End of the tourist tour
Saturday, November 5th, 2005After 2 very busy weeks crossing Mexico on the big yellow (come and fleece us we’re rich) Tucan bus it all finally came to an end last Friday. Despite having had 2 occasions on the tour where I seriously considered bailing out in favour of travelling independently, when it came time to part company I was actually rather sorry to say goodbye. I couldn’t recommend the tour to people as the big tourist group thing is not what I expected or wanted, but the people on it were what made it for me.
The motley crew of theTucan tour and our lovely yellow bus
A steady diet of lime, chilli, beer and tequila (with some food too I should add) has generally kept me safe and well. Three weeks in Mexico and I haven’t had the shits once; quite a bonus though no doubt it’s in the post! Having said that there was a couple of late club nights where the tequila did fuck me over. One night ended with me waking up on the bathroom floor, only to crawl into bed at right angles to the conventional way (the Mexicans are not a tall race in general but I knew the bed shouldn’t be that short).
The other night started at the Mambo Cafe – the high cover charge encouraging us to take full advantage of the free bar ’til 1am, so after much tequila it ended with me pitifully asking people to take me home and proceeding to amuse them in the taxi by requiring a shoulder to rest my head on while mumbling about being Special Ed and requiring sympathy. Obviously sympathy was not at all deserved but Charmaine was a star and came to my rescue with both the shoulder and the sympathy – top bird!
Al sucks a phat one at the Mambo Cafe (Arthur Dayley eat your heart out)
Come Friday night, after a meal and a few drinks, Al, Ed (another one) and myself all got an overnight coach from Merida to Chetumal near the Belize border. At 5am we stumbled out of the coach half asleep and miraculously found a connecting bus that took us to the border crossing and then onto Belize City, where there was a ferry taxi almost straight away to take us over the Caye Caulker, the beautiful island off the Belize coast from where I’m writing this – this place is tropical paradise, but more on this in the next few days.
I should add that the border crossing was interesting. I’ve had my passport for 8 or 9 years now and not once has a border official laughed at my photo. Enter 3 british boys at 5am to be confronted by 3 beer swilling Belizian border guards at the end of their shift. They gave us some advice about drinking as much of the local brew as possible and getting jiggy with the local ladies, before ripping me apart for the dreadful goatee beard and helmet head hair that my student days blessed me with for my passport photo. Easy border crossing and well deserved piss-taking – it’s about time!
Right must go to drink beer and watch the sun go down, more about Caye Caulker later.
Ed