Easter week is one of the
longer school breaks here in
Madison. Faced with the usual scenario of putting two kids in full-time day care it sounded
like a good idea at the time to flee the upper Midwest and go roast in the
Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.
Besides, my wife had just returned from a week in a health spa in Mexico, so it was my turn!
What's good for the gander is good for the goose.
Granted, there was this small complication of taking the kids with me, but I figured a beach and a pool, along with some sun, some fresh sea food, and some Mayan ruins (that part would be for me!) should keep everybody happy.
We booked a direct flight out of Chicago, another advantage. No Mexico City airport. Mt. Popocatepetl could blow up and it wouldn't much affect our travel arrangements.
Since our flight was leaving early on the 7th we decided to head down in the car and spend the night at a hotel near O'Hare. That would be easier than getting the younguns up in the middle of the night and listening to them squabble interminably through the pre-dawn hours. Besides, it would leave time for the scab to heal on Carlos's hip from where he detached from his mother. As it was, on the car trip down there, when first leaving, he kept chanting "I can do this, I can do this" over and over. To his credit, once we left the city limits he was fine.
Assuming that American Airlines had overbooked the flight to unprecedented levels we arrived at the airport plenty early. Check-in only took half an hour, and AA revealed that contiguous seats actually were available. AA really lucked out on that one, I thought to myself! If we all had been seated in different rows god knows what kind of air rage those two could have incited in 3 1/2 hours.
AA actually boarded us on time and pulled off from the gate on time. This was some sort of cruel airlines trick, I thought to myself. About a hundred yards from the gate the plane stopped dead in its tracks for about 45 minutes. Planes slid by 2 to 4 per minute. This was more like my standard travel arrangement. I could relax now...
Some more standard travel news on the way down. The pilot kept warning us that he was going to try and avoid some tremendous storm brewing over Arkansas, and he was pretty sure that he could get us through it alive. Just to make sure he was going to keep the seat belt light on for the entire trip. As the bottom part of my eyes were turning dark yellow, about 10 minutes before our presumed landing, the seatbelt light went off. There was a mad scramble to get to the bathrooms...
On final approach we veered off for about twenty-five minutes to take a general tour of the Yucatan coastline, presumably to allow two huge fully loaded charter jets from Miami to land in front of us. When everyone else was safely landed the pilot lined it up and landed us, nicely done. We hurried on to get to customs, just like the 500-600 people who had preceded us by ten minutes. After about 20 minutes we made our way to the first of 12 "snake" lines each about 50 feet long in front of customs booths.
The Stewardess had announced on the way in that there was an airport tax due of $38/person. If you've read my previous story about South America you will know that I'm never going to be caught short of cash for the rest of my life. The only trick is to extract it without causing an international fashion incident. As we finally approached the customs counter, both kids were fearful that I would pull down my pants to my knees and pull out the cash right there at the counter. On top of the customs table, written clearly in Spanish, was a reminder to all the air passengers that the airport tax had already been collected on their ticket, and that we were NOT to give the customs agent any money. The kids relaxed for a moment after I translated, while I slowly removed my hand from my belt....
The baggage inspection consisted of a button and a stop light. You punch the button. If it's green you grab your bags and run for it. If it's red, well, they grab you... It was green! We sauntered through the next to the last barrier to the beginning our vacation.
Being the sophisticated traveler that I am, I went to the very first bus agency I saw to get passage to our hotel. They quickly crammed us into a van with other arriving passengers, all of which had a hotel reservation somewhere in the greater Cancun area, which is roughly the size of Rhode Island from what we could tell from our semi air-conditioned seats in the back of the van. Our hotel, the Holiday Inn, was downtown. After about seventy-five minutes of cruising the hotel zone they had everybody dropped off all but us and an Australian who was mildly amused by the our family act. Carlos, at each hotel, had asked "is that ours?" Sorry kid, we're headed for the low-rent district downtown!
The Holiday Inn
turned out to be very nice. It's a renovated
church. The main lobby is four stories high and has plenty of room to wander
around in. The
courtyard was spacious and clean, the pool large. It even had a bar with pool
seats, which the kids thought a great idea... The gift shop was lined from one
end to the other with candy, sun screen, chintzy souvenirs, cool drinks and other necessities.
