Cancun is an interesting place. You hear a lot about it over here... this is some of the things you may hear, that I heard.
¨We changed our plans so we can go back and party more in CANNNCUNNN¨ - Turkish Boys
¨Cancun did not exist before the Americans showed up¨ - Mexi-American
¨We aren{t going to bother with Cancun¨ - My Irish Parents. ¨Don{t.¨ - every traveller they talked to.
I also picture everything in my head before I go. This was one place where it was actually quite different. As I mentioned, I thought of a cross between Gold coast and Las Vegas, I knew that is was basically made up of flash, expensive resorts. I thought there would be all the Gold coast stuff too of the bars and everything right on the beach. There being highways and too many people and lots of tourist things. I found some photos of what I expected to find..
For starters, the town seems like it is not on the beach. That is basically because it really is not. It is quite a drive to the beach, more and more of it is getting covered up by new apartment complexes, although on the {Hotel Zone} there is barely any room. This photo was stolen from Facebook, from a friend of mine from Oaxaca who I ran into in San Cristobal and Chichen Itza. It is good because it shows the penisula. The town is quite far away. It comes out like a backwards C from the mainland, you can see the swamp water in the middle. To bus to the centre takes 30-45 minutes.. but you spend most the time passing hotels on a very well manicured road.
I naively thought that it may be possible to walk to the beach. Not the hotel zone, as I could see the huge hotels poking out behind fog - they looked miles away (and were), but there were also a lot closer apartments that looked like they were on the beach, but are miles away... wonder if people are getting tricked when buying these...
I found myself walking for quite a while through neighbourhoods, all single leveled. I made it to NEAR the beach, but they are all blocked by gated communities. I may have said this before, all beaches in Mexico are public BUT sometimes actually getting to the beach is impossible (unless you pass through private property, which I have been known to do round these parts).
I ended up walking all the way to Puerto Juarez where I was going to aqua-taxi from the next day. Now I think of it, I think I walked for a very long way. I only had a $200 peso note, as usual because I get money from the bank... it is about $22 NZD, so I waited till I found an OXXO dairy which is where they always have change, to get my water and ice cream. They said they didn{t have change. I felt like the guy was just being a prick.
I was suprised to find the port had a McDonalds. Basically it is in the middle of nowhere, with a ticket shop/tourist shop and then a McDonalds. Side story: Yesterday I signed up to Mystery Shopper program (looking for a job online and this is something I always wanted to do), did the orientation (online) and all - but turns out that the company only works for McDs and Shell.
I was liking the idea of this news, until I saw the criteria. You cannot do it if you have worked at McDs, known someone to have worked there in the past 5 years or are Vegetarian. All of these are issues for me.. I was going to lie but then it said the names go to McDonalds head office so my mind changed on that very quickly...
Back to life - I spent HOURS that night walking along the Cancun beach in the hotel zone. The ocean is BEAUTIFUL... dark blue out further, but crystal clear closer up... big waves too. The photo shows the colours - no advancement! The beach was very different to what I expected. Thought there would be 100s of restaurants and bars and tourist shops on the beach, with tonnes of tourists drinking from those big plastic cup-bottle things (are they called Yard glasses?) they use in Vegas and other places just as classy.
There were not those people. The only people I saw on the beach at all were a bunch of Mexicans (in the public area), a group of Americans yelling whilst playing pentanque, a female soccer team and a American couple (he was morbidly obese and she was a petite Asian - suspicious or love?) who I volunteered to take photos of (I do this here quite a bit... they do the he takes a photo of her, then her of him, then one self-taken so it is awkwardly close...)... it went from noon to night when I was walking down the beach - it was so nice to be alone on this vast stretch of beautiful white sand (well, me and the various security guards guarding the hotel pools).
Security guards of the hotels lead on to my next hobby that most know little about, that is showing up at hotels, walking around like I am a guest while checking the place out and usually taking the opportunity to use the bathroom. This has been tried and tested in various hotels and resorts in different countries and I have never had any trouble.. it works basically because I am not Mexican. I have more confidence with it now, because I feel like I can use studying at a hotel school as an excuse... although I did say I was a guest at the Hilton in Cancun (you can get away with this when they don{t have wrist bands).
I would like to point out now that I don´t steal anything and I leave the bathrooms as I found them (having worked as a Sheraton Housekeeper helps with this skill). I checked out many a hotel including various Mexicanos, a Le Meridien, Hilton, Westin and so on. The Westin was my fave.. .I might be biased as I would like to work for them.... Unfortunately, the one I was standing outside when I had to use the bathroom was actually the flashest one there. There was an urgency in my bladder so I bust in there, not even realising that I had walked into a classy bar in my beachwear, sand-filled crocs and towel around my neck. I walked through quickly, but not suspiciously quickly, arriving at the bathrooms with various hand lotions and individual hand towels (none of which I used... and yes, I re-cornered the toilet paper).
Isla Mujeres was SO beautiful. These nice country-bumpkin Americans helped me with my stuff and were all ´Where ya´ll from´´-- I wanted to blurt out that I love Country music, or start humming a country tune, but figured it was like saying ´I love Obama´to an African American. I expected it to be really small, but it is about the size of the Port Douglas peninsula that I lived on last year. That seems random but I found the island very similar to Port, with two long highways with one end housing the locals and the other for the tourists. On side of the island the ocean is very rough and crashes on the rocks (you are not meant to swim along most of it). But the other side is clear and gentle... the beaches weren{t crowed either.
It has a real island feel, with colourful wooded businesses and people using motor scooters and golf carts (tourists and locals).. i obviously was desperate to ride a golf cart beyond a course but the $50 for a day isn{t good for only one person (note to self: return in future with 4 friends).
The hostel I was at was a resort. I swear, it was so beautiful and friendly and well-run. I will post some photos soon, I didn{t take any myself (v. limited spaces on my card) but will use some quality internet copying and pasting. It has a beach area with multiple palms and hammocks (although it is on the side of the un-swimable ocean). I really loved being there - although my serious money anxiety sunk in here and so I only ate chips and bananas over my 3 days there. I brought over food from a supermarket (didn{t think there would be one on the island.. as i said, thought it was really small.. apparently there are 11,000 odd residents), but there was no kitchen to use (they gave us a very good breakfast though, with 4 pieces of toast, fruit, two cups of tea - I have mine green. This was the first time I saw green tea in a hostel... and other toast spread options other than very artificial jam... PEANUT BUTTER AND HONEY betches!!).
I stumbled across my first Kiwi (male, 40-0dd) who I shared a 4 bed dorm with. He was really nice with some good sarcasm and Kiwi humor... he called me Laura as he was saying goodbye though, which was awkward as I wondered why the other girls in the comp lab were ignoring him..
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