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Published: July 27th 2008
Raincoat Classy
It's the new 'look'Belize was lovely. Sunny and blue and warm and sandy. But we were running out of time so we headed off back to Mexico. The bus ride from Belize City to Chetumal went without incident. That is apart from when we had to get out at Mexican Immigration (no stamp this time) and were handed our bags from the roof to carry through ourselves. Being a little bit stupid we presumed this meant we'd arrived at the destination and were being dismissed from the bus to wend our way onto Tulum alone. We got our visas stamped and pressed the scary button at customs which indicates if you're going to get searched or not. It came up red for me so I was all ready to be embarassed at having the contents of my bag scattered around the table, it wouldn't have been so bad but we'd started judging if our clothes were clean or dirty by weather they smelt or not, usually making a group decision. My clothes were mostly officially dirty by this method at this point. It being Mexico, when I tried to put my bag down on the table to get it checked the customs lady looked
Beautiful
Even on a crap day a bit confused and told me to carry on straight through! Result!
After this we had a bit of a group conference, along the lines of "Where the hell are we?!" "Have we arrived?!" "What do we do now?!" "Where did the bus go?!" and "How do we get from here to there?!" (There being Tulum) We decided the absence of the bus obviously meant we'd been abandoned and were to go it alone from this point on. Next thought, where's the bus station? So we asked some armed policemen where we could find a bus to Tulum. They looked a bit suprised and confused..."But you can't get to there from here, you have to go to Chetumal."
"Oh, so we're NOT in Chetumal...bugger. Where are we incidentally? We were supposed to be there. Our bus has left without us!!!"
"Really? *sniggering a bit by now* They normally wait on the road up there..."
He was right. That was quite embarassing. We got our luggage restrapped on, waited for the other passengers, who apparently aren't so stupid as us, and contunued!
At 9:30, we finally arrived in Tulum, having left at 8am that morning. It didn't look far
on the map. We weighed up the pros and cons of finding a hotel then eating, or eating then finding a hotel. We decided the sensible option was to find a hotel first then we wouldn't be homeless if it was really busy, so we headed off to the nearest cafe and had some tortilla kind of pizza things. Feeeling a lot better we set about the hotel quest, trying not to remind ourselves the last time we'd left accomodation until 10:30 at night we'd been reduced to sleeping in the bus station. There WAS room at the inn in a hostel nearby the ruins, although that room was the bus drivers dormitory as the real ones were full. I'm pretty sure the sheets were dirty, I think mine had blood on it but I didn't look too closely, it was only a smudge.
When we woke up it was raining. How rude. We'd been planning to see the ruins, 10 minutes tops, and then sit on the conveniently located beach for the rest of the day. That was that plan ruined. So we went to the ruins sporting our anoracks. I saw a poster in Mexico City I
The Boy's Cake
The one he thought he wouldn't be getting! quite liked that said "Some countries have beaches. Some countries have museums. Only Mexico has museums on the beach." and had a rather spiffing photo of Tulum on it. For Tulum you see may be ruins (and we have seen a lot of them) but it's ruins on the beach!! Most guide books claim that "even on a rainy, overcast day Tulum is worthy of tourist brochures" or some such...I was prefectly willing to believe that, I didn't want to see it on a rainy, overcast day just to verify the information. But it was right. It really was beautiful. Nice sand, blue sea, ah pretty ruin in the background. So we took some photos of the ruins with the sea in the background and then went back into the town to get the bus to Playa del Carmen, where we reasoned being about an hour away might be sunny.
And it really was!!! We arrived in the bus station and all was well. We were just consulting the oracle Lonely Planet for a suitable place to stay when an old American man clutching a can of beer came up and asked if we were looking for a place
Sam
In the wrong hotel to stay. Yes, but we're fine thanks. In other words leave us alone! But he didn't...WE picked a youth hostel from the book and he heard us and demanded to take us, well actually I'd rather you didn't and just left us alone! But I'd got fed up of telling people to go away so humoured him, when we got to the hostel he skulked around waiting till I came back out to pay and demanded I buy him a beer. Uh actually no...I'm not buying you a beer wierd old man! We didn't need your help! We told you that, we found the place ourselves!!! I left to go back to the room and he started shouting after me about letting an old man walk around all day for nothing...which was annoying! It's not like we would ever actually be so stupid to REQUEST the help of an alcoholic American hanging round the bus station looking for a drink! Loser.
He went away, and we went to the beach! We went in the sea, when I got out I decided I needed a new beach towel, so Angie and I went shopping quickly to find one. We arrived
OOOH
Look how nice it is! back about 3 hours later with a new skirt, a pair of flip flops each, a top AND a beach towel!
The next day we sat on the beach again, in the evening we tried to go out with about $70 each. Most of the drinks were at least $80, the free places are rubbish, Sam was SO not impressed at the idea of going to a bar that charges but girls go in free (I think he thought we were joking at first) and the good places are at least $300 to get in, so we soon went home and ate chocolate.