We have lunch at the hotel. I chatted a bit with the waiters. One of them said he was saving up enough money for a plane ticket to the US. Apparently building up a huge resort complex and staffing it with people situated 1,500 miles from the border was not quite enough to entirely prevent emigration. The waiter said he heard that people in the United States were actually paid $6 an hour, not $6 a day.
With our afternoon swim out of the way, plans were being made for dinner. The kids had spotted the Hard Rock Cafe on the way in and were determined to eat there. I was making statements through clenched teeth like "I didn't come to Mexico to eat a hamburger and fries." With no firm destination in mind we headed for the hotel zone in a cab, after I had agreed that Rocio could get her hair done in rows right after dinner. I considered this a win-win situation, or at least as close as I usually get.
There was a spray paint artist working on the sidewalk, spraying and wiping some pretty fantastic scenes together. Some of the stuff was quite interesting, and there was a big crowd around him. We watched for about 15 minutes.
I noticed the Rainforest Cafe next to Hard Rock. Since I had all the money it was an easy choice. The Cafe was not quite as animated as the one in Chicago, but it did serve decent pizza, which is one of three things that Carlos eats (the other two are strawberry milk and spaghetti). I had the first of the several bad margaritas that I would consume on the trip.
Afterwards we wandered out among the drunken college students looking to find somebody to braid Rocio's hair. It took about a minute and a half to find someone. We found a very Mayan-looking lady. Over the next forty-five minutes Rocio was asking me all these questions in English about her hair and the lady patiently answered her in English.
There was a really loud and raucous bar next door. We watched college students stagger out and fall down and then be picked up by their friends. The college kids were here to party. More than half the girls already had the same sort of "do" that Rocio was working on. Lots of squeezing and patting was going on, noticed the 54-year-old father of two small children.
On the cab ride back we drove by MTV's headquarters in Cancun, with Fat Tuesday's next door. Having seen the place on television, this impressed the bejesus out of the kids. Once we were back it also inspired them to watch rock videos on cable TV for a couple of hours while their father got some much-needed rest.
April 8, Isla Mujeres
Breakfast at the hotel was excellent. There was an abundance of fruits, juices, eggs, beans, and meats, along with cereal, milk, and rolls for the kids. It helped me on my way to the 1 pound a day I gained on the trip!
After an early swim we headed out from Puerto Juarez on the express ferry towards Isla Mujeres. We chose seats inside the ferry cabin, next to a window, in the back. About 30 seconds into the trip Carlos announced that he was getting ready to hurl, but was able to make it to the island without incident.
Isla
was a funky, laid-back little town loaded with the same junk as Cancun, but more
mellow and less expensive. We found a nice little bar where I ate some excellent
conch ceviche (raw fish). Carlos had his traditional pizza. They were both deep into Fanta
orange drink at this point.
It looked like fun to rent a golf cart and putter around the island. We found one pretty easily and then took off toward the far end of the island until we hit a nature preserve on the very tip of the island. That was where tolerance ended. Rocio started whining about not having bought anything yet. Carlos was ready to return to Cancun. With a heavy sigh I did a "K" turn and headed back along the main road.
On the express ferry back to Puerto Juarez the kids decided that they want to sit on the railing in the front of the boat. Pointing out to them that there were certain advantages of having just me along I let them sit up there hanging onto the rail. This seemed like fun until we hit about 15 miles an hour and the boat was jumping up and down like a huge frog. I had visions of one of them falling off and then being ground to fish bait as the ferry ran over them. This was enough to get me off the bench and standing next to them. I was the exception to the rule on this. There was another family watching their 3-year-old calmly sitting there by herself bouncing up and down on the front of the boat!
Isla Mujeres had been beastly hot. We were all anxious to get back to the hotel and get in the pool. The sun could not reach the pool by 4:00, which was another good thing, because we were all beginning to look a little lobstered. Rocio had her first real sunburn of her life. I reached into my pants pocket and found the key to the golf cart that we rode! Four months later it was on its way home.
Maybe just a little consciousness of the risk of riding on the rail of the boat had surfaced. The kids were playing "rescue" in the pool for over an hour...
