Vancouver to Mexico….on our way to the Yucatan Peninsula

November 8, 2023

Here we go again another adventure awaits as we will be visiting the Yucatan Peninsula for 2 months!

We are getting soft in our old age and decided to overnight in Vancouver before starting our journey…as some of you know shutting down a house seems to create an ever-expanding “to-do list”, so we established a self-imposed deadline so as not to start the trip in a feverish state.

A relaxed ferry ride to Vancouver, dinner at a Thai resto, and overnight at the Lonsdale Quay Hotel in North Vancouver.

November 9/10, 2023

The next day lunch with our daughter and then a long wait for our 22:30 flight to Toronto. It is a long travel “day” as we are flying from Vancouver to Toronto via a West Jet “red eye” flight, a 4-hour stopover at the Toronto airport, and then onwards to Cancun where if all goes well we should land at around 14:30.

The flight itself was rather crappy, sleeping in an aged 737 is so fun (not), anyways the next flight was great: a brand new 787  with that “new car smell” and friendly flight attendants, however, they only handed out pretzels and one small cookie each…luckily Ella (our daughter) had given us a goodie bag so we had some munchies on the way.

Arriving at Cancun International Airport it was smooth sailing passing through Immigration and Customs… luggage was super slow etc. but with the WIFI in the airport, we connected with our driver Christina who was waiting for us beyond the “taxi mafia”. The next fun part was running the gauntlet of excursion hawkers, timeshare sellers, and taxi drivers each clamouring to favour him or her (mostly him) with our business…actually they were fairly benign as we insisted we had a “friend” picking us up…..and there she was, so 30 minutes later we arrived at our AIRBNB in Cancun Centro and met Innes our host for the next 3 nights.

We were tired as overnight flights are not our forte but the unit is functional and after a shower and a bit of a rest we headed for the Guandalo Rooftop Bar for dinner/drinks and then back to the casa, hopefully, we would wake up tomorrow refreshed and gung ho!

Exhausted we fall asleep to the pounding beat of Mexican techno…hmm…little did we know !!!

November 11th

We are staying in Cancun for 3 nights to acclimatize and check out the beach scene. Breakfast at the AIRBNB as we picked a few items at the nearby Walmart Express.

Today the plan is for an easygoing day with the purchase of a SIM card being the top priority. OXXO (similar to 7Eleven) is the go-to place with a Telmex 30-day card with 6.5 GB of data setting us back 30 CAD > it’s nice to know that Canada has got to be just about the most expensive place on the planet for cell phone service. Next up walked over to the ADO Bus Station and bought tickets to Valladolid the next stop on our itinerary. Easy peasy, we were in and out of there in some 10 minutes…since we had accomplished our primary goals we made a command decision to walk back to the rental and then head out to the Hotel Zone and and Gaviota Azul Beach.

We are about a 5-minute walk to Kilometer Cero of Kukulickan Blvd the road that travels the length of  22 km Cancun island bordered by the Caribbean Sea and the Nichupté Lagoon. It is named after a primary Mayan deity, the feathered serpent – from the Mayan words kukul (bird) and can (snake). Kukulcan was the God of rain, wind, storms, and life and played a central role in the Mayan culture.

Buses run back and forth with numerous stops along the way …fare is 12 pesos (1.00 CAD)  per person, no worries about “missing the bus” as there is one coming along roughly every minute! The Hotel Zone as the name suggests is mostly about hotels with limited beach access. To get to the Gaviota Azul Beach one walks down a laneway between the Mandala Beach Club and another building…this is obviously party central and the evening scene must be pretty raucous…not really us. The beach is pretty nice albeit enclosed by high rises of one type or another…

It was HOT and we started to get grumpy so it was high time for tacos/enchiladas and rehydration at Marinero’s a local establishment…pretty good eats in a friendly atmosphere and although outside there was a nice breeze…so we felt pretty good after lunch.

Then back to Centro by bus, unfortunately, we made a small mistake (evidence that we are still in the acclimating process) and got off at the Marina, so a 2km walk back to Kilometer Cero, not an unpleasant walk on a well-kept bike path but sub-optimal in the heat. After a well-deserved nap and shower we walked to Calle Nader and had supper at the Woking Dead > asian fusion, different but quite good…click on images to enlarge

A quick walk back as it had started to rain…my new FITBIT told us we had walked over 18,000 steps so for sure a full day…sleep comes easily.

 

November 11th

We woke up to pouring rain, after it stopped I was elected to head out to pick up some breakfast items, on the way back the heavens opened up again, so I got a bonus shower! It looked pretty grim but we were not deterred and headed out to Defines Beach > a large, very well-kept public beach, with lovely white sand, an aquamarine sea, and numerous palapas where you could post up and even clean bathrooms and showers! It was a red flag day so very few folks were in the water but the waves were very pretty…we walked on the beach and then watched the mostly Mexican folks enjoying their Saturday at the beach…sure HOT though!

Although not particularly well visited there are Mayan ruins on Cancun island, since they were only a short walk away we figured why not…as readers of our posts know we are fond of visiting ancient ruins and part of the Yucatan trip is to visit a variety of ancient sites. First though a visit to the local Go-Mart (there are no restos at Delfines Beach) and we were in dire need of something to drink and eat …it is amazing how one sweats in this heat. No tacos here, but there was a Subway so a tuna footlong was in order with a large Coke not very local but when you have an itch you have to scratch it!!

The El Rey ruins are located near the southern end of the Cancún island and are thought to have been a royal retreat/playground. The site was originally used between 1250 to 1630.  Only a few people were visiting the site and it was an interesting contrast to the Hotel Zone… if you are wondering why so much water in the pics we did have a spot of rain during the night and early morning…

Another bus ride to get “home” this time we got off at the right stop although it was crammed with hotel and construction workers so I had to shout loudly “Kilometro Cero Por Favor”, to get the driver to stop…everyone graciously made way for the old gringos so they could exit get the bus.

A full and very pleasant day completed with a nice meal at SocioNaiz …no pics, nice walk back to the AIRBNB > tomorrow we are excited to go to Valladolid!!