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Published: January 24th 2012
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As many of you know I started learning Spanish at evening school in 2010 but by Easter 2011 had given up! I've still really wanted to learn but 3 hours of Spanish after the first day back at work after the weekend, and all weekend tainted with my guilty conscience telling me I should be doing my homework, just wasn't working for me. So something I really want to gain from travelling central and south America is a better knowledge of Spanish. So off to Playa del Carmen we head for a week of intensive Spanish school! We were at school from 9am till 2pm everyday and had homework to complete each day on top of that. It was a great opportunity to learn and thankfully my previous lessons paid off as I suddenly understood all the grammar and verb shit and can proudly say I was teachers pet. Rather than my previous experience of spanish, where I can hang my head and say I was the worst in the class and spent most of my Monday at work trying to come up with valid reasons as to why I couldn't go to Spanish that day!! However the intensive course meant
we didn't get to do much in Playa. We stayed in student residence in a lovely apartment with about 6 other people. The residence had a pool, jacuzzi and roof terrace, though me and stef seemed to be the only ones in the whole building that made any use of them! The first day we got there we were whisked away to dinner with everyone in the house to an awesome restaurant the locals knew about. We made wraps with succulent steak, avocado, potato and salsa inside. It really was incredibly good! And of course some tequilas to wash it down.
After Spanish school we generally went home to do a workout or went and chilled on the beach with our coursemates. The evenings consisted of trying out different taco stands and roof top bars. We also went to an openair beach front club that played reageton, got to bed at 5am and up at 7am for school, making our excuses for being late and our brains not totally in tune. All week we were trying to plan what we would do over the weekend when we would have finished Spanish and would have free time. On Saturday we
woke up early planning to go to the island Cozumal to find it had been raining hard hard hard. We went back to sleep hoping it would pass. It was looking a little brighter - thinking better late than never we head out...to then get showered on whilst walking down the beach. As we arrived to buy tickets the heavens totally open in a horrendous downpour. Half an hour later there is still no sign of improvement, the prospect of driving a moped on slippery roads getting drenched didn't sound appealing, especially as by the time we would now get to the island the likelihood was we'd be riding round in the dark guessing at the scenary we were passing. So we concluded the trip couldn't happen and neither could we hang around praying the rain would take a breather. We decided to attempt to get to this all you can eat Brazilian steakhouse buffet. We got there after what seemed like an eternity of my flip flops falling off after every few steps, in the end I stopped trying to fight with the rain and gave in and walked barefoot through the flooded streets. We got there litertally dripping
with water, the waiters were trying to help pat us down, and then ate non stop for 2 hours while watching American football. The rain still did not show any sign of stopping so we braved it to make our way home. Roads were completely flooded over and by thus point the whole scanario seemed quite funny so I was just hanging out in the rain filming the cars attempting to drive though the flood. We returned to our flooded room, which our landlady didn't find quite as funny as us (we had left the door open ooops). So our fun weekend was ruined and we were leaving in the morning for Tulum.
We reached Tulum around lunch time and hired bikes to go to the ruin on the beach front. I felt slightly anxious at the prospect of riding a bike on the road as I only passed my cycling
proficiancy thanks to my class mates distracting the examiner as I drive over the crosses that marked pedestrains! It started off a nice activity to do together, but soon enough we realised this supposed 20 minute easy cylce ride had already lasted over an hour and a half
in the still baking hot sun. By the time we realised our error we were in a nature reserve and had cycled the equivalent of Tooting to Essex. We figures we might aswell see what the reserve has to offer so despite our aching thighs we soldiered on. After half an hour riding through mud puddles wit dogs running after us trying to bite our ankles we ask a passer by where anything is, to be frustratingly told there's nothing to see for miles. That's all we need to reluctantly turn our bikes ride and endure the 2 hour bike ride back. By now stefs legs are seriously cramping up to the point of us thinking we would be stranded for the night and my concentration had dissapeared (cue me driving into the pavent and nearly falling off to the amusement of a group of Mexican male teenagers.... Oh and also possibly having broken Stef's ankle by me suddenly deciding to vier into a tree). We somehow make it back to realise we've now cycled the equivalent of London to Portsmouth.
Next day we rudely awaken our aching bodies at sunrise to explore Coba, a site of ruins, and
swim in a cenote. The highlight of Coba for me was climbing a 96 metre pyramid and seeing views over all the forest and surrounding ruins. As my parents know, I'm really not a fan of anything to do with history (blame a boring history teacher in year 7, who we subsequently managed to get fired, and maybe holidays spent visiting church after church after church :p) abd call me a bug kid but having a challenge of climbing the ruin definiately made it fun. One crazy dad decided his few month old baby would appreciate the view and experience so much that he just had to climb up and down this massive ruin of uneven stones with no real place to put ur hands and feet, with the baby strapped to his front!!! Crazy ain't even the word! If that was England that child would be in the hands of social services before he'd even reached the top of the pyramid! The cenote was a massive cave filled with water. I really enjoyed snorkelling through the tunnels seeing the fish and wishing I was brave enough to get back in my dive gear. I jealously watched the divers with
their hard hats and torches but also couldn't help thinking diving in a cave in black water would probably only add to my list of panic attacks whilst diving. In Egypt last year whilst doing my open water padi qualification I managed to have a huge panic underwater, nearly drowning my instructor in the process by pulling out her regulator and fighting with her. In my defence I have no recollection of this... it was the panic not me... I only found out the next day when the whole town was talking about this instructor with scratch marks all up her arms.. and sure enough when I met my instructor the next day she was slightly ambivalent about taking me out again to say the least.
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