Pants Party

After Mahahual, we'd travelled up to Tulum for a relaxing afternoon at Papaya Playa and an evening hearing all about Arturo's novel called The Android—a tale of romance between two long-lost lovers who reconnected through the powers of the Internet. The story is a reflection of his current long-distance romance with his girlfriend, and we're pretty sure the title is a ploy to get endorsements from Google.

We woke up fresh and ready for a fun-filled day of adventures for Joelle's birthday. We would be heading to Dos Ojos cenotes, courtesy of our pal Javier at Space for Snorkel.

In usual Mexican style, we waited in the dive shop for an eternity whilst we were fitted with the necessary equipment, then waited a little longer for two additional thrill seekers to join the tour. When we clambered into the mini-van, we had two instructors (one who was leading the crew and spoke zero English, and the other his interpreter who fancied himself as running the show and referred to his colleague as his monkey), a rather dim German girl who'd been living in Liverpool (and confessed the first time she'd been snorkelling, she wore just the mask and didn't realise you needed the snorkel mouthpiece to snorkel effectively), and two well-turned-out guys from Pakistan. This made up our fun little group of seven.

We started with a bonus trip to Akumal Bay. Skipping the entrance fee and the dull safety video, we headed straight to the beach. With rather fetching life jackets adorned, we followed our guide out into the ocean. Within no time, we'd spotted a couple of turtles feeding on the sea grass and then rushing to the surface to gulp some air before gliding off into the distance. Simply magical. We went deeper and deeper until we were at the reef and were so engrossed in the fishes it took our guide a while to realise we were a man down.

We were instructed to stay put whilst our Mexican-speaking guide went in search of our lost comrade. Our English-speaking instructor, who was cracking onto Joelle pretty hard, spotted our lost friend back on the beach, and we headed in whilst his friend (the monkey, his name not ours!) continued to swim the bay in search, completely unaware that the group had been reunited on the shore.

Our rather breathless guide eventually returned, looking on the verge of a heart attack—whether this was from the lengthy swim search or the fear of nearly having lost a member of our party, we couldn't be sure.

The drive to Dos Ojos was quick, but we managed to fit in some small talk about our plans to celebrate Joelle's birthday in style, partying the night away in Playa, and Joelle's new Mexican boyfriend lost no time in continuing his pursuit.

At the caves, we plunged into the crystal-clear waters and started the tour. Our Liverpudlian chum was busy diving down into the depths of the caves whilst everyone else was content bobbing on the surface. When she emerged, she complained about the small fishes that kept swimming into her mouth. Why she was swimming underwater with her mouth open is a total mystery but re-confirmed all of our preconceptions about her stupidity.

Meandering through the cave network, carefully dodging the hanging stalactites, we eventually got to the bat cave. Hundreds of squeaking little winged fur-balls clung to the ceiling above us. The bat cave has a small circular hole in the roof where the sunlight beamed through. This was apparently where the Mayans used to throw their virgins as sacrifices to the gods.

Safely out of the bat cave, with not a Mayan virgin ghost in sight, we were soon back at the open pool where the tour began.

We got a lift to the main road, where we left the snorkel group and hopped onto a collectivo to Playa.

The day had flown by, and it was already nearing 5 pm. We decided that a nap would be a very sensible pre-party plan, so we took a couple of hours out of our busy day to catch 40 winks.

Jamie sneaked me out of the bedroom whilst Joelle was still snoozing soundly so we could write her card and light the candle on her cake. We say cake—by the time we'd whipped the top of this little cupcake, it was just a lump of sponge. The ornamental candle dominated the poor little cake but did the trick. Apparently, traditional birthday candles are hard to find in Mexico.

We woke her up with our strangled-cat serenade of Happy Birthday, and bleary-eyed, she blew out the candle and made a wish.

The wish was definitely not that we would film her attempting to open a bottle of bubbles in her pants and the involuntary phrase, "It's just a pants party," would slip from her lips.

The night quickly unraveled into mayhem. It had begun with an elegant candlelit meal on the beach at Playa with a lovely bottle of white wine and quickly spiraled as Jamie decided that the theme of the night should be to "get drunk like 15-year-olds."

We headed straight to the hellish end of town, where huge nightclubs churned out terrible pop classics played over throbbing baselines. It was too early for this—or maybe we were too old. Surely the plan to get drunk like 15-year-olds would wipe away any of these doubts, but first, we needed an inexpensive bar boasting an array of cocktails and tequila chasers.

We walked down to the beach road at Mamita's, hoping for a lively little bar where we could get our drinking plan underway. The road was dead. The bars were all pretty empty, and the atmosphere seemed to be lacking any party vibes... What a mistaka to maka—we should have stayed in the club zone and sucked up the big bar tabs.

