Tacos n Tequila

Today I want to tell you all about my experience in Mexico over Memorial Day weekend this year! We stayed in Cancun for 5 days and visited parts of the city and the Yucatan peninsula. Overall, it was a mostly awesome experience, but I will give you guys some tips in case you're planning a Mexico destination trip in the future. So let me start from the beginning...

Day 1:

Our flight from Florida to Cancun was interrupted by a 3 hour layover in Mexico City. And all I've got to say is THIS WAS THE WORST AIRPORT I'VE EVER BEEN TO IN MY LIFE. I mean that guys, and I've been to a LOT of airports. So I would highly recommend avoiding this airport at all possible costs if ever traveling to Mexico. Let me try to wrap up my experience here in a nutshell (which as you can see is not at all a nutshell):

1. We land with 3 hours until our next flight. Since we just entered a new country we have to go through customs, meaning we have to fill out customs paperwork. There are no pens...ANYWHERE. We ask every single airport employee for a pen without success (yes, part of the blame is on us for being international travelers and not having a single pen on us, but come on...be accommodating). When we finally find one, it requires us to leave the line we've been in to fill out paperwork. To not lose our spots, Anson and I take turns running out of line to fill everything out (leaving us about 2 minutes each to complete paperwork).

2. We get to the front of the line and Anson missed filling out one question (ONE) on immigration forms (what hotel we are staying at). Instead of offering him the pen that was sitting right in front of her, the lady makes us leave the line to get a pen and then start back from the beginning. Ridiculous, but whatever... we still have 2.5 hours until our flight.

3. We get through customs and have to re-check our bag for our new flight. I had a carry on size bag but Anson had a large luggage bag that held our big bottles of toiletries and his pocket knife, so necessary to check. Mind you, there's no English on any of the signs. At least in America, all of our signs offer at least 3 languages to assist international travelers. In addition, 99% of the airport employees do not speak any English as well, also a problem we don't have so much in America's airport workers (as most speak multiple languages).

4. We find where we need to check our bags. The line is only about 3 turns long (maybe 50 people?), which in America would be all of 20 minutes. We wait in that line for 2 HOURS. During this time, I am texting my friend who also had a layover in Mexico City and was on our same connecting flight...already at the gate. She had been informing people at our gate for 2 hours that we were stuck in a long line and that we were in fact present for the flight. Anson kept leaving the line to try to get assistance from other workers as to how we could check our bag faster and ensure we made our flight on time. Instead, he was confronted by rude workers shouting, "NO ENGLISH! NO ENGLISH!" in his face before turning their backs to him.

5. After no success of making our wait line go faster, we finally get to the front (about 30 minutes prior to our flight's departure). The first thing the lady said to us was, "I can't check your bag, the flight is closed for baggage at this point." This was the first time in the whole 2.5 hours that I became truly frustrated. So, I asked what we were supposed to do. She explained we needed to go to security, take both bags through security and try to check it at the gate. This meant we would have to throw away about $100 worth of product that would not make it through security. Whatever...it needed to be done.

6. So we RUN over to security and are stopped by two workers saying we can't go through with our bags. My growing frustration comes out as I exclaim that we were directed here. These workers then tell us we have to go BACK to the bag checking line because we would need to be escorted through.

7. So in my now LIVID state, I storm back over to baggage check and march right up to the front of the line. I was NOT about to wait another 2 hours in line to talk to someone when I had just been there. Trust me, I got a lot of evil looks from those waiting in line as they watched me cut straight to the front. I did my time, and was not having that shit.

8. Here, I found a man that actually spoke halfway decent English. I explained that our flight was about to leave in 20 minutes (we were actually past the original departure time but the flight, to our advantage, was delayed 30 minutes) and we needed to be escorted through security in order to make it. He was actually really nice and did the most he could to be helpful (shout out to that man!). So, he takes us back over to the security entrance, but we still can't go through because apparently the two workers there (that I mentioned previously) had to make a whole bunch of walkie-talkie calls to who knows who in order to allow us to get to the security line. Mister nice man kept telling us we were going to have to run as soon as we get through (like yeah I'm all over that). After about 8-10 minutes of waiting, we were allowed to get up to the security line.

9. Guys, this is where it gets worse. Can you even believe it?! We get up to security and start throwing all of our stuff on the line. They can tell we are super rushed because I am literally shaking and moving non-stop. So then they must have thought it would be super cute to mess with us. The guy controlling the conveyor line thought it would be comical to let my bag enter the x-ray area, then stop it and back it out.... 6 TIMES, to be exact. Telling me, "Oh, there's a phone!" "Oh, there's a camera!" "Oh there's something else!" After a game of teeter-totter, my bag finally gets through.

10. Anson's bag is next up and we're taking all the big bottles of toiletries out as well as his pocket knife to throw away. What does the guy do as we are about to throw it in the trash? He goes, "No, no, in the basket." He takes my bag of toiletries and throws it in the bucket then takes Anson's pocket knife and literally HIDES it in under his laptop case in the bucket. I was so confused. My brain was obviously scattered so I start thinking, "maybe they have different laws at Mexico airports that allow you to take knives through security?" I had no idea what was going on but anyway we sent everything through the line.

