Mexico 20th - 29th February 2016 - Cancún, Mexico
Cancún, Mexico
We loved Mexico. In the beginning we thought it was quite expensive but found its easy to do things on the cheap. We flew into Cancun after a 36hour transit time from NZ! It was strange feeling that we left NZ at 6am on Saturday 20th and arrived 2 days later but the date was still the 20th! When we got to the Cancun airport we grabbed a shared taxi to our hostel, Mundo Joven. We had pre booked this hostel before we arrived and was an all good spot. We had a private room with a shared bathroom. To get to the main resort area we had to take a local bus (R1) for 15mins down the road, was pretty sweet and they come very regularly. On the 21st we got up and sorted a few things then headed to Hotelera. On the bus we met an English travel agent and we ended up booking a catamaran day cruise for $50usd each. We then went down to the beach for a look and strolled past all the flash hotels and then parked up on the public access beach. Beautiful! The water was amazing! We grabbed a few beers from the shop and went and had some tacos. So good! We then went and grabbed more beers and went to beach and say there for a few hours getting drunk. The supermarket was massive and saaaa good. 6pack of Corona was 60peso so like $5! There was a couple of girls and I guy on the beach next to us who were so wasted, was entertaining. By 5pm we were wasted and the sun had gone down so we missioned back to hostel. What a ******* night mare! We hopped on which was all good and had a beer on the bus. Then suddenly we had no idea where we were and where to get off! Our hostel was close to the ADO bus station so I asked the driver where the stop was and he said it was back there so we hopped off thinking we could just walk back. Nope! I kept asking people where the ADO station was but the A is pronounced 'Ar' so not many people knew what I was saying! Very stressful situation and being wasted was challenging. Definitely our first heated discussion! But we made it home safe and sound and pretty much comered out. We woke up at about 9pm and went and got a feed then went back to bed! Definitely realised how little English was spoken! It's not like Thailand! The next day was our catamaran cruise. We headed to the warf to catch the boat, was hard to know where to get off but we figured it out. We hopped on the boat with about 20others and headed to Isle Mujeres. The cruise had snorkling, food and drinks included. Snorkling was nice and the water was amazing. After snorkling we started drinking beers. Was no nice and cold and refreshing. Not many people were really drinking. Isla Mujeres was pretty cool, small island with golf carts everywhere. We hung out there for a little while, had some more beers then got back on boat and headed to the other end of the island for a buffet lunch. We got chatting to a couple of gay guys who were cool as. Their English wasn't the best but they are learning. They're from Costa Rica and said we could come stay if we wanted so might take them up on the offer! Their names were Walter and Gustavo. When we got off the boat we bussed back to hostel and managed to get off at the right stop thank god! We had a Shaz then headed back in for a Cancun style night out. Each night a different club has something on. Tonight was at Coco Bondo or something like that. We weren't sure where to go so we just wandered around had a drink at a bar called mextreme and had a massive pinacolada. Was yum but not cheap! We contemplated going home at that stage as it was all so expensive but we persevered and roamed around and finally came across an alleyway with some cheap beers and then at the other end was the hot spot! We went down to check it out and wow! Intense, music cranking and people soliciting us to come in. They all do drink deals for all you can drink, this guy was very adamant we come in and he showed us the bars and radi rah, so we thought, **** it, when in Cancun! So we gave our card and it declined... We thought he must have pressed credit and it was an eftpos card so tried again and still no dice! So we checked at ATM and that declined. We thought there was at least $700 in the account so started stressing out money was stolen! So we got out of the havoc and found a chill bar with wifi to check accounts. Luckily it was all good I had accidentally transferred money to our other account! So we transferred some money over then celebrated our relief with many coronas and tequila shots. They give you free chips (deep fried tortilla) which was good. We then decided to head back down to the clubs and check it out.. We ended up going to some club which was $40usd each for all you can drink! So we made the most of it and danced up a storm. Was fun! It was then 3am and stace needed