From Isla Mujeres to Tulum: The Nightmare
So after spending a somewhat exciting New Year's Eve on Isla Mujeres and a few lovely days sipping cocktails on a somewhat crowded beach, we decided it was time to move on. We were told that our next destination, Tulum, has some the most beautiful and quiet beaches in Mexico. On January 2nd, the five of us (Me, Sharon, Mor, and the boys: Yaron and Omri) headed back to Cancun on a ferry and hopped a bus that would take us a couple hours south.
The problem was, tensions were rising amongst our little group. With the girls, Mor and I took turns feeling like the odd one out. Mor felt like Sharon and I would always be closer because we're sisters (which I suppose is true, in some ways) but I felt like they had more recent history in common and are closer in age. I was older than everyone else in the group, and felt like I had less energy to go out and drink. I was more about waking up earlyish and spending a lot of time on the beach, and chilling in the evening and going to sleep around midnight. So I often retired early when they went on, and though I don't think anyone was upset with me for it, I guess they might have thought I wasn't much fun. Which is weird, because I can be very silly and outgoing and I definitely like to have fun! But here, with this particular group, I felt odd and boring. Maybe it was because I'm not used to hanging out with Israelis anymore, and I feel like I have little in common with them.
We had some issues between the boys and girls as well. One of the guys became an asshole toward me and Sharon after a couple of days, but gave a lot of attention to Mor. Clearly he was trying to get into her pants but she was having none of it. Or, maybe a little of it, because what's a little flirting when it means a guy will carry your suitcase around for you? Heh. I may sound bitter but honestly, I didn't really care if they boys liked me or were nice to me. But eventually it started to be more annoying than fun to be around them, especially because of all the complaining...
So here's the deal, here's why the passage from Isla Mujeres to Tulum was such a nightmare:
First was my personal ordeal with sending my suitcase home. If you remember, this was the really nice suitcase I bought especially for the trip. I bought it instead of a backpack because I was told I wouldn't need a backpack... and I should have known better. Anyway, in Cancun, Sharon and I ran around looking for a post office. We finally found one, and told them we wanted to send the suitcase home. They said "okay, but you need to put it in a box." So we go, "alright, how much is a box?" "Oh, we don't sell boxes here."
What? No boxes at the post office? So we ask where we can buy one and they said to walk around the marketplace and ask for discarded boxes, for free. So we start doing that and nobody knows where we can find a box. We finally find some in a corner somewhere but they're all too small. We decide to be creative and take a couple boxes apart and tape them back together around the suitcase. Some random Mexican guy that was helping us (and sold us some tape) called it a suitcase taco. So we wrap all this cardboard around the suitcase and tape it up all lopsided... it was pretty damn funny. Pictures coming soon, though I'm still working on uploading photos on these slow-ass internet cafe computers.
So we take this thing back to the post office as quickly as we can (because we have to get back to the bus terminal soon, to catch our bus) and lift it up on the counter and say "Okay, it's in a box. Can we send it now?" "No," they say, "you have to put it in a plastic bag."
What?? Of course they didn't have any bags for us to use/buy, but luckily there was a nice couple in the office wrapping their boxes in bags who let us use some of theirs. They weren't big enough so again, we took them apart and taped them on. We ended up with the most ghetto-looking box-thing I've ever seen, but at least they accepted it.
Then the post office lady finally weighed the damned thing and measured it, and told me that to send it to San Francisco would cost me 1520 pesos. That's almost 120 dollars! Which is how much the suitcase cost me in the first place!! But after all that, I couldn't not pay it. I had stuff in there to send home anyway. So I paid, and we caught a cab back to the bus station, and I wasn't in the best mood after that.
The bus ride itself was smooth and uneventful. But once we arrived at Tulum the problems started again. For one, it was impossible to find a place to sleep after dark. We heard that on the beach (a cab ride away) everything was completely full. Even in town, the hostels barely had any room and especially not for 5 people in private rooms (since apparently Mor doesn't want to sleep in dorms.) There was this one lady who came up to us at the bus station though, who had a private house/hostel type thing and was apparently desperate enough for tennants to drive around town looking for them. We were suspicious but felt like we had no choice. We went there and saw that there was indeed room for 5, but it wasn't the best space. One of the two double beds was not really a bed but just a covered box spring, and one person had to sleep in a hammock in the other room. Also, there was no door on the bathroom. We decided to leave two people there with the bags and go looking around for another option.
We found nothing, but when we got back we saw that we had managed to make the lady who owned the hostel very angry. She didn't like the fact that we left two people and kept looking around. She also raised the price a bit, and wanted a $50 deposit in case we scratched her precious paint (she claimed the room was painted just the day before) or clogged her toilet. Oh my god, the woman would not shut up about the toilet. Right as we were trying to pay her and were counting the money, she started getting upset that we were taking too long to count and almost wouldn't let us stay there. We finally calmed her down long enough to pay and get the key.
