Mexico Day 1: Cancun to Merida
At the end of February, we took a week and a half trip to the Yucatan peninsula. Looking back, we could have done several things better, but it wasn’t a bad trip (except for getting quite ill the last two days). With our busy lives, it’s taken a long time to go through photos and memories. I am always surprised by how much time the process takes. In any case, here we go!
We had an early start, although fairly normal for our daily work day routine. Rolling out of bed at 5 a.m., we took a quick shower. We caught a taxi for our 8:45 a.m. international flight departure with Sun Country, who charged extra for everything and with already overpriced tickets. The flight was quiet, and we arrived on time. Going through customs and immigration in Cancun only took fifteen minutes, but we had to stand around for forty five minutes for JJ to get through from a Denver flight.
Then we had the car fiasco. It took forever to get a car (Volkswagen Jetta as a large vehicle?) we had reserved in advance, and it cost us a great deal more than they made it appear on the website. Second time in our travels using EuropCar, both experiences miserable for different reasons. In all, it took us over two hours to drive away.
By then we were famished as neither four hour flight offered any food service including snacks. Driving through down we came across a “tacos and beans†restaurant called Frijoleros, with a western theme and American bluegrass music playing. The staff was nice and food decent. Herr and JJ had burritos while I ate a chicken taco and chili con carne y queso dip.
Once the GPS was programmed correctly, we hopped on 180D towards Merida. The road proved to be unusually straight and dull, and we lost concept of time. Once we finally made it to the hotel Doralba Inn in Merida, we discovered why. Only Quintaro Roo is in a different time zone than the rest of the Yucatan peninsula. This we learned the hard way the next morning.
Retrospective: while the Doralba Inn was inexpensive, its location in downtown Merida made it a rather inconvenient place to stay for our purposes. I would have splurged to stay at a hotel right next to Uxmal (this was the original plan before we had to cut costs). We didn’t take advantage of the Merida location by doing anything in Merida (I still don’t think I’d do anything in Merida…).