It had been a few weeks and I was feeling pretty happy with my days, I had a nice little routine going. M/W/F was pickleball in the morning, yoga in the late afternoon. Every remaining day was either running or doing my exercises in the beach or the park, or every once in a while use the expensive beach gym that was kinda far away. I’d try to get in a scuba dive each weekend. Lots of sunshine, cappuccinos and fresh fruit juice in the meantime. I was usually too lazy to head all the way out the beach during the day (lol) and I always worried about someone stealing my kindle if I went to take a dip in the ocean, so the pool rooftop was a good option. I was actually reading a classic (very weird for me), The Count of Montecristo and enjoying it a lot!
Unfortunately we had take a break from pickleball when the group founders came down with covid. Not exactly shocking as they were not shy about hitting up the popular restaurants. If you come to Playa del Carmen for any extended period of time and are actually going out, doing the nightlife stuff, you’re gonna get covid. It’s gonna happen. With so many tourists coming and going, covid is everywhere in Playa.
So wouldn’t ya know, just a few days after John and Kelly (pickleball founders) were diagnosed with covid, I started feeling a bit weird. I had a slight fever, but basically I was just feeling super lazy. Like the thought of getting up out of bed to go for a bike ride or run errands, sounded awful. I mean I certainly could have gotten up, I wasn’t dead, but I just REALLY did not want to do anything besides lay in bed. I told the pickleball group I too was feeling a bit strange, and we officially cancelled it for 2 weeks. The fever went away after the first day, but it was a solid three days of lethargy, just laying around like a slug. Very strange after being pretty ‘up and at ‘em’ the last few weeks. But no cough or respiratory symptoms, no body aches, just laziness! So I assume it was Covid and went into quarantine, but I never actually got tested, so I can’t say for sure. I do remember specifically helping John cram the net in the bag after pickleball was over, unmasked, with our heads right near each other’s, so that’s when I assume it happened.
It could have been worse obviously. I guess John was coughing real bad and ended with pneumonia. Plus he got a neurological condition where his right hand would shake when he was putting a spoon to his mouth. So even though he was in good shape, he still got hit pretty hard! And at least I can say in the few days from when I most likely got covid, to when I got symptoms, I could count on one hand the amount of people I’d been close to, unmasked.
So that was a boring two weeks obviously, but everything was right back where it started when quarantine was over. Although I did end up switching apartments to get closer to the beach, which is a double edged sword as it puts you right by 5th ave as well, which is annoying. Although it wasn’t near any nightclubs at least! It was kind of a strange place. A two apartment unit, with both apartments being raised so that a bunch of cars could park underneath them. It didn’t take long to notice that there were other people that had keys to front gate, and that there were always people coming and going to the furthest part of the garage, under my unit. What could it be, hmmm, what do they try and sell to the tourists on 5th avenue all the time?! Hmm. Drugs! I was a little sketched out at first, but then it wasn’t really a big deal.
There was a German and girlfriend who were staying in the other apartment unit, and some nights he would be drinking and invite everyone he had met up to his rooftop to pound some whisky and smoke some joints. He’s one of those very outgoing, non-stop talking, know-it-all types. Covid denier to boot, of course. So I did stop up there briefly one night and met some of the guys that were always hanging around. Most of them didn’t speak much English, but one of them lived in Chicago a bit, and of course he had whatever I needed, if I needed anything at all! But they seemed pretty harmless. I’m sure they had some sort of agreement with whoever owned these apartments, and not pissing off the tenants was presumably part of it. If anything, I was protected by the cartel, hahaha.