Don't forget to check out my collection of day four photos,
We in Cancun!!!!
After a very welcome nights sleep in a bed (the first for a long, long time), I awoke.
It was sometime in the morning. It was early, though not as early as I'd have liked. I wanted to get downstairs and have our free breakfast that was advertised. I knew today would be our only day in Cancun and Iwanted to get an early start, as we had many things to get done before we could relax and hit the beaches.
The next thing to do was to wake up James.
Easier said than done.
I tried but the guy just wouldn't rise. Poor guy.. all that farting on the bus must have taken it out of him.
Well, there was nothing for it but to go down and have breakfast... ...alone.
So be it.
Down I went. I walked into the restaurant/breakfast area. There were tables set out to accomodate around thirty or so customers but only about 7 were up at that time.
I took a seat close to the open entrance (it opened up beautifully onto a patio, leading onto the street). It was a little warm already, so I decided to sit inside and enjoy the benefits of the shade and the ceiling fan.
Breakfast consisted of a continental style buffet, with a pretty good selection of freshly bought/baked breads and pastries, cereals, yoghurt, fruit juices and of course unlimited suppplies of freshly brewed Mexican coffee!
I sat down, with James' guide book to Central America (our only one for the whole trip) and got stuck in.
I was on my second (or was it third?) helping when a rather zombified James came crawling out of the shadows and slumped down sleepily next to me (Jim, creative license, mate).
We then had breakfast together.
You can see, in this photo, the wonderful spread we helped ourselves to.
Well, I was in Mexico.
I was on holiday.
It was breakfast time.
...huh?...
So I had a beer.
Man, it was goooooooood!
I started to get just a little bit tipsy.
I quess I went through one of those "transformations".
James and I talked about our plans for the day over breakfast.
We decided we had to:
We knew this wouldn't be easy.
We wetn to the internet cafe, to check out flights/buses and to mail Natalia.
IT was there that things began to get strange again...
We met this interesting guy in the internet cafe, attached to the hostel. He gave us some good advice (basically, forget about getting a plane to Guatemala-too expensive and didn't fly when we needed it to). I say 'interesting'- actually, James was a little worried about him. I must admit, I questioned his motives too. He did seem a little 'dodgy'. Also, he kept popping up, wherever we went! We actually met him first, in the minibus taxi from the airport to downtown Cancun. Then we met him in the internet cafe next to out hostel (twice). Then, we met him again! He told us he actually worked in Guatemala! - not far from where we were going to, in fact. The coincidences just kept on coming. Total Twilight Zone stuff.
I half expected to see him in our friend's hotel and faking suprise as he shouts out
"What a coincindence! I didn't know you would be here!". Yeah, that's the way it was. spooky...real spooky.
Well, we checked out the travel agents a few blocks away (advice from this spooky guy (X-files 'deep throat' connection covered there). There we met a rather lovely young lady. I'm sorry, I can't remember her name but I do remember she was beautiful (hey, I'm a guy!). We talked for w hile, James, this young lady and I. We didn't get any useful information fromhger, but we talked for a long time (I wonder why?...). We finally dragged ourselves away from her and proceeded with our plans.
We needed to find the central bus station, book a ticket and then we were free to hit the beach!
The station was supposed to be only a few blocks away.
"You cant miss it!" said the guy on the hotel desk.
After about three blocks, I'd lost James and I'd lost myself (in the sense that I didn't know where I was).
Bugger.
It was the same old story: one minute, he was there. I looked way for a second and when I looked back, he was gone. but this time there was no PA system with which to rely on and noone to understand my pleas for the safe return of my four year old sobbing child (and this time I hadn't lost a four year old, sobbing child - he was at least 29 -- oooh! that was nasty!)
Well, sowehow on my travels to find the lost Jimmy, I stumbled across the central bus station!
Typical.
I'm with Jim and we can't find the bus station.
The moment I lose him and, lo and behold! There it is! - the bus station!
I hung around the station for a while, hoping Jim would turn up soon. No sign of him, so I headed back to the hostel.
On my way back, I heard a familiar voice shout out. It was Jim. Apparenlty, he'd also been waiting at the bus staion - but at a different location (hey, this place was pretty big).
We headed back in and proceeded the complicated (supposed to be easy but remember, with 'us', nothing is as simple as it seems!) process of booking our seats and paying for them.
The best we could do was go as far as the border crossing of Chetumal. From there, we would have to book abnother bus to take us through into Belize and on to Guatemala and Flores.
It never ends...
Well, at least now we could try to relax and hit the beach!
Yes!!!!
