Our last week in Mexico

We’ve just finished our final week here in Mexico, and as I’m writing this we’re on our way out to Vancouver. It’s a little sad to be leaving this country. Our time in Mexico has been very good. We really enjoyed the culture of this country. We got to see busy vibrant cities, old ruins of ancient civilizations, deserts, jungles, and beaches, and we got to really dig into the lifestyle of the people that live here. We will never forget the flavorful food and the unique atmosphere of Mexico.

In our final week here we were joined by Joh’s parents. We had a really nice time with them on the island of Isla Mujeres. It was really good to catch up and hear all about what has been happening back home. We spent many hours relaxing, talking, going for walks, playing cards, eating in good local restaurants, and touring the area. On one day we rented a golf cart and spent a lot of time driving around checking out all the hot spots on the island. We also spent one day touring the Cancun resort area, and on another day we went to XCARET, which is a big entertainment resort around an hour away. There we got to explore some underground rivers, see dolphins, jaguars, and other animals, and at night there was a big cultural show with traditional cultural games, music, and dancing. It was also neat to share with them all that we had discovered about the local culture: trying new foods and drinks, speaking Spanish, and discovering the other idiosyncrasies that define the people and places in which we have been travelling. It was difficult to say goodbye to them yesterday, but we will be back home in one month so it won’t be too long before we see them again.

After dropping them off at the airport, we had one final day in Mexico, and we had the opportunity to meet up with our friends Dan and Rosy who were on their honeymoon in Playa del Carmen, which is just a one hour bus ride away. We arrived there around noon, grabbed a cheap hostel for the night, and then went downtown Playa del Carmen to meet up with them. They were there to meet us, and it was really great to see them again, and hear all about the wedding we had missed and all about how they and all of our friends have been doing for the last 7 months. We spent the day walking around the town, stopping every so often for nice cold cervezas and spicy tacos. We had a great meal at a local sidewalk restaurant too and then spent the night walking around the busy vibrant streets of downtown Playa del Carmen.

So after a night in Playa del Carmen we’re now on a bus back to Cancun airport to catch our flight to Vancouver. It’s quite surreal to think that we only have a few hours left in Mexico, and then we’ll be back in Canada. It will be quite something to be back to an English-speaking society. We’ve put in quite an effort learning Spanish over these past 7 months, and now we’re done with it. It’s a bit of a shame as it’s been a really interesting experience. After our upcoming time in Canada and America, we’ll be heading to Asia, so it is very likely that we’ll ever need our Spanish again, except for maybe some holidays in the distant future. Speaking English all the time is going to be a little weird too. I will no longer have to rehearse conversations in my head ahead of time. It will be so easy just to walk up to anyone and start talking and just naturally completely understand each other.

Anyways, I guess that’s it from Mexico. ¡Adiós!

Cancun and Isla Mujeres

We arrived in Cancun a week or two ago and immediately noticed the shift from a typical Mexican city to a full-on, in-your-face tourist city.  Cancun was nothing like we’d seen for quite some time.  Huge big-box stores, big expensive chain restaurants, malls, and many, many other ingenious ways to separate you from your tourist dollars.  We weren’t really too impressed with the city.  For the past month we had been living in beautiful Mexican cities like Puebla , Oaxaca, and Merida,  and to switch to a city like Cancun it was a little unsettling at first.  We had planned to be in Cancun for a few days in order to scout out the area for a nice home to stay in for when Joh’s parents arrived, but we gave up on that idea pretty quick and decided to head for the islands for a bit of peace and quiet.

Regardless of how we felt about the city, we did spend one and a half days in Cancun.  We decided that we’d take advantage of all the amenities. We went and saw a 3D movie at the local cinema, walked around Costco and Walmart, had Subway sandwiches for lunch, and we went to a Starbucks for a coffee – and then immediately walked right back out after seeing their ridiculous prices.   It was kind of nice to spend a day like that, surrounded by comfortable and recognizable things.  It is actually a little therapeutic when you’ve been away from home so long.

We also walked down the strip past all the giant fancy resorts.  After staying in hostels for the majority of the last 6 months, they looked incredibly luxurious to us.  Near the resorts were all the notorious bars and clubs that are part of Cancun’s nightlife, and although it was neat to walk around and check out the sights, it was quite obviously not our scene, so we went back to our little crumby hostel in downtown Cancun and made plans to leave the next morning.

That next morning we went over to the port to go via ferryboat to the island – Isla Mujeres.  The island is a 20 minute boat ride from the port at Cancun, and it is quite a large island.  It’s a little under a kilometer wide, and around 7 kilometers long.  It is quite populated with smaller homes, restaurants, scuba shops, small markets and the like and it was much more our style. The island is still a bit touristy, but not near as much as Cancun.  We walked around the small town on the north end of the island, and saw beautiful beaches, decent restaurants, and a small supermarket, so we decided to stay here for a while.  We found a nice studio apartment in a great location (only minutes away from the best beach) and managed to haggle our way to a pretty decent weekly rate from the owner.  There were also a lot of opportunities for day trips, so we figured it would also be a great place to spend time with Joh’s parents when they arrived.

We spent our first few days enjoying the sun and beach and walking around the island, and we had great plans to do more over the coming days.  Unfortunately, I woke up on the following morning with a horrible rash over all of my face and neck.  From there, over the next few days it spread to most of the rest of my body, and so I’ve been stuck inside dealing with really itchy sore skin for the last week or so.  The heat and sun make it feel much worse, so it’s been difficult to get out and do too many things.  I’ve gone to a clinic here on the island and the doctor prescribed some cream and pills and they’ve been working slowly to improve the situation. I’m still not anywhere close to fully-healed yet, but some of the areas (like my face and neck) have healed up, so I figure that the rest of my body will follow suit and be healed up within the next few days.  Neither I or the doctor were able to determine the cause of the problem.  It’s likely an allergy to something – either food or bugs or something else.  I have no idea.  Anyways, we’ll just have to deal with it and hope it clears up soon.

