Hola From Mexico

I never intended this to be a travel blog, besides some camping trips, but this has become part of my life now, so why not? I’ve always thought about travelling outside my comfort zone, Canada and basically Florida. It has taken three years since my diagnosis for me to travel this far and this way, not an all-inclusive trip, but to Air BNB it and live with the locals in Cancun. My goodness I’ve been missing out on a lot and it’s already one of my favourite spots (Country) and we just got here. It’s day three here in Mexico, really I guess only two full days and if any of you follow me on Facebook you’ll have seen some of the pictures I’ve posted already, so sorry you’ll have to see them again. lol. The flight and everything went well, were able to fly out of London, Ont. So another bonus it was a quick trip to the airport (thanks Rachelle) , I had arranged a pick-up from Cancun airport before arriving as I did my research and heard it can be kind of sketchy, but our driver was waiting (Happy Shuttle). It’s $40 USD, so kinda pricy, the other option was bus, but arriving at 9 p.m. we wanted to get to hotel quickly and haggling with a airport taxi driver wasn’t high on my priorities, so the shuttle it was. Oh and I should point out the sunset from the window seat was amazing.

Night one stay, interesting.

Our flight was moved up a day on us, that’s nothing new for discount airlines now-a-days, so I booked us a capsule at the Yellow Hotel. If you’re not claustrophobic it’s definitely worth the stay, it’s basically an upgraded hostel with a capsule to sleep in and communal washroom area with showers. The sleeping area is stacked capsules and deemed a quiet area, no shoes allowed. Tracy and I fit comfortably inside and I’m 6’3″ you have all the climate controls and a T.V., but you need to bring headphone jacks (pro-tip). It came with a locker that fit our big suitcase and backpack, breakfast was included and it was a real breakfast of eggs, waffles and fruit. It was a neat experience and I wouldn’t shy away from doing it again and at $70 CAN/night worth the money I think and I slept like a baby.

Starting the Real Experience

After checking out of the hotel we had to find our way to our second and final Air BNB stop, of course we had to stop at a Starbucks that was close by. There we met another traveller from London, Ontario and we decided to spilt a taxi ride to the area we were staying, in the Donceles area of Cancun. The building we are staying in has been fixed up and looks more modern, but most of the neighbourhood would look to most, rough. We arrived well before check-in so the three of us made our way down the street to grab some lunch, nothing like a white guy wheeling his luggage down the street. Now besides it being rough looking and unfortunately quite a bit of garbage, if you can look past that the buildings are lined with beautiful street art and very unique homes. A few blocks down the road we found a small eatery, which is basically a house turned restaurant and we were welcomed inside. This is where we got our first taste of Mexican hospitality, luckily she spoke decent English, as we found out a lot of people down here do. We had tacos, now I’m talking real authentic tacos here and they were absolutely delicious, she gave us some ideas of local shops and places to visit we chased our meals down with a couple cerveza’s and were on our way. Our new friend and us split ways and we headed to our loft that will be our home for twelve days. The rooftop pool was my first stop and gave me a great overall view of the area and the loft was was exactly as advertised. Downstairs is a Mexican boxing gym that I would have to go to while here, I have done a bit of boxing in the past and it’s part of Mexican culture and many great fighters have come from this country and that’s what I’m here for.

Thoughts and Feelings

Now I have much more to write about this trip, but I’ll stop with the matter of fact details before I bore my readers. When I was diagnosed with Cancer travel was one of the first things that popped in my head, but after a bit of a battle for a year to come to terms with my disease and the fact of being in and out of the hospital four times with bowel obstructions it has taken these three years to become comfortable with my health in order to venture to foreign lands. I don’t really count Florida as an adventure anymore. The idea behind this trip was to try and immerse myself into the Mexican culture as best we can for twelve days. What I have found in the first few days is what you read online is far from the truth. The people have all been very friendly, to use an example: our second day out we were heading back from a late lunch on Sunday, when we very close to our loft some neighbours were sitting on the side of the road having a few beers and waved us over. I figured we stop for maybe one and be on our way, even though there was a language barrier we managed to carry on a simple conversation. It was a family of three generations living together in a small home, with not much, but were very happy. Even with having little they shared beer, dinner and most importantly their time with us, complete strangers from a different country. This has sat with me now for a bit and most of us think we need more, more stuff, more money. I get that money runs the world and it’s so unfortunate that so few have it all and so many struggle just to feed themselves. I’m guilty about wanting and buying more than I need, but boy this has now made me really think what’s important. In this day and age of social “influencers” showing off all the money and over-priced “stuff ” they have, wouldn’t it be such a better world if we were just happy being generous and nice to one another, just like that family we were so fortunate to meet, on the side on the street. Nothing in common, except that we are just human. Much more to come on this. What a charming spot and I love a place that really makes me think how life could and should be.

This is a small sample of what you can see visiting the real parts of Cancun, it’s beautiful and so detailed, the pictures are good, taken by my wife. Still don’t really do them justice until you see them with your own eyes. If you like what you’ve read please consider subscribing, like, rate the post and leave me a comment. I’ll be sure to get back to you. Cheers, Steve.