently working on the fields since it’s potato season and that he has gone to the cenotes since he was a kid and enjoys it a lot. “Do you know how to say pretty girl on maya?” he asks. “Ki’ichpam X Chúupal” the man answers himself right away. He makes us repeat it until we get it right: kesh-pam-shu-u-pal. As we pay our meal and get ready to leave, the man turns to Tobias and looking directly into his eyes tells him “There’s a saying here in Yucatan that once a foreigner drinks coconut water from a Mexican tree he’s destined to never leave the country”. As we walk into town Tobias asks me if I understood what the coconut water story was about. “I think it’s because they irrigate them with water from the cenote” I reply smiling.