Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Staying in Downtown Cancun was totally overwhelming at first, but you get use to all the people, the busy streets, the dangerous paving, the crazy traffic on Tulum Avenue and the cops with machine guns on every corner. This probably sounds retarded, but I'm surprised at how Spanish it is here. It's nothing like Spain where most people speak English. Of course that only applies to Downtown, the hotel zone is nothing but tourists and almost everyone can speak some sort of English.
I love the hostel I'm staying at (Mason de Telum). The staff here are really friendly and helpful (Issac and Juaves) and I've met tons of people... Jonnie (the Italian German), Ollie, Tom & Trudie (English), Erica (the Canadian Mexican), Alex (German) and Kat (Hong Kong). We all arrived here around the same time and everyone got on really well, so there was always someone to go to the store with or have dinner with which was nice. Spent a week here and really enjoyed just lying by the pool or swinging in the hammocks chatting with everyone. I don't know how I survived this long without a hammock and I'm amazed at how tiring doing nothing can be!
Poor Kat hurt here ankle the first night she arrived, had to go to the hospital and now can't do jack for at least a week. She returned from hospital sporting a very attractive pair of crutches, but she's taking it well!!
Downtown is cheap, cheap, cheap. Actually all of Mexico is cheap, but compared to the Hotel Zone, downtown is crazy cheap! Spend most of my time downtown or at the beach, but managed to have a few good nights out in the hotel zone as well (Coco Bongos was definitely the best night!). You can get a bus anywhere from downtown, although I seem to always end up on the R1.
Met up with the Brodies for lunch one day, hit the beach a few times and finally tracked down the elusive power cord for my laptop in Walmart of all places, how very Mexican! (can't believe I forgot mine at home!! Cancun is very Americanised and touristy, but I still like it. I guess I'm just easing myself into this travelling malarky!
Having real techincal issues at the moment, forgot my laptop powercord, can't find my MP3 charger and my new international phone is absolute s***e (chucking it and sending a very strongly worded e-mail to the manufacturers!!)
Realised I have totally overpacked, but it's very hard trying to pack everything you might need for 2 full years into one suitcase. I'll probably ditch some stuff along the way in order to lighten the load.
So far I've been sunburned 3 times, bitten all over by a variety of different bugs and beasties (including bed bugs arghhhhh), eaten way too much street food (some of which I may live to regret), had a run in with the local Mexican Policia for no reason other then blatant corruption (cash = no problems in Mexico!) and I'm loving every minute of it!!
- comments