11. Then big surprise! We get stopped as Anson's stuff goes through. The SAME GUY that hid Anson's knife under his laptop case, pulls it out, starts waving it around, laughing, "You can't take this through!" ARE YOU #$%@ING SERIOUS?!!? Then he starts playing with the knife and showing people making a complete mockery of us. He takes the knife and all of our toiletries and throws them away. After about 10 minutes in that stupid security line, we grab our stuff and bolt to our gate.

12. What happens when we get to our gate? "Flight's closed." We have been telling these people for 2.5 hours that we were here trying to get through, people were making calls saying to hold the flight, my friend was at the gate trying to send us help, and with the plane STILL OUTSIDE, "Flight's closed." They wouldn't let us on, and when I asked what we should do... "You have to go back to the beginning." Guys, at this point I literally thought I was going to get sent to a Mexican prison and never return home. I never lose my cool but this was the most testing experience of my LIFE. Side note: My friend who was on the plane proceeded to text me for the next 45 minutes before the plane actually departed to Cancun. 45 minutes that could have allowed us time to still make that flight, but no one would allow that.

13. So, back to square one. We go back to the original check-in desk to try to get on a new flight. There's only 4 people in front of us, yet it still took us another 2 HOURS to get to the front. I don't know what it is with Mexico City Airport workers, but they are the most slow-paced people in the world. During this time, Anson and I have convinced ourselves that if we still wanted to go to Cancun, we were going to have to buy 2 more plane tickets (which would have cost us another $800 or more), which meant we were probably just going to go back home. We were also fully convinced we weren't going to be able to leave the country and would need to find a way to the U.S. Embassy. It was that bad guys, we thought we were the newest citizens of Mexico.

14. Once we got to the front, I swear God thought "these two have been through enough tonight" and sent us this angel of a man who turned everything around for us. For one, he spoke excellent English, and for two, he was in an extremely pleasant mood for it being 2:30 in the morning. It was as simple as, "Okay you've got the last two seats on the next flight going out to Cancun at 6am." I almost cried and leaped across the table to hug him.

15. From here, we made sure to check our bags with this nice gentleman and go straight through security (a DIFFERENT security check-point, mind you) to prevent any further delays. We went straight to our gate and spent the next few hours until our flight drinking our prior frustrations away. This was a terrible airport experience, and will forever make me grateful for the help provided at American airports. Let this be a warning to you all, NEVER TRAVEL TO THE MEXICO CITY AIRPORT.

Now, on to the rest of the trip... also known as the part that didn't almost send me to prison.

Day 2:

We arrived in Cancun around 8AM, where my friend (who we were supposed to be on the flight with) was waiting for us. We took a cab to our villa (which we reserved on Airbnb) and got set up for the week. Our villa had 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, 2 living rooms and a pool. It was huge, big enough to easily fit 16-20 people, even though we only had 7. It was also just across the street from a beach access point. It was a great snatch for the unbelievably cheap price.

Only 4 of us had arrived, so we decided to take the city bus (which was only 10 pesos a person...about 50 cents) to a beach bar where we went about our lives indulging in margaritas and mojitos as we waited for our other friends to arrive. We also wallowed in some Mexican cuisine. Anson got some local lobster which pretty much went like his lobster indulging experience in Punta Cana (read my blog post "Mamajuana Makes My Heart Sing" to learn more). After a good number of mojitos, we went swimming at the beach right out front of the restaurant. The water in Cancun was gorgeous. Pure aqua blue. I couldn't get enough of it. Later when we got word that our other friends had touched down and were headed to the villa, we decided to catch another bus back.

Bad thing is, we got on the wrong bus (this just wasn't our day). Instead of getting on a bus headed south to take us back toward our villa, we got on the northward bus that took us into the real Cancun. And let me tell you, real Cancun is not as glamorous as tourist Cancun. I kid you not, we spent about an hour and a half on the bus, continuously convincing ourselves that at any time it was going to swing back around to the hotel strip. So if we just stayed put we would get where we needed to go eventually. Plus, we didn't want to get off in the middle of inner-city Cancun to try to switch buses when we had no idea where we were. Welp, what we anticipated was incorrect. Everyone on the bus had cleared off and we were suddenly stopped on the side of the road somewhere when the bus driver exclaimed, "last stop!" We were forced to get off. The bus driver told us another bus may come by later that could bring us back to the hotel zone. Oh thanks, that's promising.

After about 15 minutes of sitting there looking lost and confused, the bus driver (who never left but simply got off to have a smoke and socialize with some people) got back on the bus to leave. He somewhat reluctantly told us we could get back on, after paying him more money of course. 45 minutes later, we were back in the hotel zone and nearing our villa. Needless to say, we paid close attention to the buses we got on the rest of the trip.

We spent the rest of the day with friends, doing beachy stuff and exploring the area. We found a local supermarket where we could pick up food for the weekend so that we didn't have to eat out for every meal (a key tip to saving money on vacation--see my post "7 ways to travel cheaply" for more tips). Seeing as tomorrow would be an early day, we spent the night as a "vacation family" in our villa, conversing and playing drinking games, enjoying each other's company.