April 9th, Cancun to Playa del Carmen
While the kids swam in the morning I worked on getting us a room reservation for our last day of the trip. I had no luck whatsoever, except for $300 rooms in a city that I had grown to dislike. I was getting tired of the hassling from the vendors everywhere we went. I decided to take our chances in Playa del Carmen for the final day.
Later in the trip a cab driver explained it all to me. This was the last week for all the salespeople in Cancun until the tourists returned in November. They all worked on commission. So these were the last potential customers they would see for several months and some of them were getting pretty desperate to make a sale. Most of what I saw for sale were junky trinkets at two to three times their cost if I had bought them in Madison. Very few people I saw were buying much either.
I mentioned to the concierge that we were on our way to the station to catch a bus for Playa del Carmen. He suggested that he could get us an air-conditioned taxi for about $25 for three of us, and that we could leave any time. Goodbye bus!
We passed a taxi checkout stand on the way out of town. According to the driver they are expected to report back within three days or face a fine. This gave me no end of comfort. I was hoping this was local cabbie humor...
There were advertising signs on the way down the size of the side of a mid-sized house, propped up on poles about 30 feet above the ground. I wondered how many of the signs were still intact after a decent hurricane. Maybe businesses rented them from one hurricane season to the next, and they got the advertising free if the sign survived the weather. Or maybe the weather just cleaned them off automatically.
We also saw a large construction effort to bury cable beneath the ground for protection from the elements. All this speculation was a fancy way of saying that we had the air conditioning in the car cranked to the max for the hour-long trip, and that the kids listened to their CD players all the way down to Playa without parental intervention... There were an impressive number of concrete factories along the four lane divided highway down the coast. There also seemed to be a corresponding brand-new resort every mile or so along the way.
Just North of Playa del Carmen we turned into a run-down dirt village and after a little cruising around spotted the sign to las Palapas resort. As the road steadily dipped toward one gigantic mud hole I began to hear whining in the back seat. Rocio gave me her extra special "are you crazy?" look. Carlos simply moaned. Mommy had warned him about this sort of stuff. Then as we neared the resort the road reappeared as we neared the resort entrance. The receptionist was a European who spoke a variety of languages in the short time we were there. On the way to our room we were greeted by a large resident contingent of grackles, merrily whistling away in the trees.
The
grounds fit my dream of a jungle village, as long as an army of
workers are in constant vigilance to keep the place in tip-top condition.
The concrete paths were about six inches above ground, to keep crawling critters, ants, and probably downpours from our tourist feet. The best part was that the shade, vegetation and sea breeze kept the resort area about 10 to 15 degrees cooler than the surrounding area.
A maya hen (gallinola) was wandering around the grounds. They are native to the Yucatan. A staff worker said this one was fifty years old. By and large he just walked around looking for his next meal or a surprise treat. When he did get inspired he made some sort of chirping sound that almost sounded like a machine gun going off.. |
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If he did get aroused by something he would simply fly up into a tree, which he was quite capable of doing. |
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Our little palapa was in a group of six residences, two stories high. Each place comes with two handy hammocks, a mid-sized room, a hot-water bathroom with a shower and an excellent air conditioner. Our place was the one at the bottom right of the picture. The beds were Mexican-firm and the room was neat. The vegetation outside the porch was luxurious. There were no phones or TVs in the room, freeing us at least of those distractions. This was a different kind of jungle from Cancun and confirmed my initial thought that booking our last day in Playa and then racing to the airport would be the best plan. If I had known the airport was midway between the two cities we might have come here immediately! I ran, not walked, back to the reception area and booked the room.
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The
kids wanted to jump into their bathing suits and head for the beach. This
sounded good to me. Although the beach wasn't empty there was plenty enough room
for everyone.
Rocio spotted the first topless bather, which sent her into a whoop and the woman back into her bikini top. About all I could do at this point, besides try not to verify the spotting, was to mention to the kids that the place was loaded with French and Germans, and that they'd better get used to it without screaming each time they came across a semi-naked person.
