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Published: January 19th 2012
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Hola!
Let me just start off by saying that Mexico is AWESOME! We stayed in Playa del Carmen for 4 days which is on the Yucatan Peninsula and loved every minute of it.
We flew in mid-afternoon on Thursday to the Cancun airport and caught a bus transfer out to Playa, and walked the block and a half to our hostel. We were about 2 blocks away from the beach and 1 block from the main avenue (called 5th Av) so we were in prime position.
Playa is a very touristy area and relatively expensive for Mexico and Central America, but it was explained to us that because the Peninsula is completely flat and situated on top of a layer of limestone, they have no crops and cannot grow or cultivate anything so they have to import all their goods. In fact, the two main trades in Mexico is tourism and silver, so Chrissy and I have been trying hard to resist the MANY silver stands around the streets. The streets are full of vendors selling everything and anything from personalised bottles of tequila to photos with baby lions and snakes (which we both did - see photo!) The food
is authentic, delicious and reasonably priced - you can get a main meal for around $9 - $12. However, we can expect that price to drop extensively as we continue to travel.
On Friday we took a tour out to Chichen Itza, which is about 3.5hours away from Playa. Our tour stopped at a beautiful cenote on the way (natural underground pool) for a quick swim but it was so cold that we did little more than take photos and sit on a step in the water. After that we had a nice lunch and shopping opportunity for some of the local wares, which were all stunning. I bought a gorgeous chessboard imprinted with the mayan calendar and Chrissy picked up a painted leather mayan scene including the calendar as well.
Everyone also bought a silver pendant each with our name in gold mayan lettering, they are really cool and look really good - so yes, we have done a bit of shopping so far haha.
Chichen Itza is fantastic. It is well worth the drive and is so incredible to stand in front of the main temple and imagine hundreds of thousands of Mayans living there all those
Wassup, Beetlejuice?
At Universal Studios years ago. We had a wonderful tour guide who had been doing his job for over 15 years so he was really informative and threw in a lot of interesting facts about the Mayan culture and life beyond the well-known sacrifices and rituals, so I really loved our time there, I could have listened to him for a lot longer.
Saturday was the day we were due to start our tour and thats when the first of our troubles started. We packed up and walked to the hotel listed on our tour voucher only to arrive and have the reception tell us that Gap Adventures had no confirmed accommodation with us. Chrissy then tried to call all the emergency contact numbers, all of which did not connect.
We ended up having to pay for a room so that we could leave our bags somewhere safe while we figured out what to do. We ran into a couple of girls who were in the same situation (which was a bit of a relief to know it wasn't just us) so we all settled in to await the arrival of our tour guide....who never came. Late in the afternoon, a girl
arrived who was on our tour and had managed to get on to Gap and it turns out we are in the wrong hotel, so we packed up and shipped off again. We couldn't get our money back because the fault was not of the hotel so Chrissy got a receipt so we can make a claim for the $50 room fee.
When we spoke to our tour guide Chris about it, he was stunned because Gap have not used that hotel since 2010 so there was no reason for it to have been listed on our voucher - except that EVERYONE in our group went to that hotel because we all got the same information. In the end, Chris said he would talk to Gap about it but seeing as we all got there in the end, it all worked out ok.
Our guide Chris is excellent and has been doing this tour route for about a year and a half, so he really knows his stuff and have been great so far with suggestions for activities and restaurants etc.
On Sunday, Chris took most of the tour group over to the island of Cozumel where we hired
scooters for the day, one per 2. I was quite nervous about them as I'm not particularly confident about 2-wheel vehicles and especially as I was the passenger on the back, so Chrissy and I had quite a slow start on them. As we'd never driven one before, we couldn't figure out if we were doing something wrong as the balance felt quite off and I was constantly leaning to the right to balance the bike out. But we got along ok so we figured it was just us not being confident and we allayed our fears by singing at the top of lungs as we drove down the main road....we got laughed at a lot but the streetside vendors.
We stopped for lunch and then at a nice beach for an hour, and then started to head back to the port to return the bikes. At this point I got on the bike to have a go but accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake and took off really quickly and nearly crashed into a car on the side of the road, and only JUST managed to save myself in the literal nick of time. I scared the
shit out of myself and the rest of the group so I handed the bike back to Chrissy for the drive back. We all laugh about it now but it was pretty friggin scary at the time. So we start driving back on this beautiful scenic route, and although we had been having trouble with curves or bends in the road due to the imbalance of the bike, we were starting to feel more confident about them.
We were making our way around a bend in the road when all of a sudden we lost our balance, the bike began to wobble really heavily and Chrissy lost control and the bike went off the side off the road into a tree and we both luckily fell in some bushes. We came out with just scratches and bruises (I have one hell of a bruise, there should be a photo up) but Chrissy was too upset to drive again so we swapped partners and went back to the rental place.
THEN we hit our next insurance claim - the bike was damaged. The guys running the place wanted to charge Christine $580 in the beginning to replace 4 separate pieces of
plastic, most of which just had scratches and no real damage. Chris our guide was amazing and argued with them on our behalf, as it was clear they weren't going to actually replace the parts based on the rest of their bikes which were all banged up, but they were extremely stubborn and ended up calling the police just to make things more difficult. So just as it got to the point where the police were going to haul Chrissy off to the station, we struck a deal for US$300 cash (which we weren't happy with but wanted to get out of there) and she got a receipt for her trouble.
SO we have a had a few ups and downs so far but we can only look back and laugh as the whole thing just seems ridiculous now - although I can guarantee that we are probably never getting on a scooter ever again ahaha.
Still, we have loved our time in mexico, and are planning to try and come back with a big group of friends for an amazing beach holiday.
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Taylor Middleton
non-member comment
Sounds fun so far
looks like a real blast...even the crashes!!!! glad you are both ok and loving the trip so far!! T