Part 6.1 Stressful times.. not!

Holllaaaaaa que padre!?

Phiuw, quite a lot has happened since last blog update, I hope that I can still remember the most important things that have happened!

Cancion (y video) del dia

I’ll separate this update again in two parts. The first part is about our trip to Cancun, in the east coast of Mexico, during the Mexican independence week. The next part will be about my last week here in Guadalajara. Because of the pressure from numerous fan posts, the long anticipated topic on climate and Spanish accents will be finally released with the second part!


Quintana Roo y Yucatan 14.-22.9.

BUUUYYYAAH.

That was our feelings, when we arrived to school on Tuesday with our luggage. Our plane left at 2.35 pm from the airport situated about an hour away from the school, so we could still go to the class from 10-11.15. The whole thing going first to school for one hour and from there leave the airport was of course inconvenient, but with these falta regulations… what can you do. Well anyway after Spanish class we were supposed to leave at 11, but there happened to be a fire alarm practice at the same time, so we had to walk this stupid detour guided by the guards with all of our luggage.. Nevertheless we could leave pretty quickly after the episode and arrived to the airport with much spare time to spend in Burger King, where the other group of guys also arrived a bit later on.

Our traveling group consisted, besides me, of guys from Holland and Switzerland and girls from Britain and Finland. The rest of us were prepared with all together about 8-10kg of luggage, whereas the British girl had a 19kg luggage besides the hand luggage and she got a bit into trouble when checking in the overweighed bag. Well it worked out finally, but still.. women.

State of Quintana Roo

We were going to head straight to Isla de Mujeres and not stay in Cancun because we heard that it’s only good for partying and there’s not really much to see. Well we didn’t experience Cancun ourselves, but at least Isla de Mujeres with its colorful streets, small shops, Caribbean style bars and restaurants seemed really interesting!

Typical house in Isla de mujeres

Our hostel there was called Poc – Na which Samuel “The tourist guide” had found in lonely planet. It had a really good location, for costing 120 pesos (or 8 euro), with a good beach in the backyard and in addition the atmosphere was really chill there so we really loved it!

Hostel wall painting

Our backyard in Poc-Na

Our first night there was mostly just to chilling in a restaurant nearby and walking the streets nearby. The food in the restaurant was delicious, but we could immediately spot the effect of tourism in double priced menu and some extra drinks appearing in our bill. After the restaurant we went to the beach party in the beach bar of our hostel and had a good party there!

On the next day we went to the nearest beach. We wanted to do some snorkeling and for that we bought some cheap ones in the nearest shop. They turned out to be really shitty and it would have been practically the same experience without them.. I got really mad and wanted to buy some good ones, which we found, surprisingly enough, in a snorkeling/diving shop. The other one lasted for about 5.5 seconds, our Swiss dropped the snorkel in the floor when received the box and the glass broke into a thousand pieces. Time to practice some negotiation skills! After blaming each other for 15 minutes we got to a decision to buy a new pair for half price, so it worked out pretty well.

The afternoon was cloudy and we didn’t do too much things but just get to know the city and visit a turtle farm with also some other animals.

Sea horse

Mini-turtle

On Wednesday evening there was the Mexican independence party. Others went to party in Cancun with also some other guys from our school, but we decided to stay in the island with Samuel the Swiss, because we reserved a trip to go snorkeling with whale sharks on next morning at 8 am. The season for them was just ending and we didn’t want to miss the chance of seeing them. We still went out in the island and there was a really big and crowded Mexican fiesta in the town square with a performance stage. It was really nice to see grandmas and children celebrating in the same time in that scale, although the reason they are celebrating is strongly criticized. I think I’ve mentioned it already before, but Mexico has many problems and especially the political situation is in pretty bad condition with all the corruption problems etc. We saw a really good movie earlier in the week considering this subject: El Infierno. It illustrates excessively the current situation in Mexico but with a lot of humor and sarcasm. Five stars!

We had to wake up at a bit over six in the morning, but I woke already at 5.45, because our friends called us from Cancun. Our British girl was missing, which wasn’t the best possible news when thinking about the place and timing. Well, we decided to still go to our trip, because there wasn’t too much that we could do anyway and we would be back at 2-3 pm.

The swimming with whale sharks went good, but Samuel got seasick from the waves and it rained also a bit in the end. For me it was really good, I even bought an underwater camera for it and managed to take some pretty good shots of that huge animal. I have still to develop the pictures; hopefully I can add them here thereafter!

When we went back to our hostel, the others were in the hostel seeming really worried. There still wasn’t any news from her and they couldn’t have reached her since last night. Finally at 4 pm one of us received a call from a Mexican house that she was in. They had taken her for the night when they saw that she was lost and pretty drunk. I think we got pretty lucky there and it could really have ended worse, hopefully she learns something from that.

Anyway, we were supposed to leave to Tulum in that day, but this episode kind of ruined it and we had to stay another night in the Hostel. The afternoon of that day didn’t go too well for me, my friend’s water bottle opened in the same bag that my cell phone was in. After noticing the things I tried to use the phone, but the screen just stayed black and it started to get really hot! There was nothing you could do, so I just left the phone in my room (explosion-safe distance away from any bed) and went fishing to calm myself down. Luckily my camera, which was also in the same bag, wasn’t affected by the water. The next day we left early in the morning to Tulum, a small town that was located a 2.5 hour bus ride away from Cancun. Advised by other travelers, we ended up to hostel called Zazil-Kin, where we could sleep in beach huts about 50 away from the beach. It place was really beautiful, some pics of the huts and the beach shown below.