After
about an hour I had more than enough sun. I retreated to the beachfront bar
just in time for double-bubble. The couple across from me was
having caipirinhas (My favorite drink It has Brazilian rum and crushed lime with
ice.) which looked somewhat better than my margaritas, but I was not
complaining about sitting on the beach with two margaritas in front of me. I
could be walking around in my coat, hat, and gloves under gray skies in Madison.
The kids were busy rolling around in the sand while I was lingering over my adult beverages. The white object on the bottom right represents my hat, which at this point I dared not take off. If you've been to the Yucatan over Easter holiday you'll understand. This is not your basic Northern United States sun if you catch my drift...
It's back to the room to figure out how to get all that sand off them. After his full-body rinse Carlos had his first diarrhea attack. He was anxious to get back to the beach that he quickly took his medicine (much to my amazement) and was beachward bound. The two then proceeded to build a sand castle until a couple of adults strolled right through it without even looking down.
Carlos went out into the surf one more time. He was playing about forty feet from the shoreline. Somehow the 3-foot waves turned into 4-foot waves. We started shouting and waved him in. He held up his arm. We waved again. He kept his arm up. I sent Rocio out to fetch him. He seemed planted to one spot, and he was being jolted by each new wave, not getting any closer to the shore. As soon as he got in he turned on us: "Don't you know the kindergarten hand signal for help? You raise your arm!" He'd had his beach scare and from this point on would not return to the ocean...
Dinner was the ubiquitous Yucatan buffet. By far the best offering were the seafood empanadas. Carlos was still tasting sand and refused to eat anything except the $1.50 ice cream bars from the gift shop. |
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Night had fallen. There were no mosquitoes. Just the grackles whistling away. Both kids were swinging away in the hammocks. Rocio, who had noticed the gift shop just across from our cabin, began one of her relentless campaigns to buy something, anything from the gift shop. We had looked in there briefly before, and was full of little artsy dolls and crafts that might appeal to the Europeans and maybe a few stray Americans. Rocio, sensing opportunity, held me up for an ankle bracelet. The flash going off on the camera totally startled, Jorge, the manager, who was standing nearby, and briefly raised his hopes. Rain was not expected for months. |
Carlos claimed to see a raccoon outside our cabin, which may well have been a white-faced coati. At least I hoped so. In our neighborhood at home raccoons are the dominant species along with maple tree seedlings.
We were all pretty much worn out. Rocio announced that she got a bed to herself. Carlos announced that he had to sleep with somebody. I announced that I no longer cared and fell into bed.
The original plan for the day was to head for Xcaret, the Mayan Disneyland. It was hard to get anybody moving in the morning, including yours truly..
We spent some time in the club house, which had both a ping pong and and a pool table in good condition, as well as games and books. The pool table was the first attraction, followed closely by playing some chess games.
A new contingent of Germans had arrived. We headed for the swimming pool, just steps from the beach, where an 11-year-old boy was cavorting naked next to a topless mom. The pool kept the kids entertained. Carlos declared that he preferred the pool to the ocean. The staff were hacking away at coconuts for the afternoon drink attraction, coco loco.
It was approaching noon, and we were getting hungry. I herded the kids into a taxi for the mile-long ride to Playa del Carmen. First order of business was to find a pizza place before Carlos starved to death. We found a quiet thatched-roof restaurant recommended in our guidebook for Italian food, and persuaded the staff that of our food crisis and that we really needed a pizza for Carlos. Over the firewood oven they fixed up a couple for the kids, along with Fanta, the required drink.
After lunch Rocio
pulled out her list of her fourteen best
friends and was ready for some serious shopping. Playa is a mid-sized city with a
boardwalk, and we discovered there are some nice shops in town along with the
usual t-shirts ("I'm shy but I have a huge dick" didn't seem to be
selling well anywhere on the peninsula...), clay figurines,
bead jewelry, etc., etc., etc. El Huipil, run by an American, was a nice tasteful
shop.
There were no trees, nor fountains, nor public facilities along the boardwalk. We went to an ice cream shop and to buy some delicious Mexican ice cream. They didn't have a restroom that they would let us use. They suggested the local boarding house across from us. Before we even get near we get chased out of there. Finally we found a hotel with a nice man who would let Carlos go to the bathroom.
Late afternoon found us back in the swimming pool with the semi-naked Europeans, taking a cool, refreshing swim.