to go home. When we were walking back to get the bus we both needed to **** pretty bad so went into a fancy hotel and roamed around to find the loo! We felt so rebellious being in there. Then caught bus home. The next morning was hard. We had some breaky then headed to bus station to head for Tulum. It only took a couple of hours which was all good. The busses are quite comfortable so just slept whole way. When we got there we didn't have any accommodation booked so we researched a place that sounded good and headed for there. It was so hot, both hung over and carrying 17kg back packs wandering the streets wasn't the most pleasant experience. When we got to the hostel they were fully booked so we asked them where else to go and they suggested Quintana Roots. Another 10min walk down the road. We were gutted cause the hostel Mamas house looked amazing, like a little sanctuary. We got to Quintana roots and booked 2nights in a 12bedroom dorm. We splashed out and went with the aircon room. It costed us 250peso each a night. It was all good nice and clean although the first two nights sleep was hard! We had to have sleeping pills to put us to sleep I also had earplugs and a face mask!!! The second night rob and I made a little hut with our bunks and had a little rendezvous. We decided to stay another night and then head to Chetumal. We hired push bikes for 2 days and rode them around. It was a 20min ride to beach which was quite nice we swam a few times then headed back into city for lunch as it was way too expensive out there. The next day we rode to the Gand Cenote which was so nice. It was beautiful we hired a snorkel and swan around. Scuba diving in there would have been amazing!!!! We then biked back to town and out to the ruins. They were alright but we didn't pay much attention at all, we had no guide so had no idea what was going on! We went to the beach there swam some more then went home. For diner we went to the street taco man and bought some beers from the Oxxo and sat in the street. So cheap and so good! We went back to hostel and chatted to a few other People then decided to all go for a drink in town. There were about 7 of us and then 4 of us headed to another bar. There was a special in big litre beers so we all bought one of them. I missioned it and went to dairy to buy a small bottle of tequila and did ***** in the bar! We then went for a walk around and Sebastian (the nice German) and I went home (at 12.30am). Rob and an American guy called Evan decided to keep going. I went to bed and all was good then at 3am I woke up for some reason and checked to see if rob was there.... Nope. I thought hmm ok that's cool, big night. Then it got to 4 and I was thinking when should I get worried? I couldn't sleep cause there was 1% of me nervous that something was wrong. Then finally at 6am we shows up!!! Little ****er. He had a great night though so that's cool. The next day we had to pack up, take our bikes back and catch a bus to Chetumal. I got up at 9 after a horrible sleep and rob was out of it so just let him sleep and I packed up our bags. Then had to wake him up for breaky. What a mission that was, he was so out of it! I had to raise my voice! I felt like a ***** but there was no other way!!! We finally headed down stairs for breaky and there were no eggs so I bought an omelet and cream cheese and avo sandwich was pretty yum! We took our bikes back then headed to bus. When we got to Chetumal we stayed in Downtown hostel which was new. The guy opened it a month ago! Such nice people. We soon found out that there was nothing to do there. I watched one and a half seasons of orange is the new black! Rob found a cross fit gym so he went for a few workouts! I went and watched the first day. Was cool. The guy there is first in Central America which was pretty awesome. We took a collectivo taxi to Lake Bacalar which was beautiful! For some reason I was having a bad day and then I ****en left my phone in taxi which just topped off my morning and I started crying! Poor rob. When we got back we went back to taxi stand but none of them spoke a wink of English so just counted my loss. When we went back to hostel we told the owner and then he went down and tried finding it. The driver wasn't there so they told him to come back next day so we went with him and managed to get it back!!! We tipped the taxi driver for giving it back but he obviously wanted more so the hostel owner paid him 50peso from his own pocket!!! We have it back to him but couldn't believe how nice he was. We had a water taxi booked from Chetumal to Caye caulker on 1st March as when we got to NZ airport when we left, they wouldn't let us on Plane unless we had proof we were leaving Mexico. So we had to wait in Chetumal till then as the ferry didn't go everyday.