Huts of Zazil - Kin

Backyard beach in Tulum

We enjoyed the beautiful beach the rest of the day and headed to the town in the night to see some other friends from Guadalajara in a salsa bar.

On Friday, after enjoying the morning beach, we visited the Maya ruins in Tulum as a preparation for the bigger ruins in Zhitzen-Itza. The location of the ruins was just beautiful and it was more about admiring the scenery. Pics included:

Ugh

Ruins or a beach?

Small ruins in Tulum

After the ruins the other guys wanted to go to see another ruin in Coba. Some of us thought that two ruins are enough for this trip, so we went to a cool cenote near Tulum to do some cave snorkeling. Actually, because of some hassle, the guys didn’t have time to go to Coba in that day, so they just went to drink beers in the beach while we were swimming with the fishes, turtles and bats in a beautiful and clear fresh water cave.

Cenote

After the snorkeling we bought some beers for us in the huts and later on had a really chill time playing some card games.

Next day on Saturday we were supposed to go to Playa del Carmen in the morning, but the guys the guys wanted to see Coba and they came to Playa del Carmen later on. We others went, Girlspeed, earlier to Playa del Carmen and did some shopping and just got to know the city. It rained like 10 times during the day, which suited good for shopping (but not walking in the streets between shops). Playa Del Carmen was pretty different from the earlier places, the amount of tourists just quadrupled and everything was priced in dollars instead of pesos, in addition usually with a shitty exchange rate to pesos. Nevertheless there were much to see in the city and overall I liked it! In the night we went partying in the local clubs, ungtsaka ungtsaka buum buum buum.

Sunday was about chilling out in Playa Del Carmen. In the evening we had the biggest setback of the trip: After 5 pm selling alcohol was prohibited because of some reason. However, as cunning as we were, we went to the right store (the smallest street store) where we could buy some beers (totally overpriced). It was the funniest time I’ve had buying beer: the other guy in the store went to the street to look for police and looking innocent as he can, while the other guy grabs beers from the fridge as fast as he can, probably shitting in his pants while doing it. Then the guy grabbing the beer wraps the beers first in a newspaper and then to a black plastic bag and having a look like he would be dealing drugs. We paid him happily and walked proud back to hostel. All the travelers in the hostel admired our beer and we were the official agents to provide information about illegal alcohol that night. Samuel and Geert the Dutch prepared some spaghetti for us and we played some card games up till late in the night.

The next morning on Monday we (5 of us) rented The car

Designed for five people?

..and drove to Zhitzen-Itza. We left at about 11 and the drive was approximately 3.5 hours, so we arrived about 2.30 pm to the ruins. On the road to Zhitzen Itza we had the first experience of corrupted police. They were standing in the side of a road construction and they stopped us accusing that one of us didn’t wear a seatbelt. Obviously that was not true and when we looked around, we saw that all the cars that were stopped were miraculously driven by non-Mexican people. Well, we were tough and kept on arguing that we all had our seatbelts on. The police took my driver’s license and went off to talk with his buddies. He came back in a minute and said that we can continue, so Buuyah, mission accomplished! The most funny thing about that episode was that our friend Samuel was sitting on the front seat and when the police stopped us, Samuel started to blame himself by shouting: “Oh shit! I knew I shouldn’t have kept my sunglasses on! Why did I wear sunglasses when I knew police was there!?” The rest of us were afterwards laughing so bad for that and his reaction, it became a common joke for the rest of the trip and still going strong!

It was filled with tourists, especially during these days, because of the special occasion that happens twice a year. In the days near to equinox you are able to see the shade of Kukulkán, a Mayan god that was in a shape of a snake. You are able to see it only during these days, going downhill the stairs of the main pyramid and ending to the snake head on the bottom of the pyramid. A good picture of this phenomenon can be seen here.

This proves the Mayan skill in mathematics and astrology and it is one considered to be one of the seven new wonders of the world. It was really impressing, and in addition to the main pyramid there was also a big ancient ball game arena, temples and smaller pyramids. We didn't get to see the shade of snake in its best form, because some clouds came in front of the sun in that time! Some pics below:

Me and Geert in front of the main pyramid in Zhitzen - Itza

Ball game arena in Zhitzen - Itza

The other guys left already on Tuesday morning back to Guadalajara, whereas I and the girls stayed there for one more day. We saw some announcements of skydiving and decided to go for it! The scenery was beautiful for doing it and the price wasn’t too bad, about 180 euros. Well, next day when we arrived to the place we found out that the plane is fixed in Miami at the moment and we couldn’t do it. We were pretty disappointed of course, because the weather was really good and we really basically just handing in our money. Afterwards we decided to go snorkeling in Cozumel, an island near Playa Del Carmen. The snorkeling was also cool and we saw many cool corals and fish there. The most awesome experience for me there was to swim through a swarm of fishes with a number of thousands! The island itself was also really pretty.

Street view in Cozumel

In the evening we prepared ourselves for the trip back home and went to eat some Chinese food. It was pretty good, but I just made me miss all the delicious food that I ate last summer in Taiwan... yammy!

All in all, despite the setbacks it was an awesome trip!! Even though we could have seen more things, our gang was really cool and we just enjoyed the company of each other the whole time.

This was the first part of this update. I'll try to write the rest tomorrow, see ya!