Tomorrow Joh’s parents arrive, and we’ve found an lovely small home that was available for rent on the other side of the island and it has a great view of the ocean.  It will be nice to spend some time with them here. We’ll let you know how it goes…

Here are some photos from the past few weeks.  Merida and Cancun.  You may have noticed that the number of photos per album has gone down quite a bit lately.  After seeing place after place for the past 6 or 7 months, it does get a little tedious to take pictures of every church, museum, landmark, town square, etc.  Hopefully the upcoming changes in scenery that we’ll be getting over the coming months will increase the photo count again.

Merida and Cancun

Merida

We’ve just left the Mexican city of Merida after spending 8 days exploring this wonderful city.  Merida is a big city in the Yucatan province in Mexico.  It’s a few hours away from the popular beaches and resorts around Cancun, so there aren’t as many tourists or tourist traps around, although there were a few.  We really enjoyed the city.  We had a wonderful hostel right beside the central square, so we had a great perspective of the cultural center and daily life of the people of Merida.  Our room in the hostel had a balcony with a great view of the square, so we utilized that quite a bit, enjoying evenings sitting out there watching the busy atmosphere below.

The city also had a wonderful big market with cheap food and trinkets. We enjoyed walking around in that area, taking in all the things it had to offer.  Merida also had really good restaurants, with really tasty food.  Joh really enjoyed the “Sopa de Lima” which is a lime soup with chicken, vegetables, and crisp tortillas.  I really enjoyed all the roasted pork dishes cooked in achiote paste – great flavor. Habanero chiles also were also very commonplace in a lot of the food. Habanero chiles are crazy hot.  Way hotter than the Jalapenos we’re used to.   It’s surprising how quick you get used to them though.  It’s already a lot easier eating dishes with them now.

The weather in Merida is also the hottest we’ve experienced yet on our trip.  It was so hot here you’d sweat just sitting still.  We ended up going for cold drinks and/or ice creams quite often here.  Across the square from our hostel was a great sorbet shop selling all types of delicious sorbets.  They had exotic flavors like mamey, guanabana, pitaya, nance, and the usual suspects like banana, strawberry, and mango.  We went here pretty much every day and tried a new flavor. Our favorites ended up being the coconut and the chocolate sorbets. The chocolate had that really nice Mexican chocolate flavor with the subtle hints of cinnamon and other spices.

We also decided to finally do a bit of shopping.  We’d been avoiding doing shopping for most of this trip, mainly due to budgetary constraints, but our wardrobe was getting really pathetic.  We’d been wearing the same 2 or 3 shirts every day for the last 6 months, and they were all really gross looking by now.  All our shirts were so faded and stretched out.  They just hung on our shoulders like grey sackcloth.   The markets in Merida presented a good opportunity to do some shopping without really breaking our budget too much.  T-Shirts were only 3 or 4 dollars and Joh was also able to get a really nice dress that is great for the climate here.  Joh was really excited to shop again. She said she had forgotten what it was like…  I hope we haven’t rekindled some long-lost former addiction in her ;)

We also spent one day visiting the Cenotes outside the city.  Cenotes are giant underground caves partially filled with water.  They’ve built some stairs down into them and you can climb down and go for  swim.  It’s a really neat feeling swimming in there.  The water was a very clear blue color, and the cave walls were covered with mineral deposits and stalactites making for a very beautiful place to swim.

We also received some good news, and that is that Joh’s parents are coming down to visit us for a week.    They’re planning on joining us for a week in Cancun, starting on July 20^th.  We’re really excited to see them.  If we’re honest with ourselves, we have been a little homesick lately and so it will be really nice to see some familiar faces.  It will be great to share our travels with other important people in our lives, so that they can see firsthand what this experience is like for us.

So we’re off to Cancun today to scout out the area for a day or two and to find a nice place for us to stay when they join us here.  From Cancun we’ll be taking off to one of the nearby islands to stay in the meantime.  There is supposed to be some great snorkeling near here and some other cool adventures to have so we’ll do that for a week or two before they arrive.

We’ve also decided on a plan for the next month.  After Joh’s parents leave we’ll have another month or so to go before we go back home for a few weeks.  We’ve debated on Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Cuba, or Northern Mexico, but after a lot of research we’ve instead decided on an alternative plan.  We had been searching for cheap spots to fly to from Cancun, and we happened to come across a great deal for a flight to British Columbia.  A one-way ticket from Cancun to B.C. happens to be cheaper than flying to anyplace in Central America or elsewhere in Mexico.   So we’re planning on flying there and then going for a 3 or 4 week road trip across the USA back home.  We plan on stopping by some exciting places in the US, such as the Grand Canyon, other national parks, and cities that we’d always wanted to visit.  We’re planning on buying a cheap car in B.C. and buying a few camping supplies there and then start out on our way, staying in campgrounds and the like all the way home.

Naturally we’re also quite excited to be going to B.C..  My brother Chris lives there, so it will be great to hang out with him, and we’ve also got a lot more family and friends out there that we haven’t seen in quite some time.  We’ll likely be there for at least 3 or 4 days while we quickly shop for a car and prepare for our road trip, so we should have some time to visit a few people.  I know there’s quite a few of you blog readers from B.C., so if any of you can help us out in finding a cheap car and/or maybe have a place for us to stay for a few days, please email me and let me know.

Anyways, that’s it for now.  Hope all is well with everyone back home!