Right. Sunday. This is the day the family, which includes Claudia, Chico, and Ricki, headed home. But not before we did some more walking, talking, hanging out, and shopping. After waking up nice and late we hung out and everybody helped me figure out where I should stay that night, with Raul and Alex or with Eva. We decided on Raul and Alex.
The family was going home to Merida so their bus was going to leave from Playa Del Carmen. In turn, we all caught the ferry over to the tourist town. We split into two groups and did some activities, none of which are as mysterious as I’m making them sound. After regrouping for some snacks, we (Raul, Alex, and I) parted ways from the family who said that if I came to Merida, I would have a place to stay. I intend on doing just that. They’re a great bunch of people. Me caen bien.
Upon returning to Cozumel, we visited Raul’s family for a bit. We got some tacos, then spent the rest of the night figuring out my plans for the morning and talking. I’d like to say here that I thought I knew what I was doing the next day at this point.
Monday morning came all but too soon and I found myself on the 5:45am ferry over to Playa Del Carmen after being given a ride by Raul and Alex and saying goodbye. My plan was to wait for a ride from Eva or her driver at the ADO bus station. It wasn’t until the driver called me and I couldn’t find him that we realized that they expected me at the Cancun ADO bus station. Mierda. The fault on this one is all mine but I’m not exactly sure if it’s due to my lack of language skill or my lack of geography knowledge. In any case, I took a taxi to nearby Superstore type place and Eva kindly picked me up.
Eva drove us to the little town, or pueblito, where she is doing her practicum as a doctor. It’s incredible seeing all these little grass roof huts, or palapas. It’s sinking in a little bit that I’m not going to be enjoying the same comforts of Vancouver or Victoria life everywhere I go while I’m down here. We spent a ton of time on the road today but that didn’t bother me because all we did was chat, in Spanish for the most part, which meant that I was basically getting a free lesson. Super helpful. I still struggle with talking to strangers but that will come I think.
Later we arrived back in Cancun and we drove around the Zona Hotelera for a bit before showing up at Rick’s place. We had some dinner and hung out with Rick’s son, Bower. I managed to mess up Eva’s Minecraft game pretty bad after she handed me her tablet while playing with Bower, leaving me in some crappy place with lava at every turn. That night I decided I would stay the night at Rick’s instead of going to my reserved hostel in downtown Cancun because I would be more comfortable there.
I spent Tuesday morning in bed thinking about the most appropriate time to get out of bed. I don’t know if I did it correctly but no one seemed bothered. Rick and Eva were nice enough to drive me to my hostel in downtown Cancun and we parted ways. Thanks, Eva, I owe you one! Since Monday I hadn’t been feeling too well due to the lack of sleep and food so I decided to chill in my dorm bed for a while, rising only to get a little food from the nearby market and going back to my cama. It was this day I was to meet up with Jan and his brother Leif so I walked the couple of blocks over to their hostel, sat, met people traveling in a similar manner as myself, played some card games and Jenga and waited. Soon enough, they arrived and I was excited to see them. I don’t think it hit me immediately that they were here at the same time as me, in Mexico, like it’s nothing. We spent the night chilling, I hopped on the 50 peso open bar, enjoyed myself and went back to my hostel.
Wednesday morning came up pretty quickly. I met the lads at their hostel and soon enough we headed out on the R1 bus line to go check out some beaches in Zona Hotelera. The first beach we went to was Playa Delfines, and although it was way to windy to be enjoyed properly, the guys were elated to see their first beach in Mexico. It also happened to be the same beach where the CANCUN letters are located.
Eva had recommended Playa Caracol so we took the R1 again going back to the really touristy section of the hotel zone in search of it. We walked until we found a path to get onto a piece of beach, walked up until we couldn’t, made a quick detour into a resort hotel where Jan and Leif took a dip in the pool, and came back. We then found the beach and, feeling a bit foggy, I proposed that we take a break. We sat on the beach for a while until it started to rain, a type of weather that I not only try to avoid normally but that I didn’t expect to even occur until further along in the trip at least.
We puttered about for a bit longer and proceeded back to the hostel, first grabbing some lunch, with a little Spanishing for a bit. Yeah, I use it as a verb. We spent a long time chilling at the hostel, reading, napping, talking, meeting, all the good stuff. We grabbed some tacos at the nearby market thing, I’m sure it’s one of the “To Do” things in Cancun but I’m do lazy to look it up now. Leif and I were planning on doing some partying that night but I decided not to due to still being sick. I chilled at their hostel until I couldn’t stay awake, fumbling back to mine just before 12am.
Despite the multiple interruptions from loud newcomers to my dorm room, the sleep I was able to get was great. I felt much better. I met the guys at their hostel, bags ready, and we caught the ADO bus to Tulum. On arrival we went through the ruins with all of our gear. I nice little work out to tire us out for the day. The ruins are worth seeing, I’d say, but if you’ve seen other ruins before, especially if they were impressive, you may fall a little flat with these ones. Though I did no research on them either so there is probably a lot of history that I missed.
It’s basically this, and not much of it either.
After some beef nachos and fish tacos, we got a taxi to our hostel and decided to chill for a long period of time. Ask Jan about this time, I don’t think he would appreciate it if I divulged what took place in this blog. The plan for tomorrow is cenotes and a trip to Merida the next day I believe. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get all the cenotes and the bus to Merida in one day but if we can, we will.
And there you have it. Another post wrapped up. I realize that this isn’t so much a blog as it is more of a recounting of events that took place. I would like to write more about my experience more but at this point I’m just taking point-form notes on the days and trying my best to elaborate on them in some kind of understandable manner. We’ll see what follows.