The Amber of the Moment: Cancun and Isla Mujeres (Day 25

Sunrise over Cancun

Let me introduce you to Juan Carlos. This guy works for the resort. Yesterday he came and introduced himself to us after we got to our room in Cancun, and told us he would take us out to a nice breakfast at one of the resort's other Cancun venues as a complimentary extra to our stay here. Good service, huh?

Well, today is our complimentary breakfast day courtesy of Juan Carlos. The Duck thinks it's a meeting where the hotel will try to get us to invest in something. I vaguely remember Juan Carlos mentioning something about investment yesterday, but I naively assumed that he was just making conversation. He is very loud and chummy, trying to force a personal connection at every opportunity by latching onto everything we say and trying to link it to himself, illustrating how similar we are. It's weird but Duck and I do enjoy a free breakfast.

It gets to 8am. We've been up a while already, having watched the sun rise over the Atlantic. Juan Carlos calls our room, and tells us to come down to his office so we can meet and go to breakfast. Sure.

Jetty near our hotel

We get down to his office and there are about 4 or 5 other Juan Carloses (Juan Carlies? Juan Carli?) meeting with other patrons. Most are older couples. We feel out of place.

Juan Carlos brings out a contract for us to sign.

"What's this?" I ask.

"It's just some details, we just need your credit card and some I.D."

"We don't have those. They're in our room." I reply.

"Oh... well, you'll just need to go get it."

"Why?" (I'm confused by this whole conversation).

Juan Carlos slides his piece of paper towards me ever so slightly, "It's just for this slip of paper".

"What is this paper for?"

More evasiveness. This absolutely reeks of dodginess. Still confused and not really thinking straight, I hand over our travel money card. Juan Carlos looks at it and frowns, handing it back, "No... we need a real credit card".

The Duck and I both lie, "We didn't bring out credit cards to Mexico. They're back in Australia".

Juan Carlos laughs nervously and shuffles off to confer with his supervisor - a stern, no-nonsense woman who tells him just to get our I.D.

Still thinking this is standard procedure to get a free breakfast, I duly go upstairs to get our identification. While I'm gone, the Duck talks to Juan Carlos. He keeps trying to work on that 'connection' with us. He tells the Duck that he likes the outdoors just like her, likes people just like her, travels with a backpack just like her. He also feels it important to tell her that he was in the military.

I return with the I.D.s but before I hand them over the Duck shows me the all-important slip of paper and its fine print about a 90 minute seminar.

"So what's this 90 minute thing?" I ask.

"Oh, it's just after the breakfast, we tell you all about the hotel and opportunities for you".

I nod slowly, then say, "We're not really interested in that".

He seems shocked.

I continue, "Like... I think you think we're someone else. I thought this was something else, just a free breakfast, but I'm getting confused about what this is really about. We're not interested in investing in anything".

"Oh, it's not an investment - we just want you to see the hotels and all that we have to offer, we want you to keep coming back here - to become members".

I look Juan Carlos right in the eye, and give it to him straight. Nothing else is working here, "Look... we're not interested at all. We're never coming back here. Not because it's not a nice place - because it is - but we're not those sort of holiday people."

Juan Carlos looks broken. All his energy and invigorating conversation melts out of him. The look of disappointment in his eyes speaks louder than any of his phony friendliness. The silence that now sits awkwardly between us forces even more words out of me by way of explanation.

"I just feel like we're wasting each others' time. We're never going to buy anything off you. We travel to see new things, we don't normally come to resorts like this. We're never coming back to Cancun because we've seen it now, and next time we'll go somewhere else, somewhere new - a whole other country".

Juan Carlos goes to his supervisor. He comes back, a new determination in his eyes, "It's just a 90 minute presentation. You will enjoy it".

I'm in Cancun for two days. There is absolutely no bloody way that I am spending 90 minutes watching a business seminar. Duck interjects before I can say this, "We're only here for one more day, we don't have that much time to waste".

Juan Carlos continues, "Here is what we do for you, we have a $500 prize pack..."

"No, we're just not interested".

"But you can win a cruise around Cancun".

Through gritted teeth, I say, "We are never coming back here".

Silence. More awkwardness. Juan Carlos goes back to his supervisor again. This time he comes back defeated. They hand back our I.D.s and we leave to have our breakfast at the hotel by the pool. It's a nice breakfast.

Streets of Cancun

Tacky, themed restaurant

These little terrapins were dotted around the hotel premises

22 minutes east of Cancun is Isla Mujeres. The ferry takes us out along the glowing azure Caribbean sea towards this 5-mile long island. It's a little wonder, with its own roads and taxis and hotels. Another hundred identical shops full of Mexican skull sculptures and crude T-shirts. Overpriced restaurants, yachts and a thousand loutish white tourists clamour around the small harbour.

Island life

We hire a taxi for a couple of hours and head south to Centro de Investigaciones Pesqueras, a Sea Turtle sanctuary. There are three kinds of Sea Turtles here (Loggerheads, Green Sea Turtles, and Hawksbill Sea Turtles); some have been rescued and others are bred in indoor concrete pools. One turtle is bent awkwardly into an L-shape. We become sad at first, thinking that it's dead, but then it swims to the surface and takes some air. This guy has been rescued from the wild and given a more comfortable home where he'll actually survive, which is nice. There's also a building nearby full of baby turtles, crayfish, horseshoe crabs, fish, seahorses, etc. Outside, in a walled-off pool of sea, we observe a shark lazily hanging out with a huge green sea turtle. Best buddies!

Note the bent back

That's a Shark

Horseshoe Crab

Albino Sea Turtle

Our other main destination is the southern tip of the island which ends in clifftops covered in rusting metal art sculptures and a small single Maya ruin. Duck and I edge our way around some crumbling pathways set halfway down the cliff face. We stand on the easternmost point of Mexico here, and see a green snake uncoiling onto the path before it decides to slink back inside a hole in the cliff face.

Afterwards we go back downtown on the island, spend some time beachcombing for shells, lay indolently in the still island water along the white sands o Playa Norte. It's a really nice day.