Arriving at the Reef

Late last night I arrived at my destination in Mexico. I had a fairly pleasant flight from San Diego through Houston to Merida, with not too much waiting to do on the way. My destination was the International Mathematical Olympiad 2005, or what usually goes by the term of IMO. Held in Merida, Mexico, this year, and attended by young students from over 90 countries. And us, the "Team Leaders", who as representatives of our countries prepare the exam together, then mark our students' solutions.

The first few days, as we are working on selecting the problems and putting together the exam, we work in isolation in a (usually) secret location. The secret location this time (and I'm not revealing anything here, as I won't be able to put these notes online untill after my return back home; we are in fact cut off from internet for the length of our stay here, so that we can't communicate with the outside world and spill secrets or hints or exam questions) is the Reef Yucatan hotel, just outside the port of Telchac.

As we arrived here late last night, I couldn't really get much of an idea of the site, because it was pitch dark. I only noticed that it was very hot (I'm guessing, well over 30°C) and very humid! It hit us as we walked out of the air terminal. Luckily, we had air conditioned buses waiting for us. On the other hand, we then had to wait in the bus for a good hour, as we waited for colleagues to come through mexican immigration. (Not exactly as simple as crossing the border at Tijuana, I tell you!) I had already spotted some colleagues at the airport of Houston, waiting for the same flight, but didn't speak to them until we arrived in Merida (You see, I had a good book!) but arriving there I was really glad to see Indra from Trinidad and Tobago and Jan from Estonia. From the airport, we then turned out to have an hours drive to the hotel.

After I checked into my room, in a house at the (what seemed to me to be) sort of outskirts of the site, I just ran out for a glass of water and came upon, of all people, my ancient penpal-and-more Florian, from Romania. We exchanged a few surprised phrases, I then got the shortlist of problems from him (as he heads the problem selection committe), then went back to my room, had a quick look at the problems, worked a little on the combinatorics and the number theory, then went to sleep in my nice big bed and slept straight 'till morning.

I had quite a surprise as I woke up this morning. I looked out from my balcony and realized that my room gave right onto the beach and I had just the greatest view of a pearly white beach, the turquoise ocean and the coconut trees. Not bad at all!