We arranged for our bags to be kept in reception of the hostel (we had checked out that morning). The guys there were very kind to us.
p.s. ask me about the two ladies who were room service for our room and what happened whilst Jim was having his breakfast. My goodness, they were... yowza!!!! Like something out of a movie (maybe even one of...those...ones). There were two of them. They were very nice sin'oritas. They didn't speak English but they smiled a lot. I should tell you about how I tried to give them a small present each for cleaning our room. I tried to give them both some Japanese bath salts. you should ask me to tell you about how I tried to describe to them what they were, about the diagrams I drew of them in the bath, and my gestures about taking a bath and relaxing and feeling good - looking back, I think it was highly possible that I projected the wrong idea. Very 'Hugh Grant'like of me. Maybe that would explain why they seemed to gesture if we should all take a shower together? Man, what was I doing? It was all so hazy, but I guess with hindsight, a real missed opportunity may have occurred there. But I did the right thing anyway. Lord knows, if I'd have pursued things, I probably would have got everything arse backwards anyway (no pun intended). Confused? Just imagine how I felt. And those poor girls, young, tanned, 20 somethings with perfect thighs, and oh so short skirts, legs to heaven and... ..and...
...Margaret Thatcher...Margaret Thatcher on a cold day... Barbara Cartland's tongue.... ...getting closer... ...uuuurgghhh!!! ...I'm okay now.
Where was I?
The beach!!!!
We took a while to find the right bus (the one I wanted to take would have taken us in the wrong direction) and we had to share an uncomforstable kilometre or two with some roudy, drunken Americans (as opposed to a quiet, slightly drunken Wleshman and as of then sober but very civil Englishman). We got off 'somewhere' along the road that ran along between the oceanside and the lagoon. We decided to find the beach and follow it back to the city centre, visiting the various hotels and bars and sampling what was 'available'.
We found a public accessway to the beach (there aren't many of them!).
We found ourselves on golden white sands! The waves were crashing in and the sky was a brilliant blue!
Fantastic!!!!!
We ran to the shoreline and stripped off (just our shirts).
Jim sat on the beach and I ran as fast as I could and
somersaulted into the surf...
...just as it went out.
Sand can be pretty hard.
Here is Jim, relaxing and contemplating the wisdom of going on holiday with me.
He really wanted to go snorkelling, but the waves were too choppy. We went swimming, though.
Again, you should ask me about the woman in the surf, with the hmm hmm!- lovely bunch of coconuts that, umm, kept 'popping' out of their baskets. But that's another story...
Our position at this stage was a long way from the big hotels. We decided to walk down the beach, towards 'the action'.
Jim was wading in the surf and I was walking along the beach. It was a hot day, so I took off my shirt. I walked about 50m when I passed a group of American college students (there were so many of those in the hotels - it was spring break, after all). No sooner had i passed them, than I heard one of the guys say to his friends:
"Hey, chekc that guy out! He's incredibly hairy!!"
Thanks. Thanks a lot.
What a confidence booster. Well, the next thing I did was jump inot the surf and hide... ..aaah....
How could they say that?
Of all the words t use, that would have to be the most cruel.
I mean, he could have said I was veryhairy or reallyhairy or even unusually hairy.
Why did he have to say incredibly hairy?
Do you think I'm incredibly hairy? - p.s. I'm the one in the centre.
After that emotional scaring, it toook me a while to get the confidence back t walk on hte beach like a normal human being.
I roled about in the sand a little, so as to bely my animal nature.
It was a gloriously sunny day. Blue skies, golden sand. People were playing, sunbathing, swimming, parasailing (check out the picture gallery), drinking, and overall having a nice time.
We hung out on the beach for a while, swimming, drinking, sun bathing, swimming, almost drowning, drinking, almost drowning again, sunbathing, ogling (lots of that - surrepticiously, of course - man, I think that's the longest word I've typed so far!{if I've spelt it right}) and more drinking.
Eventually, the sun went down. We began walking back to the centre of town and the bus station. On the way back, we came across this funky little hotel bar, facing out on the beach.
We sat down and had a beer...
...and another...
...and another...
We talked to the barmen and they told us that MTV was actually filming in the hotel!
They were filming their latest reality based movie - "Reality Cancun".
Apparently, MTV had paid for the redesign of the whole bar. It was so funky, colorful and with swings and hammocks and climbing vines and stuff all around!
This called for another drink!
Bring on the pina coladas!
I... washhhh....gettingrr.... ..."hic!"......drnuk...
More to come (when I have time to finish):
Wanna go to part 2?
- just click on it!
at the picture gallery!