Day 3:

On the third day of our vacation (Friday), we woke up around 6:30AM. Not ideal for a vacation, but we had an amazing day planned ahead of us. What did we have up our sleeve you ask? WHALE SHARKING!!! Yes, today was the day that we were heeding a once in a lifetime experience. We were going on an 8 hour excursion far out at sea to find and swim with wild whale sharks. And by far out at sea, I mean...far. I was a little concerned at the distance separated between us and land, but nevertheless I would have never taken back this experience.

Unfortunately, our Mexican bad luck continued on for some of us on this excursion. There had been a bad storm at sea the night before our trip, so the waters were really rough that day. As a result, over half the people on our boat got sea sick. We had lots of people with their head hung over the side of the boat. I also got queasy, but was determined to make the most of this experience. Besides, the moment I jumped in the water, the sickness went away and I was geared up for everything the sea had to offer me.

Believe it or not, there's a trick to swimming with whale sharks. The nice men on the boat did their best to explain to us the "rules" with lots of hand motions and extremely broken English. When we saw a whale shark swimming near our boat, the goal was to jump out in front of them (I know, not something you would think is acceptable to do when dealing with a gigantic animal) and start swimming along side them. I can not express how terrifyingly awesome this whole experience was, and I am SO HAPPY that I did it! Whale sharks are beautiful, gentle creatures and surprisingly super slow swimmers...so I did a decent job of keeping up with them (until I had a minor heart attack that I was getting too far from the boat and into major shark territory and had to slow down).

After an exhausting morning of being one with the largest fish on earth, we headed to Isla Mujeres to enjoy their beaches and have a relaxing afternoon. Overall it was a great day, minus all the puking and sea sickness amongst my friends (won't mention any names) but I highly encourage anyone to heed the opportunity to swim with whale sharks if ever presented with it. They are only found seasonally in certain parts of the world so if you actually find you're lucky enough to have that opportunity...take it!!

Day 4:

Saturday was just a relaxing day overall. We spent a lot of time at the beach and indulged in a lot of tequila. You'd be astounded how many tequila shops they have down there. Realistically, I think they're just your normal liquor store. But they're filled 95% with different kinds of tequila and then you may be lucky enough to find a bottle of vodka or whiskey.

We went to a local restaurant just down the street from our villa and had THE best tacos of my life. They really know what they're doing in Mexico... Taco Bell has no game. Also, the gigantic sized margaritas that you get in the states that range you anywhere from $10-$20, were like $3 in Mexico. $3!! Do you realize how many $3 margaritas I can afford?? I won't give you a head count.

That night we decided to venture to "downtown" Cancun to check out the nightlife. It was crazy. Basically a miniature Vegas (though still doesn't touch Vegas). We went to a few bars and did our best to deny all the tequila shots that the drunk Mexican call girls tried forcing on us. I highly recommend for any future travelers heading to this area to visit Coco Bongo, as they aren't just your regular bar. They put on live shows throughout the night and is one of the most popular clubs in the area. Unfortunately, we didn't plan accordingly enough and didn't actually experience this for ourselves... but it sure looked amazing from the outside!

Day 5:

Sunday was a long, eventful day. We got up at 6:30AM again (maybe we weren't doing vacation right??) and got on a bus that took us on a 2 hour bus ride to the Yucatan peninsula. Once there, we went to the Mayan ruins and got to meet some of the Mayan people still left in the area. We saw where they lived and got to experience a small portion of what their daily life was like through a tour of their village and a look at the local shops. They also prepared a lunch for us and danced.

Afterwards, we headed to Chichen Itza, which is one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. Our tour guide filled is in on the history of Chichen Itza as well as the Mayan people. It was awesome to be in a place I had learned about in history class growing up and learning new things about the Mayans I never knew before. This is definitely a must-do attraction for anyone traveling to the area.

After this, we headed to a popular cenote to go swimming in a cave. This was more than necessary since it was like 100 degrees out and we were sweating like crazy from walking around Chichen Itza all day. The cave was gorgeous and had natural spring water that filtered itself every day through underground vessels. It was also 150 foot deep... scary, I know. There were cute little fishies swimming around inside too. You had the option of just entering and casually swimming in the cenote, or climbing a stairway and free jumping into it from about 30 feet up. Naturally, you know which approach I took. It was a gorgeous, fun and unique experience!! Loved every minute of it.

We spent the rest of the day with friends drinking margaritas (are you really surprised at this point?).

Day 6:

Monday was the last day of our trip and mostly just a travel day back home. It was an awesome weekend filled with friends, new experiences, wonders of the world, whale sharks and tequila. Despite the trouble we had the first couple days, it was definitely worth the trip and I'm glad I can cross it off my bucket list. Not too sure I'll be headed back to Mexico anytime soon, though. lol

#travel #traveling #cancun #mexico #tacos #tequila #caribbean #margaritas #beach #summer #vacation