We managed okay that night. The boys wouldn't stop whining about the place until they went to sleep. I volunteered to be the one to sleep in the hammock, and personally I didn't think it was bad at all. Pretty comfortable actually! The real problems came the next morning. First, she was late to pick up the key and return our deposit, and we were anxious to get going so we could find a place for the next couple of nights. Then when she finally showed up and looked around, she found a scratch in the paint that was definitely there when we got there, and claimed that we had ruined her paint job and wouldn't get our deposit back.
Of course we wouldn't have any of that. Mor, Sharon and I started to argue with her, but we couldn't get very far beyond "That was there when we got here!" and "No it wasn't! It was perfect!" until Mor finally said "Okay, give me the paint and I'll fix it myself!" So the crazy lady took us out back and gave us a small can of paint and Mor started putting it on the wall with her fingers. Then that bitch started ordering her around like some kind of slave: "Do it this way. Do what I tell you if you want your deposit back!" The whole time she was also babbling about how she would never rent to Israelis again, because Israelis are poor people and bad people. And that poor people ARE bad people, only people with money are good. So she won't rent to Israelis or... French people, I think she said? In fact she said something about how only Americans are good, because they have money. She made me so mad.
Finally she gave us our money back (after arguing that it wasn't the right color, the color that SHE gave us, and we swore to her that it would dry darker as paint always does, but she kept whining anyway) and we got the hell out of there. Only to get to the beach area and go on another annoying trek trying to find a decently priced place to sleep near the beach.
Finally we decided to splurge and pay for nice cabanas on the beach, near a bar and restaurant. The cabana place was called Papaya Playa, and the beaches really were beautiful and peaceful and in my opinion, worth a little extra money. But some of the others were too bitter about our experience in Tulum so far to actally enjoy it. I think they were being petty. Sharon and I decided to stay another night in Tulum and then head on to our next destination, while the others took off the next morning to Playa del Carmen, which Sharon and I already saw.
So the group is split up for now. Personally I'm happier this way; the guys were getting annoying, Mor seems to have a different agenda than Sharon and I do, and things are just easier when it's just the two of us. Now, after spending a nice relaxing couple of days on the beach, meeting interesting people and getting one hell of tan, Sharon and I are off to our next destination. Tonight we get on a night bus, an 11-hour ride to Palenque, and after that we cross the border to Guatemala. We are very excited because this seems to be the real beginning of our trip, in the sense that we will be travellers, not just tourists. From now on, though we hope to see some beaches or lakes along the way, there will be a lot more day hikes and interesting sights and activities. And hopefully things will also get a little cheaper so we can stay within our budget.
Although I just described a nightmarish day in detail, I really am not letting that kind of stuff get in the way of my fun. I'm actually having a great time. I'm just writing about those things here because I think they make interesting stories. There's not much to say about laying around on the beach all day, or even walking around town here. But the difficult times, those are the things we will laugh about later. So even if they're not as fun, I want to remember them too. For all the rest, there will be pictures.
The problem was, tensions were rising amongst our little group. With the girls, Mor and I took turns feeling like the odd one out. Mor felt like Sharon and I would always be closer because we're sisters (which I suppose is true, in some ways) but I felt like they had more recent history in common and are closer in age. I was older than everyone else in the group, and felt like I had less energy to go out and drink. I was more about waking up earlyish and spending a lot of time on the beach, and chilling in the evening and going to sleep around midnight. So I often retired early when they went on, and though I don't think anyone was upset with me for it, I guess they might have thought I wasn't much fun. Which is weird, because I can be very silly and outgoing and I definitely like to have fun! But here, with this particular group, I felt odd and boring. Maybe it was because I'm not used to hanging out with Israelis anymore, and I feel like I have little in common with them.
We had some issues between the boys and girls as well. One of the guys became an asshole toward me and Sharon after a couple of days, but gave a lot of attention to Mor. Clearly he was trying to get into her pants but she was having none of it. Or, maybe a little of it, because what's a little flirting when it means a guy will carry your suitcase around for you? Heh. I may sound bitter but honestly, I didn't really care if they boys liked me or were nice to me. But eventually it started to be more annoying than fun to be around them, especially because of all the complaining...
So here's the deal, here's why the passage from Isla Mujeres to Tulum was such a nightmare:
First was my personal ordeal with sending my suitcase home. If you remember, this was the really nice suitcase I bought especially for the trip. I bought it instead of a backpack because I was told I wouldn't need a backpack... and I should have known better. Anyway, in Cancun, Sharon and I ran around looking for a post office. We finally found one, and told them we wanted to send the suitcase home. They said "okay, but you need to put it in a box." So we go, "alright, how much is a box?" "Oh, we don't sell boxes here."
What? No boxes at the post office? So we ask where we can buy one and they said to walk around the marketplace and ask for discarded boxes, for free. So we start doing that and nobody knows where we can find a box. We finally find some in a corner somewhere but they're all too small. We decide to be creative and take a couple boxes apart and tape them back together around the suitcase. Some random Mexican guy that was helping us (and sold us some tape) called it a suitcase taco. So we wrap all this cardboard around the suitcase and tape it up all lopsided... it was pretty damn funny. Pictures coming soon, though I'm still working on uploading photos on these slow-ass internet cafe computers.
