Journey to the Yucatán

The worst day of an international vacation for me is always always day one. Or, day one and two, for the really far off places. We flew only from Portland to Cancún, so I thought it would not be the usual tough travel. But it was as challenging as any other day one because we had awakened to a 3:30 am alarm, were traveling with the kids, which was new for all of us, and traveling into a muggy, steamy, jungle (the temperature all week was in the 80s (25-30 C) with 80-90% humidity, which made everyone cranky.

Even that would not have been terrible, except that we had some hiccups on arrival. Three of us were relying on Pedro to be our de facto guide in Mexico, his home country. But Pedro had only ever flown to his local airport and been met by family. This was his first time in Mexico as strictly as tourist, flying in to an extremely touristy airport: Cancún. It was his first time in Mexico being absolutely bombarded with people trying to sell him something (in this case, a taxi ride), and he was totally caught off guard. For those of you who have experienced this, you know that it can be stressful and anxiety-inducing.

The first thing we did was go to an ATM to get cash (all the while, Taxi solicitors hollering), and the ATM took his card but did not release any cash. After 5 minutes of panic, thinking we had been robbed, we discovered that the ATM was simply out of money and had not charged Pedro’s card. Then we panicked because the taxi drivers will only accept cash and we had none: only US dollars. Eventually a loud taxi solicitor (two feet away) got through to our brains to say that US dollars would be ok, and in a desperate ploy to get away from there, Pedro paid the man what he asked for, without having the peace required to think through the purchase. And that was the robbery – $40 for a 7 minute ride to a hotel right on the edge of the airport. But afterwards, decided it was worth the redonkulous taxi price to just get away from the melee. That’s how they get you.

We were starving and left Andre in the air conditioned hotel room (he simply couldn’t face the prospect of going into the heat again) while Liam, Pedro, and I walked to the closest restaurant about half a mile away. It might have been a nicer walk, but Tropical Storm Idalia had only barely left the peninsula and streets were a wreck, with sidewalks and pavement torn up and in chaotic, muddy piles and huge mud puddles that we had to step around. The restaurant was lovely, clean, and cool. The service was excellent and the food was outstanding. It made us feel so much better. We got a meal to go for Andre and walked back to the hotel through the muddy streets, stopping at an ATM to get cash for the next day.

The next morning we took a taxi (for $11) back to the airport to rent a car. It was busy and it took us a full hour to get waited on. I had been expecting Pedro to drive because it’s his country of birth, but to be helpful I had made the car reservation a month earlier. Now that we were here, I was told that since the car was in my name, I would be driving it and no one else. *sigh* We crammed all our luggage in, pulled up the AirBnb address into the phone GPS, and off we went. Oh! One cool thing: our ATT phone plan worked perfectly in Mexico, with no additional charges.

I drove the car everywhere for the next four days on the Yucatán peninsula. The yikes-I’m-driving-in-Mexico jitters subsided in an hour, and from then on I was pretty relaxed about driving. Thank goodness. The car was easy to drive. That is, when it was working. It kept randomly not starting, or not locking – or worse: not unlocking.

Once we figured out the best way to jam paper into the key mechanism to make the battery work, and I learned Mexican highway signs and traffic etiquette, and we had stopped at a market to load up on snacks and drinks and were well on our way to the center of the peninsula, Andre said, “It feels like our vacation finally started.”

When we arrived in Valladolid, we couldn’t find our rental. This is where GPS took us:

But then we double-checked the AirBnb listing and they said this would happen. They told us what to put into the GPS instead, and then we found the right place.

Things were pretty awesome from there on out. Our AirBnb was outstanding.

Inside was clean and the kids had a separate room from us, which was nice. They turned on the TV right away which struck me as weird, but it was their comfort zone when the past 24 hours had been new and scary. The cool thing is, the twins know a lot of Spanish, so they watched everything in Spanish during our entire trip.

Pedro and I had chosen a rental in a neighborhood not too close to the center of town because we wanted it to be quiet at night. I particularly loved this because when we walked to the town center, we saw real life: real neighbors, kids and dogs and people going about their normal business. This is one of the number one joys I find in travel. If I never saw another tourist stop in my whole life I would be fine, as long I could visit neighborhoods.

We wandered around Valladolid, seeking shade wherever possible. It was oppressively hot there. Not many people were out and many shops were closed. We realized over time that people are simply avoiding the heat. Despite the early hour when we headed out, we were lucky and found a great restaurant that was open.

When evening came around, the people came out, the music began flowing, lights came on and shops opened. We walked the streets a little while, learning where the central park was, where the main shops were, and how to come back home by an easier route. Then, we had suffered enough in the heat and went back to our rental.

We remembered to stop at the market and shop for breakfast food. Then we all changed into our suits and spent the rest of the evening in the pool.