Mexico - Part 2

The beaches in the Yucatan are beautiful. Angus commented this might be because they don't pollute their beaches. Our beaches are pretty amazing too, but it was the water colour here that was very striking: an almost luminous turquoise/light aqua, like marble lit from underneath. Contrasted with the darkness of the reef not far off shore it was a brilliant blue. Swimming in it was beautiful, but then so is swimming at the Sunshine Coast.

We went from our village to the resort towns of both Cancun, and Playa del Carman (pictured above), on two different days. To use Australian analogies, Cancun is like the Gold Coast, and Playa is more like Noosa with no high rise, but with a much bigger Hastings Street and more expensive. I bought the world's most expensive pair of thongs (flipflops) here for Angus - I did the exchange thing in my head afterwards and realised it wasn't $3AUD, it was $30!!! And they weren't even south american thongs, like Havaianas - they were made in Taiwan and broke 4 days later). But, Playa was a nice place to visit, with a great beach. We stayed here one night, in between our Puerto Morelos hotels (neither was available for the whole 9 nights, so we had to shift). There were hundreds of restaurants, most looked pretty good, the one we tried (100% natural) was lovely, and presumably fairly healthy too. My dinner came with lots of alfalfa, fresh beetroot, and other lovely salad things I've not had in ages.

Cancun was a different story, it was a big city really, and there were ads everywhere for nightclubs, all you can eat, all you can drink, strippers, etc etc. All we did there was go to the movies in a multi-cinema complex (it was a rainy day). We saw Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (in English), and it wasn't bad. Speaking of movies - the ADO buses which run between Cancun, PM and Playa show movies, mostly english ones dubbed in Spanish. We were amused by the Waterhorse, dubbed into Spanish but with Scottish accents.

We also popped into McDonalds to use the restrooms, and got confused about the signs: Was I an H or M? Hm. I eventually figured out H was probably Hombre, and so by a process of deduction I went into the M restroom. But what could M be? Madre? Madonna? Hm. As I heard someone else come in, I looked under the door and saw a pair of heels, so breathed a sigh of relief and exited my cubicle.

People really don't speak a lot of English here. I was a bit surprised by that given the importance of the tourist industry. I shouldn't have been though, I mean it's a Spanish speaking country. Some tourists were having a very hard time with this, and were still using their American dollars too. Which is acceptable in some places but apparently banks won't exchange US dollars. It's assumed to be drug money, and they don't want to participate in laundering. The newspapers were full of talk about drug cartels, and how Mexico is the new Columbia. IN some states, drug lords are the main employers (including through some of their 'legitimate' (ie laundering) businesses.

A funny language thing happened in Starbucks in Playa, where we went to use the wifi. They asked for my name and then when I picked up my coffee, saw they'd written 'Bones' as my name! No wonder I hadn't heard them call me. I guess if you say it phonetically, with a spanish accent, it could be close to Bernice....

There was a strong military presence all over, as well as police. Even sleepy Puerto Morelos had a small army base on the beachfront, with lots of army people there. I guess this relates to the town's port functions. Federal police were pulling over cars, much like at a Random Breath Testing station at home, and searching them, all along the highways between the tourist towns.

People generally seemed quite surprised that we should be travelling without a husband. Not just mexicans, but other tourists too. I found this a bit odd. I wouldn't think twice about a mother travelling with her child, and have done it without raising any eyebrows in other parts of the world. One immigration official even went so far as to comment that he assumed I was no longer 'with' my son's father. Why would he assume that? I just confirmed it, though, because arguing with immigration officials about their limited exposure to the world or matters of principle is not a great idea if you want to get into the country (in the US you sign a waiver of any right to appeal the immigration officer's decision, on the form you have to hand in to immigration). Also not a great idea is expressing views or asking questions about a country's political system and crime and poverty rates while waiting in the immigration line to enter a country, as Angus now knows.

Mexico Part 3 (the final Mexican chapter, which tells of Chichen Itza and swimming in cenotes) to come next.....