Friday 4 September 2009

The unwritten blog posts

I was supposed to blog about Campeche itself, the bus ride, the deserted beach, the unbearable heat, the games of pool played next to a smelly toilet with a door that wouldn't close and no lights. The Monkey Hostel we stayed in and the silly Pirate Hostel that we didn't.

We liked Merida, I should have blogged it too. About the market, the hats and the shirts and the pretty colonial buildings. How it felt like Spain, like Murcia. The crazy hotel full of art and swimming pools totally deserves mention on the Internet.

Hey, Internet, tell backpackers that the Trinidad Galleria in Merida is really quite nice - it is cheaper than the Trinidad mentioned in Lonely Planet and it has art and a pool and nice staff!

I should also have blogged about the day trip from Merida to Comitan, to ride a boat, a boat!

Instead of getting on the boat, we just saw an iguana and tropical rain, rode two very odd taxis, and had a surprise afternoon on a beach that wasn't deserted for a change... and then we haggled our way onto a much better, cheaper boat tour to see the flamingos and swim with the crocodiles after all. We failed to fail our day-trip and had a perfect day by accident. That is totally blog-worthy, right?

And of course I should also have blogged about Chichen Itza, the Mayan ruins we visited just so we could say we had, and then loved in spite of ourselves. About how we were glad we followed our guide-books' advice and showed up very late, and then very early the next day, avoiding the throngs of holidaymakers taking their mandatory cultural day-trip from Cancun. I should have spiced it up by bashfully telling the world how our Spanish wasn't quite good enough to explain to the taxi driver, on our way from the ruins, that we had already eaten in the restaurant he was recommending to us.

Finally, I should tell the story about how once we finally reached Isla Mujeres, our planned luxury vacation from our vacation, my hotel scouting skills totally failed me. How, tired and frustrated, for a joke I decided to ask about the prices for a room on 'Nautibeach', a place with a name that just has to be a pun and such an idyllic view that it couldn't possibly fit within our budget. Turns out it hit the sweet spot - more expensive than the places we didn't like, but much cheaper than the shiny luxury hotels so obviously out of our league. We didn't just get a room - for 85 USD per night, we have for the past 9 days enjoyed having a whole apartment, air conditioning, breakfast, an amazing view and a beach combed to perfection every night by people who are almost certainly underpaid. It's going to be hard to leave.

But I guess we've just been too busy living our trip to blog about those things. We took lots of pictures though, you should totally check them out.

Now it's really too late. After much food and more tequila, Ewelina is asleep on the couch and I should be dizzily dragging her to bed. In a few short hours we fly away, finally leaving Mexico and heading for the continent we left Europe to explore. Ewelina is off to Cuba, I will wait for her in Colombia. We don't really know anything about our destinations, except history lessons and what we read in borrowed guide-books at the Poc-na hostel here on Isla. We'll figure things out.

I just hope we wake up early enough tomorrow to rent one of those silly golf-carts people drive around the island, it would be a shame to not try one.

1 comment:

The past!