I Swear, These Are the Last Ruins - Apr 11
I don’t have the patience for this today. I went to Uxmal during the hottest point of the day. It was bearable. The bus back to Merida showed up 55 minutes late. That is some hardcore Mexico time. Here are some photos.
I ended the night running into a friend named Edwin that I originally met in Puerto Vallarta. This Merida hostel is amazing for running into people I know. I love it. I also managed to play with Etienne’s guitar again, meeting more German speaking people in the process. Lynn is from Switzerland so she speaks French, German, Swiss German, English, and is learning Spanish. So jealous.
Follow the Yellow City (It Doesn’t Have a Yellow Road) - Apr 12
Today I decided to go to Izamal which is known as the yellow city because so many of it’s buildings are painted yellow. Edwin came too. I don’t know if that was a conscious decision or if they accidentally ordered only yellow paint one day and ran with it but the city is kind of charming. The whole yellow thing gimmick runs out of interest in about 2 hours and by that point you’re too hot to even notice. There were some ruins that we checked out. Here are some photos.
I took the second half of a salsa lesson with a Scottish girl named Amy. It was a complete blast. I absolutely love latin music and dancing, I can’t help myself when I hear a salsa song or bachata, or whatever else. I’ll probably be taking more lessons of the paid variety when I get back to Canada life. So good.
A Bit of Lazing About - Apr 13
This morning I spent figuring out what to do with my day with some of the Germans. I realized that I hadn’t yet sent out my postcards, I needed to pick up my laundry, I still wanted to buy a book on Spanish grammar, I wanted a shirt that says Mexico on it because, you know, whatever, and I needed to buy some souvenirs for my family. Here’s what I accomplished. Postcard stamps, check. Postcards sent, check. Grammar book purchase, check. That’s about it. I spent a long time looking for the shirt but I wasn’t able to track it down. It seems Merida is pretty full of itself because I could only find shirts that either said only Merida, Merida Mexico, I love Merida, and the like. Why can’t you be partiotic about the entire country, damnit!?
Once I returned I sat and watched the Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid game with a new friend from England named Luke. That was fun.
After that endeavor I decided to chill by the pool for pretty much the rest of the day. I met a guy named Christian from the states and hung out with Lynn and Noelle the Swiss…people. We decided to go for dinner at La Negrita. Huge win on this one here. This place is packed, a bit expensive, but it has good beer, live music, and friendly people. So friendly, in fact, that a table of three gentlemen shared their seats with us. We danced and drank and ate and it was awesome. Right as we were leaving, Claudia showed up for some fun and we went to La Mezcaleria again. I love this place too. When we got there there was a free salsa lesson going on. I, of course, hopped right in and got Claudia to come with me. It was difficult to follow but we had fun.
After the lesson we chatted at the table, Claudia left, Luke left, and slowly but surely everyone left me to fend for myself because I was not done dancing. It was then that I met the dancing siblings German, Vime, and Naye and their two friends whose names escape me. These people are fun and they taught me more dance moves that I’ve of course forgotten since then but it was a real blast to hang out and dance with them. Naye made me promise, though I didn’t throw the pinky promise in there, that I had to come back to Merida in August to party and marry Vime. She even said she would pay for my plane ticket. That all sounds good to me, we’ll see if she comes through with that one.
Reunited at the First Place - Apr 14
I woke up a little bit early than expected given the time that I came back from La Mezcaleria but I felt surprisingly good too. I had a nice two hour long dilly dally around the hostel, said goodbye to the people that I knew who were around and got a taxi to the ADO bus station for my bus to Playa Del Carmen.
The bus was fine, that is all.
After the bus I walked down to the ferry terminal for Cozumel, bought my ida y vuelta and waited, hopped on the ferry, and arrived in Cozumel, meeting Raul at the nearby Starbucks. Both Raul and Alex say that I look more tan and that my Spanish has gotten better, noting that I speak a bit more fluently and that I don’t ask them to repeat stuff as much. As far as I’m considered that is mission accomplished! It feels good to hear that stuff because it has been tough to actually improve while travelling, not being consistently immersed in the language due to meeting English speakers in hostels and whatnot. However, I’m still not satisfied with where I’m at and I’ll probably continue to learn, listen, read, write, and speak all through the summer.
Unfortunately, when we went to order some tacos for dinner, Alex sprained his ankle quite badly. They went to the hospital and he came back with a wrapped up ankle. He can’t go to work. Poor guy. We spent the rest of the night relaxing at the house and on the malecon. It’s nice to see these two again, it reminds me of how long I’ve been travelling and I’m also enjoying the whole not doing anything portion which seems to be my main goal right now, avoiding being a tourist.
When You Don’t Want to Do Anything, Maybe You Should - Apr 15
After a little bit of debate and a late start to the day I realized that I didn’t want to rent a scooter. So I didn’t. We went out to buy some things for dinner and I tried to find my Mexico shirt with no success. We spent most of the day in the apartment. I watched Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone in Spanish which actually went pretty well. It’s a neat exercise to watch movies in Spanish with a few months inbetween to see how much you have improved, if at all.
I then managed to book my flight back to Canada. Yeah, it’s official. I have a date that I’ll be coming back to Canada. It’s May 4th. Prepare yourselves for my arrival, friends who live across the country. I’m coming for you.
I also started getting tons of suggestions for things to do and places to see in Canada. I’ve got great friends.
Let’s Watch Movies - Apr 16
And so continued my time in Cozumel, lazy, relaxed, not a care in the world. I left the apartment just after 12pm and the guys still hadn’t woken up, though I wasn’t aware that they went to sleep at 7am because of the work they are doing on their theses. I had plans to go to the museum, find some food, and finally rent a scooter to travel around the island. I found the museum just in time because I was beginning to die of heat. Although the temperature rarely goes above 26 degrees celsius, it is so humid that is saps your the energy right out of you. Luckily, a good portion of the museum is air conditioned. I spent a good amount of time twiddling my thumbs, cooling off, and looking at a few of the cool paintings, not so much at the actual artifacts or displays. Remember, I don’t do museums much. Though I have come across a few cool museums, to be fair.
Afterwards, I sat in the park near the pier and ate some chips and drank some water, watching the uncountable amount of tourists wander inbetween the streets, stores, and restaurants. There seem to be a lot of people with a southern drawl around today so I guess that is where the cruise ship has come from. I did a quick search for a place to eat and found a burrito restaurant and had myself a delicious vegetarian burrito. I chose the veggie because I find sometimes I don’t like the weight of meat and that’s exactly what I avoided.
I then tried to rent a scooter but apparently they don’t rent the scooters by the hour, normally by the day. Instead of 350 pesos, they told me I could have the thing for 250 pesos which is good but would only give me four hours to ride around if I wanted to bring it back before they closed. No thanks. I walked back to the apartment and Raul and I decided to go to the air show on the southeast portion of the island. The show was pretty cool. The pilots pulled off some impressive stunts that I’ve never seen before and we had a good time.
The last few things for the night were relaxing, where I watched another Harry Potter movie in Spanish, dinner at Margaritaville, and more movies/tv shows until bed. The guys seem a bit worried that they are too boring but one, that’s not true and two, I’m not the slightest bit bothered because I don’t want to do anything. Practicing my Spanish listening is honestly rewarding and fun and I don’t think I’ve done enough of it throughout this trip. I’m happy to just do nothing.