For Sam's birthday we'd gone on the internet a couple of days before and booked a 4* all inclusive resort for me, him and Angie. Because we were so late we got it for £30 each! So that day we had cake for breakfast, resisted the temptation to push his face in it in the Mexican way and got a taxi to the H10 hotel. On the way I felt strangely funny....like I had a bad feeling like we'd have booked the wrong night or something. Also turning up with our backpacks was smooth! We arrived,
all was well, we went to check in, and they needed the reservation which I'd not printed off. Damn. So we paid THIRTY FIVE PESOS to use the internet for 5 minutes and print one page - just to clarify I know places I could have used the internet for seven hours for that much money. We returned triumphant to reception but the receptionist pointed out to us that we were in the wrong hotel. HOW EMBARASSING! So we had to leave, again the backpacks gave the departing scene a nice touch, and get a taxi to the correct hotel half an hour away. Rubbish.
We were determined to get our money's worth. Once we'd checked in we went and checked out the main pool, and the buffet! We ate piles and piles and then planning on eating again in an hours time went to change into our swimming stuff. Here was a place we had actual legitamate use of the sun beds and hotel pool without running risk of being escorted off the premises by security (the Lonely Planet DID say we could use the pool - honest!) We laid out our towels on an actual sun bed,
not a sun lounger but an outside bed, and a cloud fell across the sun. Not to be put off we went in the pool anyway, had some FREE drinks from the pool bar inside the pool and flopped around until we got worried our stuff might have been stolen (though who would have wanted it in a hotel of rich people wasn't clear). We laid down to bask in the sun's rays and the rain started. The Americans went running like Peter Kay's dinnerladies, we tried to stick it out until it got quite heavy. Tried to get into our room but it wasn't ready so we went and had another buffet.
The rain didn't actually stop whilst we were there, it turned out to be tropical storm Dolly, later to be upgraded to Hurricane Dolly, so we watched a lot of movies on TNT, revelled in having a nice bathroom with a bath and a shower with hot water that actually fired the water at you rather than dispensing it in a miserable drip. We also ate some more, a buffet and a restaurant meal for tea, and drank Pina Coladas. I also enjoyed having a bed
Sam eating a taco
when we appointed ourselves in charge of his Mexican diet with something other than foam between the wood and the sheet!
When we woke up in the morning and it was STILL raining we went for a buffet, packed, checked out and had a final departing lunch buffet before getting the bus to Mexico. The plan had been to eat as much as possible so as to not have to eat until we were given food on the plane Friday night (the last meal being Monday). Despite eating until the point where I was nearly sick banana and had to have a bit of a lie down before I could move fully again (I wasn't alone in this...Angie was my partner) and stealing some fruit and biscuits for the bus I didn't make it. I DID make the 27 hour bus ride though which is quite impressive before I cracked and ate some of Angie's things which she insisted were not nuts in chili.
27 hours later....we arrived in el DF, smelling a bit funky I should imagiene and checked into Mundo Joven in the Zocalo. That place is practically all inclusive, breakfast and cena are included and you can have as much as you want! 4 tacos
is normal...although when we bumped into Ed in the lobby and accompanied him to eat after we already had they were limiting intake to 2 per person.
I did approximately nothing from Tuesday evening when we arrived in Mexico until Friday evening when we left to get the plane. I went to Tepoztlan to get my stuff....and that's about it! It was nice. I also got drunk off 1 bottle of Sol which was a bit embarassing! (A litre bottle to my credit) I also met a boy wearing a Ralph Lauren Polo t-shirt and asked him if it was real. Had I saved that to the end of our knowing each other I would have used the information that he spoke like Uncle Tony* *(not my real uncle), was staying in a youth hostel for the first time in his life (when he was in Guatemala his friends had but he'd checked into a hotel down the road...!) and he'd gone to school with Colin Creevey, to confirm to myself that yes indeed it was real. He thought it was funny lol.
Our last night in Mexico my kindly father had paid for Sam and I to
stay in a nice hotel! Amazing. We stayed in the Sheraton and got an upgrade to a room with a view with a mini bar and talcum powder because our door didn't work. If I were to write a brief summary of the features of the hotel it would go something like this:
- carpet
- BATH
- hot water
- lifts, of which there are 4 and they are fast
- matresses on the bed
- also pillows
- free shampoo
- TV
- lights that don't make the room darker when you turn them on
- a wardrobe
- multiple mirrors in which you can see a true and clearly lit reflection of your very own face
- toilets in which you can flush toilet paper (what a novel idea!)
- no resident raccoon
- tampoco rats or large clawed crabs
Truely amazing. It pains and baffles me that the majority of the people who stay there do infact expect these things as standard. Where do they find happiness in their lives?
The flight home was a totally reasonable 10 hours, compaired to our previous journey it seemed nothing. Ed joined my club of people who are sick into unusual objects when he still had the length of half the plane for the toilets and grabbed the nearest coffee jug. British Airways still give out free socks, and the films they show weren't half bad!
Reflecting on Mexico now, I only feel true awe and wonder at the fact that we have all (apart from Kerry-who is in case you were wondering neither deceased nor injured in any way as far as I know and will be returning in September) returned to England alive and unscathed, apart from Angie's iron burn, Becky's rabbit bite, Ed's swimming pool fibreglass slide stomach injury and Sarah's "broken" toe. Myself, I sustained a nasty flip flop burn in Acapulco (the scar is still visible).
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