Cancun (Day 24 - 21/1/14)

View from our room in Cancun

Why take the bus when you can ride in style, in the back of a cab? I'm over lugging our luggage to bus terminals, waiting in lines, struggling to make myself understood when collecting tickets, stressing about the whereabouts of our bags during transit, trying to find the next hotel from the next bus station. So when Bamba (the company we've booked out interchanges through) informs me that we need to get to Playa del Carmen a bit earlier since there might be a chance we'll be relocated to a different bus station, well, I actually decide to take a taxi driver up on his offer to drive us directly to our hotel in Cancun for a "Super good price!" It's a lot more of a relaxing journey than any Mexican bus.

Cancun is strange. I expected something like Playa del Carmen - like a Surfer's Paradise on steroids; huge malls with touristy outlets and lots of activities. But it's not like that, at least not in the parts we end up seeing. The action is centred on an atoll-like landmass on the north-eastern coast of the Yucatan peninsula. This narrow, long strip of land is caked in hotels, the huge white buildings growing along the beach like masses of coral. We grab a taxi to try and check out the city but the driver is not really able to give us any recommendations. Eventually he understands us and takes us to a restaurant in town, which is nice, but afterwards we wander to the markets and they turn out to be the rundown-flea-market kind of markets - not expecially big or amazing or even all that busy. Is this Cancun? The city is a real non-event.

The Duck's favourite Mexican drink

 

I figure the Cancun that is famous, the idea of the party town, refers to the collection of resorts along the atoll - and perhaps specifically to a certain time of year? We head back to our hotel, which opens out onto a beach, has big rooms, and a big pool with a swim-up bar. I wasn't a fan of the hotel at first as it's full of seniors and families but it grows on me throughout the afternoon as we chat to a guy from North Carolina in the pool-bar. He, like most, seems mildly shocked that we have traveled over land all the way from Mexico City rather than just flown direct to Cancun. Everyone in Cancun speaks English, and all non-staff at the hotel are American or Canadian or British. The guy from North Carolina has been to Cancun before but has mainly just stuck to the resorts. He's thinking of heading out to Chichen Itza, which we recommend. 

Most people on the Maya Riviera don't seem interested in travelling around Mexico. In fact, looking around the resort, most are just here to escape the Northern Hemisphere winter. I guess that's fair enough. It's not why I travel, but there are different reasons to travel. Some people travel to get somewhere, others travel to get away from where they usually are. 

The pizza joint in our hotel was named after me.

Playa del Carmen (Day 23 - 20/1/14)

Playa del Carmen: Surfer's Paradise of Mexico

Yikes. The bus station is really overwrought. It's not a large station, and there are young American backpackers and older tourists all spilling out onto the road. We scoff some empanadas and try to navigate our way to some tickets and the correct bus. There are too many buses for the station, about 4 in enough space for only 3. Tulum seems to be breaking under the weight of the influx of tourists.

It's only an hour north to our next stop, Playa del Carmen. We're now in the thick of the Maya Riviera; it's a bigger city, very commercial, endless stretches of restaurants along pedestrian-only streets. It's a very far cry from all of our previous Mexican stops. I would liken it to Surfer's Paradise, only with a lot more white people. The other real differences are that Playa del Carmen has spectacular bleached Caribbean beaches, and the locals aren't really restricted by the same laws as we are back in Australia. You can put your feet in a tank full of carnivorous little fish that eat all of your dead skin off (we did this), hold a baby Capuchin monkey or pat a lion cub (yeah, we did that too, although I didn't really want to), or just lay on the public beach while waiters bring you drinks (guilty as charged). Everywhere throughout the city there are American, Canadian, European and British tourists in swimming costumes. I don't really notice any other Australians today. At one point we see a group of American women in matching pink T-shirts proclaiming that they are on a Mexican hen's party. Some of them are 60 years old, some are clearly about 15, and one has a pram with a baby in it. What kind of hen's party is that?! Why would you go all the way to a Mexican party zone with seniors and babies? Like, why go all the way to Mexico to have a crap time when you can just have a crap time at home?

The shop assistants are full-on here. They all have different tactics to try and get you into their shops. Some are overly friendly and ask questions like, "Where you from?", others are smart-alecs, "You been everywhere, even Disneyland?" Some try to lock you up in their shop and subtly block your exit (this happened twice to us, with the proprietor shunting us into a hidden back room and then trying to close us in there!). 

I think I'm glad we only have a few days left now. I feel like we've left the real Mexico behind us... the Maya Riviera takes U.S. dollars everywhere, is full of fellow tourists, and the Mexicans all speak English. What's the point of coming to another country if all you're going to do is hang out in a commercial district modeled on the worst excesses of America? It doesn't make sense to me.

Either an albatross or a frigate bird. If you know, let me know!

 

Lobster... oh yeah!

Ceviche is an uncooked seafood dish where citric acid is used to prepare the food. It's common across Central and South America. We can say we tried it now. Never again.