I had passed by the guest meeting area for a couple of days without stopping. It was time to take a look. Ninety percent of the travel information inside was in German. The more expensive and elaborate trips were highlighted in great detail, including such goodies as an uninhabited island further out than Cozumel.
Xcaret is about 6 miles south of Playa. We got off a little later than intended, just after 8:30.
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We passed through an aviary on the way in. Then, with plenty of time to burn, we walked around and eventually ended up on the beach. By the time we got to the dolphin reservation counter (cash only!) the first available time for "the experience" was 11:50. That pretty much planned the morning. |
In this picture Rocio and Carlos were trying to catch little tropical fish with their bare hands! Further on down the beach, while waiting for our turn we watched some of the adult dolphin swimming sessions, which included a type of dolphin surfing.
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 Eventually it was the kids' turn with the
dolphins. Rocio
and Carlos were in the first of two groups of 20. For the first 15 minutes or so they
watched a film about the scientific nature of the dolphin habitat (yeah right!).
Then after some initial instructions they were ready to climb into the lagoon
where the dolphins were kept. The kids said the water was really, really cold
when they first climbed in. |
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 At first they just petted the dolphins and had them playfully circle them. This
seemed to be fun for both species. |
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 Then they had everybody link arms and then the five dolphins in
their group jumped about ten feet in the air as they rose over the swimmers. The
dolphins did this twice. It was really surprising how fast they could swim and how
high they could jump. I've been to a few Sea Worlds before, but there was something
more personal watching these huge aquatic mammals jump over my children! |
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By this time we had ALL had enough sun. Even the tops of my feet were burned! I was really regretting not buying that $21 bottle of suntan lotion when I had the chance! I thought we had been so clever to put off the sun-drenched trip to Xcaret until our fourth day, and here we were all looking beet red and dehydrated besides.
I
was rapidly moving the kids toward the cafeteria when we came across the
afternoon entertainment, the Totonacs. On the odd chance that you haven't seen
them, here's a brief summary. 1. They are from Vera Cruz. 2. They wear very
colorful red and white outfits. 3. They are good at climbing 60-foot poles and
then dancing on top of them. 4. They wind their ropes around a spindle at
the top while dancing, then they corkscrew to the ground, head-first. 5. Just
when their act gets really exciting they pull up on their ropes and land on
their feet! 6. In a departure from usual practices, Xcaret had provided some
shade from which we can take in the performance!
After the touchdown we got up and headed toward the cafeteria at a dead run. Just like the little tugboat: "do or die." We found something to eat and drink as well as ice cream. Looks like we made it on time.
I felt cooled off enough to go buy the video of our kids' morning performance with the dolphins. To my later delight, I actually did buy the right tape!
After dinner the kids were determined to play some pool at the club house. There were three American kids who had just arrived earlier that day. Since arrival they had never been seen to move more than five feet from the table (except to briefly chase the gallinola); the prospects were not good. So we played chess. Both Carlos and Rocio were berating me about my cruelty as a chess player. When they played each other they were equal, which was far preferable.
Eventually it was time to head back to the cabin for some serious hammock time and then to bed. I discovered that I had my first case of jungle rot along with the sunburn from the day's activities. Time to go to bed and heal!
Today was planned as the major shopping day of the trip. We loaded up on gifts at El Huipil, who was having a spring closeout prior to everybody going home for the next five months. The stuff was so nice that even I enjoyed the shopping!
Lunch
was at Senor Frog's. It was like T.G.I. Friday's on steroids. There was a waitress
with major cleavage running around with a whistle and a shot glass enticing people to chug shots of
pink tequila. There was a cruise ship parked outside, and most of the cruise
people (mainly in their fifties) were getting completely potted at the frog. Some
fifty-something woman was doing this sort of bump and grind dance with the waiters.
The head waiter sang a love song (Sandy) to my daughter. The staff grabbed one of the
waiters and threw him into the surf. A dog jumped in with the waiter just for
kicks. They served pizza.
I had fish cooked flaming in tequila. The kids loved it! To
this day it is their gold standard in casual dining! We also acquired some 3-foot high plastic cups that to this day are
still the bane of our existence. Can't seem to lose them and certainly can't get rid of
them.
