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