Adventuros Mexicanos

Well we’re back! Sadly, I didn’t observe one burrito while we were there, frolicking or otherwise. There were, however, a large number of tacos, mountains of rice and gallons of beans. All in all, the trip was great. We had some adventures, we laughed, we cried, we fell in love, and in the end we left. For those interested I’ll give you a chronological rundown of the major events. Wednesday we spent half the day flying and traveling to the hotel. Once checked in we spent the remainder of the day just absorbing the atmosphere. Thursday we gathered info on the activities we wanted to do while we were there, went swimming a bunch and ate a lot of food. Friday we spent a bit more time gathering info and took the bus into downtown Cancun to check out some flea markets (Does anyone know why they’re called that? Do I need to get some special shampoo now?) and to get myself some diving fins. Saturday we took a ferry to Isla Mujeras (aka island of the women) and walked to the northern point where we went snorkeling and had a lot of fun. It wasn’t one of the little group things, it was just us out there doing our own thing and we saw some really cool stuff, and I almost got robbed by a crab who tried to steal my wallet. Sunday was our big day to go to Chichen Itza, which is one of the largest Mayan villages in Mexico. The actual tour was rather expensive, so we figured we’d do it on our own. We went to the bus station and bought some tickets on a greyhound style bus, because it’s about 112 miles from Cancun. We got a bit of a late start, but figured the bus ride would probably take 2.5 hours and we’d have plenty of time at the ruins. Well the bus left at 11 and stopped like 400 million times to pick up people who never actually paid anything to ride. Most of them were poor villagers going to the next village so I didn’t pay any mind. Well since we stopped at every road, village, house, iguana crossing point and crack in the pavement, the trip took 4.5 hours making our average speed 24.3 miles per hour. We got to the park at 3:30 and had 1.5 hours to get through before they closed. We put our game faces on and did the whole park in the amount of time we had. After another eternity of bus travel, we arrived back in Cancun and headed back to our hotel to recover from our escapade. We got some great pictures and saved $50 per person over the tour cost. The only inconvenience was the multiple stops along the way. Also, if you’re more than about 5 feet tall, I suggest that you avoid tour busses and their horrible reclining seats. (Distance from my seat back to the seat in front of me, 24 inches, my femur length 27 inches, this equates to -3 inches of leg room. Get the picture? Also, old people stink!) So Monday comes and we decided to lounge around a bit and schedule the rest of our tours. After Chichen Itza we were kind of inclined to go through actual places for the rest of them. The three other things we wanted to do were a nice dinner cruise on our anniversary, a Coba adventure thing (which had the tallest Mayan temple in the Yucatan that you could hike, biking, kayaking, repelling, zip lining and such) and then go to Tulum and Xel-Ha (Tulum is another ruin place, and Xel-Ha ,which is pronounced like Shell-Ha, is a big natural inlet where many tropical fish gather and you can swim and bike and hike and snorkel and all kinds of fun stuff, kind of like a big natural water park. They had a package deal to do them both together because they were really close to one another). We scheduled the Coba thing for Tuesday, the dinner for Wednesday and the waterpark for Thursday. On Tuesday we had to get up early and headed to the Coba Mayan adventure. We did some neat repelling down a short 30 foot cliff, rode a jungle zip line, went kayaking in alligator infested water (or so we were told, I didn’t see any though) hiked through the jungle, went swimming in a cenote (Which is a sink hole underground. It was clean fresh water and nice and cool.) hiked through the jungle, ate an authentic Mayan meal for lunch, then went to the actual Coba ruins where we climbed the equivalent of a 12 story building and got some more neat pictures. It was a very nice tour and we had a lot of fun. Wednesday we swam in the Ocean a bit and I got pinched by a crab, also that night we wanted to do the dinner cruise, and there were two choices. One was a nice romantic dinner with lovely music and candle light and such, while the other was a pirate ship thing where you eat and then two ships start fighting and you get boarded and it’s all adventury and cool and stuff. Well being that it was our anniversary and wanting to have a special night, we opted for the Pirate show of course! We’d seen the ships in dock so we knew that they looked really cool and were getting excited for the show. Well evening comes around and we show up at the place we’re supposed to but there is no ship. There were a bunch of dudes dressed in pirate garb who were running around doing things, but the pirate ship wasn’t there yet. I figured it’d probably come puling up shortly before we left and board everyone, because they had to be already cooking if they were going to be feeding that many people. We did notice a few large Catamarans on the pier but hadn’t paid much attention to them. Suddenly they call us to line up for boarding and I am confused. Everyone started getting on the one of the Catamarans and we were beginning to feel we’d been misled. We decided we’d just go with it and see what happened. After we got seated onboard, there was a nice couple sitting across from us who explained to us that what was going on. Apparently the guy had booked us on a booze cruise pirate stage show on Isla Mujeras. Again we decided to go with it and just enjoy ourselves anyway. Soon we were introduced to Captain Mariposa (captain Butterfly, because this guy was… less than threatening) and his merry band of unconvincing and kind hearted pirates. They actually did do a little pirate fight on the water with another little cutter ship and kidnapped some of the ladies onboard. The night ended up being a lot of fun and I helped the guy sitting across from us propose to his girl friend. I also got some good blackmail pictures of the Nikkinator grooving on the dance floor and we got free pirate bandanas out of it. Basically the guy misled us into buying a pirate show from his company rather than the big fancy official one. I thought about going back and confronting him about it and see if I could fit this guy completely into a toilet (whole or in parts I don’t care) but then cooled off and just accepted it and had fun. Thursday we’d set up to go to Tulum and Xel-Ha, which was cool but by the time you get to the water park and start playing you don’t really have enough time to do everything unless you opt not to go to the ruins. So we decided we’d already seen two other ruins and could probably do without the others and stayed at the water park. We did some really cool underwater diving through caverns (which we may or may not have been allowed to be in) and some cliff diving off of a cute little 12 foot drop, and got a bunch of neat underwater pictures. Friday soon arrived and it was serious chill time. We played in the Ocean, the pool, did water aerobics, played chess on their giant outdoor board, and I nearly killed myself. I’d been wearing sunscreen the whole trip because I am whiter than white under my shirt. I also wanted to go home with at least a little bit of color to show I’d been on vacation somewhere tropical, so we laid out in the sun for like an hour. The Nikkinator had been tanning before we went so she’d be all acclimated, but I was like… a tuna (don’t ask me why I used that analogy because I don’t know, maybe because tuna is white meat?). Anyway, I got fried. We have pictures of be playing the role of lobster boy in the hotel room that night. Saturday was more lounging and being lazy on the last day of our vacation. Sunday was traveling for most of the day, and eventually ending up back at home. The trip was great and a lot of fun, however Mexico is by far the most expensive place I’ve ever been to. Who ever says things are cheap in Mexico is lying or is talking about buying beans in the middle of nowhere. We took several trips out of the hotel and tourist zones and things are about what they cost here at home. In the tourist zones they are unbelievably inflated! Example: $20 for a disposable underwater camera which retails for like $5 at a normal store. Anyway, it was groovy and for once it was actually long enough. Now it’s on to the hard part of getting back into the swing of work and school.