Tacos in Tulum

Recently my wife and I ventured to Tulum, Mexico to celebrate my retirement from the United States Navy after 24 years of service as a Deep Sea Diver. With CoViD restrictions lifting and the pandemic seemingly in retreat we also have missed our routine of traveling annually with the lock-downs and strict orders from the Navy not to travel further than 300 miles radius from my command; this was also a trip to stretch our worldly legs again, and rid ourselves of some cabin-fever. Returning to the United States does still require some CoViD testing procedures that can induce stress into what is supposed to be a time for relaxation and no worries; However, that's for a different story all together.

My last year of service to the Navy was all conducted during the rise and height of the CoViD pandemic, which resulted in most of the work for the Navy I did have to do could be conducted from home via teleworking. When a member of the military service is preparing for their retirement and separation from service there is an acronym used to describe the member and that's Retired On Active Duty or ROAD program and that's exactly where I was at prior to CoVid hitting and with the social distance and work from home orders put into place it only reinforced and put an exclamation on my dedication to the ROAD program which allowed me a lot of spare time to contemplate my retirement career or activities. My wife in that free time decided to start a branded clothing line called The Black Sheep Shirt Co. that paid homage to both my wife's and my outside of the norm attitudes and beliefs we have held in our respective careers and families. We were going to use this trip to Tulum to also model various shirts in specific locations that we believed would enhance the designs marketability. Through my bad judgment and parking too far from the specific street sign that reads "Follow That Dream" to advertise our Die with Memories not Dreams T-Shirt, we had to walk miles to the location and when we finally reached the destination and got the photos we were hangry and needed to eat immediately; my wife was dying to find a simple street taco joint the last two days. This led us by chance to La Taqueria, Pinches Tacos Shop. It's a very unassuming little brown wooden-cart set back off the street in the sand nestled between an open air street bar and brick oven pizza stand. There are a few rows of long wooden tables with benches for seating that rest between the stand and the street, where you can wait for and eat your food.

My wife speaks fluent Spanish so ordering anything or getting directions is always a breeze for us and this place was no exception. I can often tell the attitudes of the servers, workers, or locals she's speaking Spanish with change towards us once they know she speaks their local language. It really sends out a good vibe that the locals appreciate when visitors respect them enough to assimilate to their language and culture, and thanks to my wife we are always on a great amount of hospitality from locals in the Spanish speaking countries we visit. I think a local cat to which we assumed was a stray felt this aura and immediately came up to me and befriended me while my wife and I waited for our chicken tacos. The best of domesticated cats are known to be aloof and not ones to seek affection; however, this little grey and dark striped female cat that was thin and small in size was eager for me to pet her and wanted to immediately jump into my lap. She was very curious about my shirt and what we had on our table to include the glass water bottle. I cupped my hand and poured water into my hand to which she was happy to drink from, and now her friendship maybe started to make a little more sense. Once she had her fill of my water she curled up into my lap and began to play with my shirt as if she was just making herself at home and we were sitting on a living room couch. The amount of attention I was paying to this local cat and how friendly to me she was in return didn't go unnoticed to patrons seated at the bar, to which the exclaimed to us, "It looks like you've found a pet to rescue and take home with you". Just then my wife's ability to speak Spanish was met by one of the locals that worked at the food carts informed us that the cat belonged to them and she is part of their little restaurant and bar operation that their family from Argentina are running in this little quaint and sandy spot of Tulum; to include the bar, pizza truck, and La Taquera.

I was having so much fun playing and bonding with this little cat that once we found out it wasn't a stray or homeless it made the experience that much better knowing that this little cat receives more attention and affection than that of the random stranger kind enough to share some water, food, and play-time with her. The cat was a great distraction from the wait for our tacos, but once they were delivered my wife was very pleased with them and exclaimed that Argentinian Tacos in Tulum are the Bomb! Her fix for delicious street tacos had been fixed and I made a new friend that I happily shared my tacos with. The tacos were so good and we felt so bad for not having enough tacos to share more with the cat we ordered another plate. This gave me time to play with my feline friend even longer and have four more delicious tacos, to which again I shared with our new furry friend.

The delicious tacos of La Taquera and the unexpected meeting of a four legged friend alleviated my wife from our hangry moods and didn't make the long walk back to the car a panful arduous one even though I knew I initially screwed up by parking so far away from our photo-op locations. In the end though we may not have had the chance to meet these great Argentinians their friendly cat, have excellent tacos and a great memory if we had parked closer to the locations. All in all I believe my honest mistake of parking miles from the sites and having to walk led us to exactly what we are selling on our T-Shirts and that is to DIE WITH MEMORIES NOT DREAMS and this was a great little unplanned by-chance memory. The moral of the story is that even through mistakes happiness and enjoyable memories can be had.