We saw a cute little pub at the end of the strip and decided to head in just for one shot, then go straight back to the clubs.

The decor was fantastic—decked in paintings of Mexican wrestlers and behind us, a huge Mona Lisa also sporting a rather elegant wrestling mask. This bar had tonnes more charm than we initially thought.

We each took a high chair at the bar and were greeted by a cheery barman. We ordered up three cocktails (served by the litre) and three shots of tequila. The barman told us this was a good choice and that he loved tequila, so Joelle ordered one for him too.

"You buy one for me, I buy one for you..."

This is where it started to get messy.

Our litre cocktails arrived. Jamie won top marks for making the best selection. Joelle had some super-sweet fruity drink, and I had a detoxer's dream—thick with cucumber and mint, it was closer to a meal than a drink.

We explained to our tequila-loving bartender that it was Joelle's birthday. He told us to hold on and disappeared. What embarrassing treat would be in store? A serenade of Happy Birthday from all the staff? Dancing on the bar? Being forced to wear a wrestling mask for the remainder of the night?

No. He returned just as a dainty little song played out quietly across the speakers. A traditional Mexican birthday song, apparently. It was devoid of any of the embarrassment we had hoped for but was very cute all the same.

Pottering back behind the bar, picking up bottles of this and that, the barman next placed a huge mug of something rather revolting in front of Joelle. A special birthday drink for the birthday girl—Midori, whiskey, beer, and many unidentifiable substances resulted in the greeny-blue potion.

Without hesitation, Joelle picked up the mug and saw off the whole grim concoction in one massive gulp. Pretty impressive work. The sprinkling of people in the bar gave a polite little clap as we whooped and cheered—we were served up another shot of tequila each to celebrate.

Having told the barman of our party predicament, we asked about some top tips on places to have a good night here in Playa, and he recommended a couple of bars. He offered to walk us down when his shift finished at 2:30, but the night was racing away, and we had a lot of dancing to do. The downside to this being that when you're drunk like a 15-year-old, you also end up acting like one. We decided to go on ahead and meet him there.

Shot after shot after shot, a special brew of nasties for the birthday girl, and our gigantic cocktails made our night’s mission a success—we were now all as close to being drunken 15-year-olds as we could ever get.

Stumbling back to the nightclub zone, we found the bar recommended to us by the barman, but, being a Monday night—or more accurately a very early Tuesday morning—it was now closed. We quickly settled on Mandala's, the best of a bad bunch, and managed to get the entrance fee waived due to having a birthday girl in our crew.

No sooner had we scanned the bar menu and decided that everything was ridiculously overpriced, we had a tap on the shoulder.

"Hey guys, don't buy a drink, come to our table—we've got loads of alcohol."

It was one of the Pakistani millionaires (the presumption of them being millionaires is based on the antics that were to follow) from our snorkel tour. They'd hired a car (with a driver) to come and look for us. What a crazy turn of events. Here we were quibbling the 60 pesos-a-beer charge, and suddenly the universe had given us a free night.

Having taken note of our chatter about partying in Playa earlier that day, they'd hit four bars looking for us and eventually ended up staying in Mandala's when they thought they wouldn’t find us. This was turning out to be a pretty random night.

At their private table, we danced and drank the strong drinks being served by their own personal table waiter.

We pulled our best bass faces out of the bag and thrust along to the horribly over-engineered beats as Joelle made polite conversation with our new pals.

All of a sudden, a roaming shot lady was on Joelle, forcing one shot, then another, down her neck. The woman then started blowing a whistle, knocking on Joelle's forehead, grabbing her head by both sides, and shaking it up and down... Next, the shot girl went for the boobs, something which Joelle resisted like a lady. Next was my turn. Knowing the score, I was willing to embrace it like a real-life Essex girl in Kavos. After the boob wobble, I was bent over and given a thrust or two. The shot lady disappeared and, thankfully, never returned.

Next was the flower seller, who lit up as the millionaires ordered not one, but three bunches—one for each of us. Jamie managed to luck out with the three red roses; the petals of my lily soon started to wilt.

Hitting the dance floor to get into the thick of things, we were totally content and having a great night. The music dropped, and so did our hearts, as we feared kick-out time was upon us.

Pushing through the crowd was a balaclava'd face, then another and another. Looking down, we saw that these were not some kind of fun fancy-dress party but special police who were sporting massive guns and escorting a group of naughty nightclubbers off the premises... You forget you're in Mexico for five minutes, and then guns remind you that you are in fact in a war zone.

Not ones to let a simple thing like that get in the way, we carried on partying until Jamie had had one too many free whiskey and cokes and made the request to retire.

The drunken walk home, with not a kebab in sight, was the end to an amazing day.

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