Back to the resort. There was an American woman staying at Las Palapas who was wearing a bandage that covered her nose. The presumption was that she had a nose job and preferred to work on the healing process in Mexico rather than at home. While at the pool, observing the local custom she started peeling off her top. Carlos swam over to inform me of it. He comforted me: "Don't worry dad. They're not very big..." Thanks, Carlos! The woman, noticing way too much English at the pool, decided to cover up.
Dinner at Las Palapas was on the beach. There was a bit of wind. Otherwise the weather was perfect. It had cooled down considerably. The bad news was that we were seated with 4 childless couples from Berlin. Carlos and Rocio were making pig noises and gestures while they ate their barbecue and spaghetti; it was not missed by our European tablemates. Only one of the couples spoke to us in English. I understood enough German to know how impressed they were to see my children pasta and pork in Playa del Carmen. One of the women, who looked like she might some day be interested in having her own children, actually smiled at some point and chatted with us...
As a capper for the night, Carlos fell out of his hammock and landed on his head. For a couple of hours he spoke gibberish, after going "blind" for a short while. He couldn't remember our names, and made up some new ones. At this stage a normal parent would be highly concerned, perhaps running him in to the nearest hospital in Cancun to check for a concussion. But on the other hand he was alarmingly close to his normal self as far as I could tell... Nights with the Glass family generally yields something along these lines.
Carlos was himself upon waking. He laughed a little bit too quickly when we told him all the crazy things he said last night.
The kids had spilled a considerable amount of Fanta on the floor last night in those 3-foot high cups that they insisted on getting at Senor Frog's. After a brief lecture about cleaning up sticky messes in the tropics, they sulked off together. When they came back I received a nice little letter of apology from Rocio.
Today
was
my big trip. Jorge negotiated an all-day trip for
500 pesos. The cab driver was very friendly, and offered to stop anywhere we would
like along the way. He did not, however, have air conditioning.
Tulum was not nearly as spectacular nor as restored as Uxmal, but was nevertheless of interest, with a panorama view of the ocean and a coral reef in shallow waters just offshore from "the castle." Also, the friezes of the descending god, the founder of Tulum, were of interest. Imagine that. An early visitor who arrived from the sky about 1100 years ago!
We hired a private guide who hustled us in front of 17 busloads of Italians headed in from yet another cruise shop docked nearby! As hot and dry as it was at the ruins, we were grateful. He fed some camelia flowers to a rather large iguana nearby, which the kids found interesting. We also learned the name of mockingbird in Spanish, "cien voces." That translates as "100 voices" which is a tad kinder than English. Right at the top of the cliff he pointedly asked us if we enjoyed the tour, and asks us for the $30, which is exactly what he got for 45 minutes. Call me selfish. When I see those waiter in Cancun making $6 a day I get a little weird on this tipping business. "Life is not fair." - Jimmy Carter.
There was a substantial market attached to the ruins. The prices, and merchants, were less fevered than their city rivals. I got my standard patient, conversational-level Spanish-speaking discount on the resulting purchases.
We also
had another, more intimate
view of the Totonacs from Vera Cruz, this one much closer than the one from
Xcaret.
Our driver gave us a rolling tour of PlayaCar resort on the way back, with its guard houses, private homes, and five luxury-class hotels. It was opulent, and had the feel of most gated communities.
We pass Moro's Crab House coming out of Playacar. Without kids it looked like a place where I could have taken most of my meals! Call me crabby, in extremis! Worth a visit perhaps for a return trip...
Jorge
arranged for our same driver to take us to the airport at Cancun. To say the airport was a little
crowded was an understatement. There may or may not have been air conditioning.
Maybe they just turn it on for arrival days.
Much to my expectations, our flight was postponed minute by minute until we were about two and a half hours late getting out. This gave us one last opportunity to shop in the duty-free shops.
A nice practical gift for our friends, I decided, would be some chocolates with tequila inside. It beat cherries by a long shot! And once consumed it's gone. I briefly toyed with the idea of eating them all myself when I got back. But that would be wrong....I spent our last pesos at the candy/liquor store. Talk had turned to their friends back home, to mommy, and to sleeping in their own bedrooms again.