Good afternoon folks,
I trust this post finds you all well and enjoying work *relatively small snigger*. I have just spent 5 days lounging around on Caribbean beaches, so I don't really have too much to report. I know, you hate me. It's okay, you're only human.
Before we got here though we had almost an entire day to waste in Piste. I was so awesome, we went for a run (in heat and humidity). We nearly died, and had to stop halfway to get some water. But, I felt a lot better. See Anna, I'm a little holy too!! Afterwards we dawdled, checked our email and had a nice lunch in a little cafe. I sat back and enjoyed the cool breeze, whilst Snuffy delighted himself in sticking a toothpick up his nose, and flipping it with his tongue to get it in his mouth. The end that was up his nose. I wish I was joking. I think the saddest thing was how pleased he was with himself. THAT WAS AWESOME! DID YOU SEE THAT! I'M GONNA DO THAT AGAIN! All (pause for effect) freaking (more pausing for effect) lunch. Sigh. Boys. What are you gonna do?
Thankfull the time came for us to take the bus to Cancun. We then quickly hussled over to the ferry to get to Isla Mujeres, away from the tack and chaos that is Cancun. I couldn't believe from the twenty minutes I was there how westernised and horribly over-glamourised it was. Bleh 3000.
Upon arriving into Isla Mujeres we walked across to our hotel amidst dozens of eager vendors and their wares. Although clearly a tourist destination, it's quite nice, and hey, I'm in the Caribbean dammit!! Our hotel is on the main street, Av. Hidalgo, and is lined with restaurants and souvenir shop after souvenir shop, with eager little Mexicans hawking their wares in quite good English.
Word on the little Mexican part - the indigineous Mexicans are so short it's not funny! I tower over them, which yes, I thoroughly enjoy. They are essentially the height of a dwarf, without actually being dwarves. Well, the women anyway. Crazy times.
So anyway, we really only did sightseeing on one day, the rest of the time we have;
- strolled around
- drank pina coladas
- swam in the Caribbean
- relaxed thoroughly
On our 'sightseeing' day we hired bikes (well, the hotel gave us a free day's bike hire) and rode the length of the island. It's roughly 8km long and not very far wide, about 700m?? Thin as, anyway. Mario, you will be proud: I was horrified at how low the seat was and I wasn't comfortable until Andrew adjusted it for me. AND I pedalled properly. Mostly. It did take a while to get used to riding though - not only do you ride on the right side of the road, which is weird enough, but you DON'T wear helmets. That freaked me out.
I soon forgot about the helmets as I was awed by the spectacular scenery as we cruised down to the southern part of the island. Our first stop was the sea turtle farm, where they are breeding sea turtles as part of a conservation program. There were many different tanks with different sized turtles in them, from tiny baby right up to huge mf turtles. It was just wonderful to watch them all swimming around, with their gorgeous patterned heads and shells, waving their flippers at you as they glide through the water.
Next stop was Playa Lancheros where we had a surprisingly expensive lunch and a 'swim' with a nurse shark. By swim, they mean standing in a pen with the owner and holding the shark. Nonetheless, it was awesome. Its skin was beautiful smooth and rough at the same time, almost like a smooth reptile, but different. My head keeps thinking some sort of metal fabric, but it was just an entirely different texture to what I've felt before.
We made it to the southern end of the island and looked out across the beautiful water. I think what defines Isla Mujeres for me (apart from the plethora of vendors and tourists), is the wonderful combination of colour. The houses and shops are again painted in a beautifully vivid (and somewhat less dilapidated) rainbow, and the beach stretches its yellow-white shore (speckled with lush green plants and palms) into azure water that gently laps at your toes. Its clear and waist deep for a good distance, metamorphosing from turquoise to aqua to cobalt blue to a deep ultramarine. In other words, it was really terrible having to swim in it. But I digress. We looked out at the interchanging water as it crashed up against the cliff, dodging our way through several iguanas (one particularly dominant one too) to do so.
By the time we got back to the northern end of the island, we were dripping with sweat. It was really annoying having to go for a swim to rinse off all the salt....wait a minute...(chickens don't live in the sea!)
In reality, each day has been full of hard decisions - where are we going to have dinner? What are we going to do? Go the beach AGAIN?? But we went there yesterday! Sigh. Fine. We'll go then. See if I care. What makes matters worse is that they have bars on the beaches, which means you are trapped into sitting on a swing and drinking pina coladas. Evil schemes, they are taking over the world, I tell ya!
The one mood-dampener on my time here is that a stupid crappy ass ATM ate my credit card. I just put it in and it stole it. Stupid automatic teller machine machine. Went through a big debacle (and more than a few tears) of finding out the bank automatically destroys them (nice one Mexico, because that makes sense) and having to cancel it and order a new one. On the bright side, Mastercard have been great and have organised to send it to me in Buenos Aires, when I get there in a couple of days. Thank you Mastercard, thank you.
So here I am, my last night in Mexico, and I'm not even out enjoying the 2 for 1 $4 cocktails. It's tragic, I know. But hey, I figure I'm going to Argentina where it's supposed to be even cheaper. Sigh. My life sucks.
Enjoy work suckers, I'll speak to you all when I hit Buenos Aires!! Peace out!!
Caribbean photos
