Tulum, Puerto Morelos and Cancun

Some of you may (or may not) be wondering about the remainder of my weekend! Here is the tale:

After my MAGICAL moment in the garden next to the house, we went to find John-Curtiss a hotel. Unfortunately, he had arrived so late at night that I had no clue where to find a halfway decent one at that hour for a nice price. We ended up locating one for him in the centro. Being that poor John-Curtiss hardly knows any Spanish, I stayed long enough to make sure that he was settled down for the night… but not after him asking to switch rooms because he found some hair and a few rather questionable stains on the sheets!

The next morning, I swung by his hotel a half an hour before work to pick him up… with horchata (a Mexican drink made from rice and almonds) in tow. We slurped it down and walked to the office of the Diario, where I work. Unfortunately, due to recent threats to the paper as a result of the drug wars going on here, security was heightened, and they could not let John-Curtiss enter. We twiddled away the morning, shopping around in the centro. (I really think we may have stopped at every shoe store there looking for New Balance, but it appears that is not the thing here!)

We ate lunch at Mama’s house, so that John-Curtiss and Dave (Emily’s boyfriend with whom John-Curtiss arrived) could taste the fabulous wonder’s of Mama’s cooking! We poked around that afternoon, getting our stuff together and headed off to the ADO bus station that evening to grab a bus to Playa del Carmen… or Tulum, whichever struck my fancy when I saw the schedule ;) Unfortunately, travel plans never go according to plan (go figure) and we ended up missing the bus by about 20 minutes. The next bus wasn’t leaving for FIVE MORE HOURS!

I was put out for about a moment… and then remembered that I was currently hanging out with one of the most interesting and fun people on the face of God’s green earth. We headed across the street to one of my favorite restaurants in Merida. It is a quaint little place with orange walls, antique Mayan advertisiments, and TVs with telenovelas or old Mexican films running. John-Curtiss ordered some tamales and I got some papaya… and thus we passed five hours. Lame, right? But NO, it was not!!! It was actually one of my favorite memories from the entire trip! We also ended up shooting the breeze with a Mexican waiter there, who was VERY nice. Undeterred by his small Spanish vocabulary, John-Curtiss went above and beyond the call of duty to try to speak the language. I must say, John, you improved a great deal over the weekend… look how many things you learned!

Needless to say, we passed out on the bus, once we were FINALLY on it. It left at 11:30 at night, and for some reason, there were only three other people on it! This being the case, we had more than enough room to sprawl out and catch some Z’s. We ended up deciding to go to Tulum, and we rolled in around 3:30 in the morning. I found the nearest hotel and we crashed!

Next morning dawned beautiful! We went to get some breakfast and headed out to the ruins. Dave and Emily had come along by that time, so we spent the afternoon touring the ruins and the beach. John-Curtiss managed to spend about an hour telling me about the wonders of surfing, and then he found some snails on the rocks that we played with for a while. We named one very special snail “Moco,” which is the Spanish word for “booger.” Add that to your vocabulary of useful words!

I should not neglect to mention some of the crazy Europeans at the beach. My particular favorite was the bald 50-year-old man in a very tight speedo trying to surf on an air mattress. Each wave would throw him up into the air and sailing back to the beach with a painful smack into the water each time. He spent the better part of three hours doing this, and we wondered if he would ever really get the idea. My other favorite has to be the random European dude (in a speedo of course) drunkenly straddling a palm tree, giving his friends sleepy thumbs-up to indicate that he was… okay.

We went shopping! I don’t think I ever get tired of seeing all the things that pueblos like Tulum have to offer. John-Curtiss found some pretty steal deals as well (nice work, there!) After that followed ONE OF THE BEST meals I have had in Yucatan. John and I decided to split an order of tostadas and… well, suffice to say that an order from this restaurant is more like a mountain than a pile of food. I don’t think I have ever eaten so much. We didn’t stop there, though. Despite our distinct lack of salsa knowledge, we opted to get up and dance salsa right there in the restaurant (there was a salsa band there, I couldn’t help myself!) We had a fabulous time pretending to be amazing salsa dancers.

Sunday came all too soon! We got up and headed right for the airport. Because we were running a little early, we took a small detour to the pueblo of Puerto Morelos, a little-visited fishing village between Cancun and Playa del Carmen. I suspect the fate of Puerto Morales is the same as Cancun and Playa. That whole strip is doomed to become a Caribbean tourist trap! The water, with its various shades of cerulean, was the Caribbean at its loveliest. Of all the Caribbean I have seen, this water was the loveliest. We caught lunch and basked in the quiet of Puerto Morelos.

Then came the airport. That part was awful because I hate saying goodbye, especially when I REALLLLY don’t want to. I was hugging John-Curtiss goodbye at the terminal as he was right about to get onto the shuttle. A man inside shouted out: “Why don’t ya just take her with ya?!”

Thinking my weekend had come to a close, Emily and I hopped a bus to the centro in Cancun to then get ANOTHER bus to Merida… when my cell phone rang. “Emergency,” it said. John-Curtiss and Dave had gotten bumped from their flight and would not be able to leave Cancun until the following day. I won’t lie, I did a little happy dance right there on the bus. I mean, I was bummed that they had to wait and that they would have to miss school and I would have to miss work… but another 24 hours with John-Curtiss?!?!? TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!

After a furious hour or so of texting back and forth, sending directions and booking ANOTHER hotel, John-Curtiss and Dave came rolling on into the centro’s bus station. I was babysitting the luggage when I saw John-Curtiss come tearing in from the terminal at full speed, fuzzy green frog in tow. I had been worried that he would be stressed out, but I saw his face, and he looked like a little kid that just found out that he was going to have Christmas every day for a year!

After that weekend, I feel justified in my dislike for Cancun. THERE ARE MILLIONS OF AMERICANS. Everywhere. Being white, we definitely looked the part of vacationers, so taxi drivers asked us if we wanted a five minute ride… for 300 pesos. (To give you an idea, I would pay about 20 pesos in Merida for five minutes!) Ugh! Everything from food to housing to entertainment to shopping is astonishingly expensive. At the very least, I can say that I have been down the hotel strip and now I can officially say that it does not please me. I suppose if you had a LOAD of cash, then a lot of the entertainment would be cool (swimming with sharks, scuba diving, zip-lining, that sort of thing).

The nice thing was that I had entertainment of my own. Who needs the attractions of Cancun when you have this really cute boy that you like a whole awful lot and you get to spend time with him?!?!

We spent the evening wandering around Plaza La Isla, one of the bigger and more popular shopping centers there. John-Curtiss most enjoyed talking to the people that worked there, I think. We had a fabulous time. Following our shopping spree, we ate (for the million and fifth time) at the restarant near our hotel and checked out the gift shop. What we found there was at least an hour of entertainment… strange stuffed animals that sang and a hair gel with the oh-so-masculine name of “Ma Evans Hair Gel.” What the heck? That sounds more like a brand of pancake syrup than something you would want to put into your hair!

Two thumbs down for goodbyes. And this one was bad. Right after they got their boarding passes on Monday morning, they went running to board their flight. My last sight of John-Curtiss was him running away from me, saying: “Bye! Love you!” And Oscar, the giant furry frog strapped to his backpack was bouncing fluffily away.

All in all… a FABULOUS weekend!