The Bad Stuff About Cancun

Okay, after I read yesterday's post, I realized that it made Cancun sound like a paradise. And it was. In many ways. But there were also things about our vacation which were less than ideal. So that you won't get jealous of our week long vacation in paradise, I thought I'd write today's post about what was wrong with Cancun:

1. It was hot. Really hot. Someone told me that I shouldn't worry about going to Mexico in July, that it really wasn't that much hotter there than here, that it was the sun I needed to worry about, not the heat. That person was a liar. It was VERY hot in Mexico. You know what it feels like when it's 90 degrees out and you've had your car in the sun for an hour? That's what it felt like every day in Cancun. And you know what it's like on a the hottest August day in the United States Midwest? That's what it was like at NIGHT in Cancun. Just sitting in a lounge chair by the pool was exhausting.
2. You can't drink the water. I knew this going in, but I guess what I didn't realize was what an inconvenience this would be. And maybe we were too paranoid, but I really started to worry when I spoke with the guy from the travel agency who was driving us to our hotel. I'd always assumed that Mexicans who were used to the water could drink it, just not foreigners. But when he warned me about the water, I said, "But you drink it, right?" He shook his head vigorously and said, "Oh, no, no, no." And it wasn't just the way he said it. It was the look on his face. He looked like I'd offered him a poop sandwich! So we avoided the water like the PLAGUE. We didn't drink it. We didn't brush our teeth with it. We didn't eat uncooked vegetables that had been washed in it. We didn't drink a soft drink if it had ice in it. We just stayed the heck away from it! And the funny thing is that at home I don't drink plain water very often. Usually I drink coffee or soda, and I only drink water when I work out. But amazingly, when potable water wasn't available, it was all I wanted.
3. There's a lot of security in airports! This doesn't really have anything to do with Cancun, but with foreign travel in general. We had to stand in a LOT of lines travelling both to and from Mexico. And there was a lot of paperwork to fill out, too. Worse, the paperwork prepared by the Mexican government was in--of all things--Spanish! What were these people thinking? Don't they know that we Americans don't take the time to learn a language before visiting the country! How was I supposed to know what those legal forms were saying? When I got to the customs counter the agent there asked--in very broken English--"Did you understand form?" I wasn't sure what he said at first and so he repeated, "Any part of form not make sense?" I looked at him and said, "Oh yes. Thank you! All of it!" (In fairness, I then laughed and told him I was kidding--I actually only had trouble understanding one word: "muestros." I guess my two semesters of Spanish in college paid off.)*

Those were the main negatives regarding Cancun. Now today I don't want to leave you with the opposite wrong impression that our vacation was miserable and that we came home unhappy. We had a good time and are grateful to have had the chance to go. I just wanted to present the opposite side of the coin, the things that we DIDN'T take pictures of (We actually DID take a photo of me with a stack of immigration forms to fill out, but...).

And with that, I will conclude my posts about Cancun. I'm getting tired of writing about it, and you're probably getting tired of reading about it (If you're still reading this, that is). I don't want this blog to be the 21st century equivalent of the guy with the 200 frame slide show of his vacation.

*Oh, and by the way, it turns out "muestros" are "samples," as in free samples that business people would carry with them into a country and give away. Doesn't look at all like its English equivalent, so no wonder I couldn't figure it out.