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Cancun for Christmas 2008
In the industry I'm in, I don't have high expectations for time off on holidays. As such, we usually don't make plans to be anywhere, and 2008 was no exception. By some stroke of luck, we both ended up with some time off, so we started deciding what to do for the holiday. We started with the cities that had direct service from Charlotte, then narrowed down the ones that we'd already been to or didn't care to go to. The short list included San Juan, the Bahamas, and Cancun. The loads looked good for Cancun, so we figured we'd give it a try.As is usually the case, we had a list of hotels to try, and once we got our seat assignments, we started booking. The winner was the Gran Melia, and here it is:
The property has 5 pyramid shaped buildings that are situated on a north-south line that is parallel to the coastline. The tops of the buildings are open and each one has an atrium in the middle full of plants.
We arrived in the afternoon and set out to do some exploring. By the time we were in our room and ready to head out, it was around 5:00pm and things were winding down. We walked out to the pool and to the beach, and ate at the hotel's sushi restaurant. The hotel staff helped us come up with a game plan for the next day, which was to head north to Isla de Mulheres for some snorkeling. We started out with breakfast from the oxxo across the street, which was much cheaper than the restaurant.
We left the hotel and walked out to the main road to catch a bus. It was very inexpensive and we enjoyed the ride north through all of the hotels on the strip. One american couple got on the bus and told the driver that they wanted to go to McDonalds. We got quite a chuckle out of this, since it was just so silly that they would live up to a stereotype so well. The driver stopped a little while later and told them that it was their stop, but there was no McDonalds in sight. A few minutes and half a mile or so later, we finally saw the McDonalds. We suspected that the driver must have been wanting to make a point about his dislike for the couple by dumping them out so far from where they were going. As we continued along, we saw the part of town that isn't built for the tourists, and it was about what we would have expected. Before long the driver told us that we were at our stop, and that the pier we were looking for was just down the road. After a mile or so of walking down that road, we realized that he had done the same thing to us that he had done to the other couple.
This is where our understanding of the Mexican people in Cancun began to clear up. To sum it up for those of you who haven't been, if you are in a situation where a native doesn't feel like it will jeopardize his chances of getting your money, he will lie, cheat, mislead, obscure the truth, or otherwise do whatever he can to minimize the cost and effort required to make you go away and leave him alone. This was especially the case when we were dealing on "commercial" norms (situations of buying goods or services) instead of "social" norms (situations of visiting with someone as a peer). In fact, in the few cases where we were able to interract on social norms, the impression was quite the opposite. I'll elaborate more on both later. The only exception to this experience was with the hotel staff, but that is probably because they have been trained to act otherwise.
Once we finally got to the port, we purchased a disposable camera and some snacks for the short wait and boat ride. It was about an hour of waiting and maybe 15 minutes of boating. In the first picture below, you can see what's left of the line.
Our hotel concierge had told us that there would be several snorkel boat operators ready to take us on a trip, and he was right. One asked us if we wanted to snorkel, and we listened to his pitch. He took us over to the map and pointed to our location, then said "You snorkel here for one hour," then pointed to another reef and said "You snorkel here for one hour," then pointed to the other spot and said "You eat lunch here, and then come back." "How many people to a boat?" we ask. "Six minimum, eight maximum," he says. The cost was in line with what the hotel guy had told us to pay, so we agreed. We were the first ones in the boat. Then, our crew of three loaded on 12 others who were going with us. So much for that 8 person maximum. The crew spoke pretty good english, which was nice.
We put the camera in a dry place and got out our snorkelling stuff. When we got to the first spot on the map that the salesman had pointed to, we all got out and put on our stuff. We floated for about 20 minutes with the current in water that was about 12 feet deep. The visibility was good, and while there was hardly any coral, there were plenty of fish. This was mostly thanks to the boat crew's feeding them as we went. The fish were colorful and plentiful, and weren't shy about being a few inches away from us. After 20 minutes of snorkeling, they drove the boat over to the eating area. The first picture below is the area. The second is the "get in and pet a shark" area, which we passed on. The third picture is of Marblesita, a name which is of course derived from our own Marbles (who lives outside with glee). She was one of several cats that helped keep the floor clean, and if you have met our Marbles, you would see some similarity. In the last picture you can see all of the different boats.
It took us a while to realize what was going on. The way it works is that the boat crew has to actually make the food for the passengers that they bring in. The big building has lots of people sitting down and eating, and drinks are purchased from a central bar. The food is served by the crew, but it took us a little while to figure that out. Everyone from our boat sat together, and this was the short experience that we had with "social norms" and Mexican natives. I should mention that all of the other passengers on our boat were Mexicans. One young couple was on a honeymoon, and we talked with them some. Their english was much better than our spanish, but we were still able to communicate some. They offered us some of their lime flavored peanuts, which were amazingly good. They were so good in fact that we subsequently purchased some to take home. Everyone seemed friendly, helpful, and ready to share. You can see the food below. It was a seasoned fish, noodles, something like cabbage/cole slaw, lime, and tortillas. We had all that we wanted to eat, and there was no excuse for leaving hungry. This was the best meal that we had in our entire visit to Mexico, at least in my opinion.
After lunch we went back to the boat and found that the crew had cleaned up a bit. There was still a long line for the "pet a shark" area and we didn't mind skipping it. The sun was getting low and it was a nice ride back to the pier.
The little disposable camera didn't do so well as it got darker, and having my finger in front of the lens didn't help either.
We caught a bus right at the port, just about where the last one should have dropped us off. We got back to the hotel and were glad to have a shower and some clean and dry clothes. We noticed that the hotel room was pretty warm during the day, since it was at the top of the pyramid. The air conditioning could barely keep up, and it was December! I would definitely not want to have that room in the summer. We suspected that they probably reserve that room for people who pay via priceline, as we did. After looking over the choices for restaurants within the hotel, we decided on the Japanese again. The only problem was that the live music that night was just a single lady singing to recorded music. She wasn't very good, and the speakers were so loud that there was no escaping the sound of her voice. We asked around and learned that she was going to be stopping at 10, so we waited as late as we could before we sat down to eat. This minimized our exposure, which helped keep us from going crazy. We did get a good laugh out of the whole situation though. What fun would travel be without the occasional inconvenience? The light show in the ceiling was fun to watch, though the pictures below don't really do it justice.
Our flight left the next afternoon, so we had some time to explore the grounds again. Tabitha wanted to wade in the water, though it wasn't a very friendly beach. It was nice to look at, but the ground was rocky and the waves were strong.
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