Mexico - American Adventures 2015 (Part 2 of 9)

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From Miami I flew to Cancun, Mexico. It wasn't a place I wanted to stay as it's touristy and all party-party-drinky-party which isn't my thing. For me this was an entry point into the country and the start of my 30 day adventure across Central America and into Columbia.

I had no idea and no plans as to how these 30 days were going down, except that I had a flight booked out from Colombia at the end of it so I needed to be there.

Landing into the airport, we had to get our bags scanned by placing them into a machine and pushing a button ... it was different, but cool. My 1st mission was to hop onto a bus to Playa del Carmen. I wasn't planning too much time in Mexico as it justifies an entire month-long trip of its own ... it's so big and diverse. Unfortunately I wasn't going to get the chance to witness the real mexico ... just the Americanized version where you're always a few steps away from a Burger King or KFC.

Playa del Carmen wasn't much better than Cancun and designed purely for tourism. There were Thai massage places all over the place (brought back memories of Patong). The shops had signs enticing you to go in, some even saying "100% off ... all free" which it wasn't. Even during the day walking with my suitcase I was getting chatted up by kerb crawlers ... yeah this was defo a place I didn't want to stay at for long.

Mexicans themselves were cool, the guys your typical short-round fellas. And the food was great if you stayed away from Macdonalds and tried something resembling Mexican cuisine. As I was eating lunch at a tapas bar, I realized how different traffic law is here. A car had parked where it shouldn't have so a policeman came up and pulled out a screwdriver from his pocket and unscrewed the guys number plates off. The guy shows up and says sorry, a few hand gestures, and the policeman gives him his number plates back which he throws into the car, then drives off casually with no plates on his vehicle ... driver content ... policeman content ... wtf?

It's important to keep an eye out when paying for things here as people rip you off with currency conversion rates. You can pay either in USD or Mexican Pesos, and if you pay in USD you will get change in Pesos and not as much as you should. Every place has its own exchange rate and like in a casino ... the house always wins.

The hostel I stayed in was full of party-goers ... including a 75 year old woman who was clearly having a high-life crisis as she'd been there for 4 months, just partying hard and mingling in with the teens. As soon as I entered my room it reminded me of the old life during the Ibiza days ... guys coking it up in the room, asking me to join in ... ermmmm no thanks I'll just take a shower and drink some water and eat a banana, you do what u want mate, I can barely understand your slurs anyway. I was still polite and making conversation, asking one of the dude's what he got up to the night before ... the response being "went out, got f^cked, not slept, I never sleep, took a bird to the beach, sandy d!ck, got back, called the bird I'm seeing back home" ... nice story, now shut up and let me rest boy.

I decided I was only going to spend 2 days here and then move on. During those 2 days I spent most of my time chatting to female travellers, more fun as they generally aren't into getting wasted on drugs and talking about getting wrecked, but provide witty and enlightening conversations more up my street. Plus I got some useful tips on where to go to in Central America from those who had done the journey already ... the hidden gems ... priceless information.

In the morning I woke up in time for the included breakfast. This isn't something I manage to wake up for usually but I made the effort this time .. I wanted the Mexican brekkie ... and I was up in time .... or was I? So I walk into the kitchen and there is no breakfast, the maid is washing the dishes. I ask her where the breakfast is and she says it already finished ...

Me: "but breakfast should be until 9am?"
She: "it is"
Me: "it's 8.30"
She: "it's 9.30"
Me: "no man, it's 8.30"
She: "clocks went forward an hour 1st Feb"
Me: "no they didn't, mexico's daylight saving isn't 1st Feb"
She: "yes they did"
Me: go away and get online, check the time online on many sites and show her "you are wrong, according to online we haven't gone forward an hour"
She: "mexico's clock is wrong"
Me: "give me my free brekkiiieee"

I gave up then ... very confused. Later in the day I realized what had happened. Walking around I saw 2 clocks in bus stations, shops, etc .. one saying "Mexico Time" and one saying "Quintana Roo" time. Some genius decided for tourism they would stop daylight saving in Quintana Roo part of Mexico and always have the same time year-round, whilst daylight saving switched back and forth throughout the rest of mexico ... and this begin the day before I arrived. This genius made me miss my Mexican breakfast 😞

The last day at Playa del Carmen wasn't that great ... weather was terrible and I'd missed my opportunity to do cool things. There were islands, cenotes, swimming with turtles and great things I could have done which I didn't know about. I just chilled and did some work online, making money whilst it poured ... ready to move on to bigger and better things.

... and off I went to ....... (stay tuned)

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