Cancun - Cannot!

Today is the last day that the group are together, as of tomorrow morning the 'Magical Mexico' tour ends and the 'Quetzal Highway' tour begins ... With a bit of free time in between.

Cancun is a beach resort that's only been in existence since the 1970s, it's a town completely geared up for tourists. The beach stretches for miles with all the beach front hotels claiming their own sections and trying to charge extortionate rates for the use of a sun bed, brolley AND toilet! - though in actual fact this is not completely legal. The main strip where the night clubs are - and The Hard Rock Cafe - looks tired and empty by day but neon lit and packed by night.

Our hotel was a twenty minute bus journey away, closer to the city centre and not a particularly attractive city centre at that ... Though a couple of us now tired of tacos and refried beans were delighted to find Kentucky and The Big Whopper! (Apologies to all you Gastro-snobs, but sometimes only a cheap bag of chips and a chicken burger will do!)

TC and I walked into our hotel room and were immediately hit by the thick smell of damp! Instantly we were both transported back to memories of our second hotel in Kerala (see India blog), wherein order to have a break from the scorching humid heat outside, we sat in our damp room and watched some TV, only to find that after an hour, both of us were looking like throw backs from the 70's because the damp had frizzed our curly hair to maximum intensity!

Back in Cancun, TC looked at me and exclaimed "I have to get out of this room, it's dark, it smells and it's depressing me!' And for once, I actually agreed with her.

We joined Neil and the others for our Orientation walk, after which we decided to go for a quick bowl of soup just to settle our grumbling stomachs and not fill us up too much before meeting up with the group again later that eve for dinner.

We found a little restaurant down one of the side roads and sat down. The service was so bad and the waiters so rude, we ended up having an argument with them, left no tip and returned to our damp, dark, smelly, depressing room where we both laid down on our respective beds in silence, feeling disheartened by Cancun and sad about our new friends leaving the following day and to be honest a little bit jealous.

In short - I hated Cancun!

In order to pep myself up, I Facetimed my housemate Sandie back home in London for a catch up and a laugh, only to find that she had been deeply traumatised by a new client I had referred to her (Sandie is a beauty therapist like me). Apparently this client had asked her for a 'Hollywood' (bikini wax that involves removing all the hair and I mean ALL the hair!) This is not something that she would generally offer, but being the true professional that she is, went ahead with the treatment only to find the new client was not such a clean client, (the Star Trek term "Klingons on the starboard bow" come to mind!). Suffice it to say Sandie was not best pleased with me, especially as the client then bartered her down on the price! However - and please forgive me for sounding a little Schadenfreude - but the story did make me laugh - Mission accomplished!!

That eve TC and I joined everyone for the farewell dinner - yes there were Tacos and refried beans involved! It was two for one on all cocktails so I thought it only right to order a Piña Colada and a Strawberry Daquiri - remember I am a light weight drinker. So by the end of the meal, my mood had definitely pepped up some more and I agreed to go off to Club Coco Bongo with some of the others; Neil could get us a discount on the entrance fee, the drinks were bottomless, the music kitch and the dance shows not to be missed!

Already feeling a bit tipsy I bade my farewells to those not joining us and piled into the bus with Neil, Vikki, Jo, G (short for Geraldine), Anne, Heather and Meegan - TC stayed behind; she wasn't feeling well.

First stop was a bar, where we got our discount after spending 100 pesos (about £5) each, so with another drink down my neck and still able to stand we made our way to Coco Bongo, got our VIP tickets and squeezed our way through the crowd, up the escalators and into the main room.

High up on the wall at the far end, was a huge screen on which an assortment of Madonna videos were being shown, in front of the screen and way above us was a stage where dancers were performing behind a Madonna lookie-likie who was miming the song being played!

We helped ourselves to the free fruit shots that were on offer, laden with rum or tequila or something - by this point my taste buds had switched off so I can't be sure - then suddenly Neil grabbed my hand bag, threw it over his shoulder and pushed me towards the large square shaped bar in the centre of the room, where I was hoisted up onto the counter top to join about twenty other girls all dancing in a tequila/rum haze to the music.

Meegan and Jo were already up there and to be honest, if the music is good and there's a stage to perform on, I am quite happy to 'strut my stuff', 'do my thang', 'groove it on down', or 'shake what ma mama gave me'!! Above us the acts changed from Madonna, to Elvis, to Abba, to Lady Gaga etc ... There was even a performance by Spider-Man?!

Unfortunately we had to clear the area for the 'Cirque de Soleil' performance, but once over we were back up there 'movin and a groovin' while a very kind lady in a gold sequence high legged costume poured tequila directly down our throats! 

Thank goodness I know my limits (?) and stopped drinking just before I reached that 'Oh-oh!' stage and we all left just in time before Jo and I found a way to get up on the centre stage and show everyone the salsa moves we learnt the previous week - British Style! (Jo's Scottish so until Devolution happens she's still one of us Brits!!)

The International rule of thumb for returning home after a night of drinking is to always stop off at a fast food restaurant and so after sharing a couple of hot and spicy pizzas (proof that my taste buds had shut down, seeing as I generally don't like pizza and I definately don't like spicy!!!) we grabbed a cab and made it back to the hotel by 3am where Jo, Anne, Heather, G and myself tried not to wake too many people as we set the timer on Jo's camera and tried taking group photographs of us all doing a Mexican wave in the corridor.

The following morning TC and I went for a farewell breakfast with Anne and Heather, all of us feeling slightly under the weather, (including TC as she was still feeling unwell). We were served by an extremely sullen looking waitress who, when TC asked her in Spanish if there was a problem, promptly said no and continued to stand there picking at the lid of a water bottle then slumped away.

Heather and Anne were off to spend a couple of days in a five star hotel in the posh area of town before returning to Northern Island and understandably quite happy to get away from the area we were staying in and so, after a tearful farewell (actually I was the only one crying) we went our separate ways. Leaving TC concerned that the only physician in our group (Heather the gastroenterologist) was gone! 

We weren't going to be meeting up with the new group until 7 that night, so TC and I took ourselves off to the beach for a little R & R, where it promptly clouded over once we settled in our sun beds! 

Did I tell you that I hate Cancun?!

Later that day, when the clock struck 7, the five of us remaining from the Mexican group (Jo, Vikki, G, TC and myself) went to meet the 11 newbies who were reaching the end of there induction meeting with Neil. 

We entered the room and they looked up at us with slight trepidation and uncertainty. Did we really look that scary? I mean the hang overs had worn away by this point - though TC was still not feeling great. I turned round to see what the others thought and saw Jo and Vikki stood there wearing super hero masks and looking like caped crusaders! Well they thought it would break the ice?

And so now amongst us group of happy travellers, we have a few more Brits - English, a load of Aussies, a sprinkling of South Africans, a Spaniard and a Swiss German and to TC's delight, one of the South Africans is actually a GP!!!