11: Cancun, Isla Mujeres

The next day, we woke up automatically at 6.30am. This was highly annoying. Throughout the entire trip we'd been waking up early to catch early morning buses. But that day was Jan 1st. According to the guy at the tourist booth, no one wakes up till noon because they've all been drinking and partying all night.

By seven we had given up trying to sleep. In the kitchen, we find Oscar busily preparing breakfast. He makes us a bowl of papaya, granola and honey. He's really enthusiastic about the papaya, and is a strong advocate of its great intestinal medicinal effects. I'm not sure about its health benefits, but papaya with honey is a great combination. On par with bananas with
honey. Hm. I'm beginning to see a trend here. Maybe it's not the fruit at all. Maybe it's just the honey.......

Our plan for the day was to go to Isla Mujeres, 20mins ferry ride from Cancun. On normal days, Oscar can sell us an all-inclusive package for USD28 that includes swimming with sharks, watching turtles, lunch, bike rentals and open bar. However on Jan 1st no tours are running, so we had to take the do-it-yourself option.

We take a ferry over. Once we step off the dock there are people trying to sell us snorkel trips, golf cart rentals, etc. We decided that we didn't wanna do the typical tourist stuff, we just wanted to explore the island. So we turn right and walked resolutely southwards.

1hr later, we realise that we've made a bad decision. There was no one else walking, we were in the middle of a residential district, the sun was really hot, and we really had no idea why we were on this island. Part of this was my fault, because I somehow managed to lose the guidebook in Flores. We watch other tourists zip by on their golf carts, enroute to places unknown, which apparently are extremely far away by foot.

We see some sort of beach resort, so we go in. hm. nothing much. a short stretch of beach. We didn't bring beach stuff. We had come expecting to explore caves, because the Slovenian girl we met in Tulum mentioned that there were caves. So we had brought a flashlight and water, but no beach stuff. We finally give up and flag down a taxi. "Where do you wanna go?" asks the taxi driver. We shrug helplessly. "We don't know. Where do people go? Are there caves?"

It takes us 5 mins in the taxi to reach the southernmost tip of the island. We get off. It was extremely anticlimatic. We'd been walking for 90mins on this never-ending island and once we get in a taxi it's barely 5mins before we completely run out of island. wtf.

We hang out on the tip of the island. The sea is very pretty. It's the most amazing shade of blue. Postcard perfect. We sit under this thatched roof shelter and drink from a fresh coconut. We watch other tourists come and go. They arrive by bicycle or golf cart. No one is walking.

We walk along the coast. We see many iguanas sunning themselves. [there were iguanas at the Tulum ruins too!] We also see nice houses.

We get back to the road and wonder how we're gonna get back to the dock. I tell Charmaine that we shd hitchhike. we flag down the next golf cart we see. There are 2 mexican boys in it. "Where are you going?" they ask.

"The dock? ferry terminal?"

They make welcoming gestures and indicated that they could give us a ride.

yay! We clamber to the back of their golf cart. They offered us some coconut. We demurred.

They try to make conversation. I answer the best I can in Spanish. They are really friendly, and I wish I understood more. too bad. They drop us off at the terminal. It took us less than 15mins to get back. I now know for certain that walking is a terrible and time consuming mode of transportation. Golf carts are far superior.

On the ferry back we overhear conversations between an American family. They discussed their day swimming with the dolphins, and the trophy pictures they had to show for it. I thought about all the walking we did, our coconut, and our gallant golfcart knights-in-hawaiian-shirts.

From the port we had to walk back to the hotel (1hr) because the buses weren't running, and the minivans were full. Somehow this doesn't seem like an auspicious start to the New Year. But on our way back we buy a pineapple popsicle. We decide that both Guatemala and Mexico have good frozen popsicles.

Back in the hostel, people ask us how our day went. We mumble something evasive about how blue the sea was. and how much we like coconuts.

The next day we wake up, had our breakfast papaya, checked email, took a bus to the airport. We had a lot of fun, but I was happy to be going home. I really needed bubble tea and instant noodles.