So we take this thing back to the post office as quickly as we can (because we have to get back to the bus terminal soon, to catch our bus) and lift it up on the counter and say "Okay, it's in a box. Can we send it now?" "No," they say, "you have to put it in a plastic bag."
What?? Of course they didn't have any bags for us to use/buy, but luckily there was a nice couple in the office wrapping their boxes in bags who let us use some of theirs. They weren't big enough so again, we took them apart and taped them on. We ended up with the most ghetto-looking box-thing I've ever seen, but at least they accepted it.
Then the post office lady finally weighed the damned thing and measured it, and told me that to send it to San Francisco would cost me 1520 pesos. That's almost 120 dollars! Which is how much the suitcase cost me in the first place!! But after all that, I couldn't not pay it. I had stuff in there to send home anyway. So I paid, and we caught a cab back to the bus station, and I wasn't in the best mood after that.
The bus ride itself was smooth and uneventful. But once we arrived at Tulum the problems started again. For one, it was impossible to find a place to sleep after dark. We heard that on the beach (a cab ride away) everything was completely full. Even in town, the hostels barely had any room and especially not for 5 people in private rooms (since apparently Mor doesn't want to sleep in dorms.) There was this one lady who came up to us at the bus station though, who had a private house/hostel type thing and was apparently desperate enough for tennants to drive around town looking for them. We were suspicious but felt like we had no choice. We went there and saw that there was indeed room for 5, but it wasn't the best space. One of the two double beds was not really a bed but just a covered box spring, and one person had to sleep in a hammock in the other room. Also, there was no door on the bathroom. We decided to leave two people there with the bags and go looking around for another option.
We found nothing, but when we got back we saw that we had managed to make the lady who owned the hostel very angry. She didn't like the fact that we left two people and kept looking around. She also raised the price a bit, and wanted a $50 deposit in case we scratched her precious paint (she claimed the room was painted just the day before) or clogged her toilet. Oh my god, the woman would not shut up about the toilet. Right as we were trying to pay her and were counting the money, she started getting upset that we were taking too long to count and almost wouldn't let us stay there. We finally calmed her down long enough to pay and get the key.
We managed okay that night. The boys wouldn't stop whining about the place until they went to sleep. I volunteered to be the one to sleep in the hammock, and personally I didn't think it was bad at all. Pretty comfortable actually! The real problems came the next morning. First, she was late to pick up the key and return our deposit, and we were anxious to get going so we could find a place for the next couple of nights. Then when she finally showed up and looked around, she found a scratch in the paint that was definitely there when we got there, and claimed that we had ruined her paint job and wouldn't get our deposit back.
Of course we wouldn't have any of that. Mor, Sharon and I started to argue with her, but we couldn't get very far beyond "That was there when we got here!" and "No it wasn't! It was perfect!" until Mor finally said "Okay, give me the paint and I'll fix it myself!" So the crazy lady took us out back and gave us a small can of paint and Mor started putting it on the wall with her fingers. Then that bitch started ordering her around like some kind of slave: "Do it this way. Do what I tell you if you want your deposit back!" The whole time she was also babbling about how she would never rent to Israelis again, because Israelis are poor people and bad people. And that poor people ARE bad people, only people with money are good. So she won't rent to Israelis or... French people, I think she said? In fact she said something about how only Americans are good, because they have money. She made me so mad.
Finally she gave us our money back (after arguing that it wasn't the right color, the color that SHE gave us, and we swore to her that it would dry darker as paint always does, but she kept whining anyway) and we got the hell out of there. Only to get to the beach area and go on another annoying trek trying to find a decently priced place to sleep near the beach.
Finally we decided to splurge and pay for nice cabanas on the beach, near a bar and restaurant. The cabana place was called Papaya Playa, and the beaches really were beautiful and peaceful and in my opinion, worth a little extra money. But some of the others were too bitter about our experience in Tulum so far to actally enjoy it. I think they were being petty. Sharon and I decided to stay another night in Tulum and then head on to our next destination, while the others took off the next morning to Playa del Carmen, which Sharon and I already saw.
So the group is split up for now. Personally I'm happier this way; the guys were getting annoying, Mor seems to have a different agenda than Sharon and I do, and things are just easier when it's just the two of us. Now, after spending a nice relaxing couple of days on the beach, meeting interesting people and getting one hell of tan, Sharon and I are off to our next destination. Tonight we get on a night bus, an 11-hour ride to Palenque, and after that we cross the border to Guatemala. We are very excited because this seems to be the real beginning of our trip, in the sense that we will be travellers, not just tourists. From now on, though we hope to see some beaches or lakes along the way, there will be a lot more day hikes and interesting sights and activities. And hopefully things will also get a little cheaper so we can stay within our budget.
Although I just described a nightmarish day in detail, I really am not letting that kind of stuff get in the way of my fun. I'm actually having a great time. I'm just writing about those things here because I think they make interesting stories. There's not much to say about laying around on the beach all day, or even walking around town here. But the difficult times, those are the things we will laugh about later. So even if they're not as fun, I want to remember them too. For all the rest, there will be pictures.