I flew into Cancun for the final week of my trip, but considering that I wasn't an American teenager, I planned to leave as soon as possible. The airport was a bit of a nightmare with a huge wait in the customs queue and then the information desk told me I could get a bus to the centre of town for US$5, but when I got outside, there only seemed to be shuttles for $15. Here I was, thinking I was being super smart, and basically told the guy I thought he was trying to con me and I was off in search of the $5 bus. Turns out the $5 bus had stopped running for the day (what kind of information desk was this?) and I had to go back to the same guy and ask him if he'd take me for 120 pesos (about $10) as that was all I had in cash. I made it to a local hostel with a really friendly owner, and headed out to look for some Mexican food (first things first and all that). Amongst all the chain restaurants with Budweiser on tap, I stumbled on a really small Mexican canteen with the most amazing (and cheap) fish tacos. I chatted with a local who told me about the area, his daughters who lived overseas and bought me a bracelet from one of the street sellers. Then a young guy who was playing with the band came and sat with me to practice his English and invited me to go to a party with him. Already I had a good feeling about Mexico. I had a horrible night's sleep that night however, as the guy on the top bunk next to me was snoring for England. Literally. I think he may have won some sort of award.
The next morning I went to the bus station to get a bus to Merida. I had the choice of a cheap bus which took seven hours and had no toilet, or an expensive bus with a toilet that only took four hours. Guess which one I picked. When I arrived in Merida, I had trouble getting a taxi to the hostel as there was a carnavale on in the town and a lot of the streets were closed. After getting four different prices from four different drivers, I managed to negotiate a good price to get dropped off a block from the hostel - my Spanish was really coming along! The hostel was excellent, really well set up and I spent the next three days checking out the carnavale, eating way too much Mexican food, drinking rum with cool randoms from the hostel, reading in hammocks strung over the pool, and just generally having a relaxing time - starting to feel the wind down of my trip now. I made the mistake of checking the weather in London - COLD.
Merida is a really cool colonial town. It's a city really - it has the same population as my hometown, Wellington - but it had a small town feeling. It's based around a main town square and the locals are so friendly - many times as I was walking around, people would come and ask me where I wanted to go, or tell me where the supermarket was or what the name of the street I was on. The carnavale was interesting - it was at the same time as the Rio one, so it was like that with the parades and performers, but it was very commercialised - everything was sponsored by Sol or Corona and a lot of the MCs seemed to just get on stage and chant 'Corona, cerveza, Corona, cerveza' and the crowd went nuts when Coke threw free plastic cups to everyone.
After Merida, I signed up to do a tour of Chichen Itsa, the Mayan ruins. The tour was good value as it picked me up from the hostel, spent the day at Chichen Itsa and dropped me in Playa del Carmen, a beach resort town about an hour south of Cancun, where I planned to spend my last few days chilling out before flying to London. Chichen Itsa was pretty impressive. I was glad that you couldn't climb on the ruins anymore, like you used to be able to - it definitely made for better pictures, although it was really hard to get one without any people in it - typical tourist destination. But wow, those Mayans were smart cookies - way ahead of their time.
When I arrived in Playa del Carmen, I got a bicycle taxi to my hostel from the bus station and met a girl from the Gold Coast. We went out for frozen margaritas and she told me she thought my Spanish was really good - score. The hostel was really loud with a few weirdos and no proper communal area so I changed to a better one.....which had a Walmart across the road - awesome. I went to Tulum for the day to see more ruins - this spot is really beautiful as it's right by the ocean, so there's swaying palms and clear blue sea amongst all the crumbling buildings. I bought a really nice silver ring for under half what the guy was originally asking - I told him he was dreaming - I made nachos and went to Taco Mania, drunk lots of Coronas and margaritas, watched Avatar in 3D (amazing), and, even though the weather wasn't amazing, I managed a full day of sunning myself on the beach, getting a tan that would hardly see the light of day in London.
On my last night, I went out for dinner and met some American guys and ended up spending the evening with them. I was somewhat of a novelty to them I think, and they seemed genuinely amazed and impressed with all the travelling I had done on my own over the last few months and my lifestyle in general. And I have to say, I am really proud of myself for doing my trip the way I wanted to do it, and even though it was scary and lonely sometimes, I did it and had an absolutely incredible time - met great people, saw beautiful places and experienced so much. Of course I am sad it's all come to an end and it's back to real life, but at the same time, I'm looking forward to the next chapter of my life back in London.
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