Meager thoughts on Cancun
My Grandma and Grandpa dropped me off at the airport. I was plenty early, checked in, and still had two hours to wait. My first instinct was to grab my phone and call someone to chat away the time. It was kind of like quitting smoking – that dreaded feeling that my vice was no longer there for me and never would be again (of course, I will get a phone again someday, but not for a while). So I just sat there and stared and walked around and stared a little more and then read some, getting used to the feeling of being off by myself. I was still in Chicago, but I did feel like I was in a place quite foreign to me (I was at Midway airport which is quite unfamiliar to me these days). Finally, I boarded the plane, nerves tweaking slightly with anxiety, both good and bad. Of course, being myself, as soon as the plane took off, I passed out for a little snooze.
I was the first one off the plane, first one in line for immigration, and one of the last to receive my bags from our flight. The airport was pretty dead, with the only arriving passengers being those sorts of Americans who might be going to Cancun in the off-season – the kind that clap upon landing (not kidding). The only time I´ve ever clapped or heard clapping is after a near-two-day slog to San Francisco from Chicago, with a nice sleep in the Las Vegas airport due to fog in SF.
I bought a bus ticket to el centro and left within 15 mintues; arriving in the city part of Cancun (not the hotel area), and trying to navigate my way to a hostel, some man came up and asked me if I needed a hostel and took me to my preference of those he worked for. It was such a cute little place, run by a family. The rooms were on the second floor with thatched roofs.; I shared my room with two other girls from London. Outside our room was a little patio on the roof with tables and an open-aired kitchen. We had a private bathroom between the three of us. The sewage system here is not capable of handling toilet tissue in the drains. The first time I was using it, no sooner did I finish reading the little sign “Do not throw tissue into the toilet” did I throw the tissue into the toilet. Looking down at the toilet foul I just created, I contemplated my next action. After extensive deliberation and several unsuccessful attempts at flushing it down, I was left with the only option of fishing it out with the plastic cup sitting next to the toilet (wondering, is that what it´s there for?), throwing the sloppy mess into the trash, and digging out my Purell.
After a little time re-sorting my bag (I was not happy with my organization, as this is what I had the least time to spend on), I went out to the town. In the main park, there were stalls of people selling little trinkets and clothes, and a little stage set up with people singing traditional Mexican songs. One thing I did notice after a bit of walking was the relatively large number of men without legs sitting (if you can call that sitting) on their stumps on little boards with wheels. It almost looked as if they were growing out of the ground from their hips.
I walked a little further, where some clubtype music lured me over to a stage where they were celebrating International Day of Peace and the Autumnal Equinox. They were showing films clips from all over the world (including clips from a film Koyaanisqatsi – Life Out of Balance, which I own but have never seen). As tired as I was, I found it all a rather fitting beginning to my journey and sat through my delirium to watch.
The next day, I woke up to some man chanting outside the window…as if it was some sort of religious chant. As it got closer, I peeked over the side of the rooftop terrace to discover it was a man with a push cart containing large bottles of water. It was then that I realized one of the words he was “chanting” was Agua. I had planned for the day to go to the Zona Hotelera, the hotel zone, which is the main draw for the Americans. I was not impressed…most of the beaches are owned by the respective hotels. the shopping areas are either full of vendors wanting to sell you everything or restaurants like TGI Fridays, Subway, and all your standard fast food places. I stayed long enough to take a dip in the beautiful bright blue water of the Carribean Sea and collect some sand that I think is still stuck to me (yeah – the sand here is different; it´s finer, whiter, much stickier, and almost kind of foamy). I started walking back toward where I came from and found a beach that looked like it catered mostly to tourists, but was full of locals. I grabbed a lounge chair and laid there for a while, staring over the calm blue sea.
The next day I packed up my bag (still not happy with the organization, it´s way too heavy, and poorly distributed), had the hostel store it, and went out to Chichén Itzá, an old Mayan city. On the bus out of town, I was quite surprised to see a Papa John’s and a Little Ceasars. Papa John’s was more surprising (I also saw an Office Depot on my way into town…huh). The ruins were quite impressive. In the center of the city, there’s the main temple, which I couldn’t walk up because of the Solstice (don’t really know why, but that’s what the sign said). It was quite hot out there. And humid. With no breeze. After a long day out there, I took the bus back to Cancun, picked up my pack and got on another bus to Playa del Carmen, another resort-type beach town (oh yeah, I’m living it up).
Tags: Mexico, Tag Index
Tania
September 26th, 2005 at 12:41 am
get your hands out of the toilet!
: )
September 26th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
ok. so tania didn’t really say that. when i left the comment from her laptop though it pretended it was tania.
wtf?