Wednesday, April 3, 2013

OMG My Cancun Cab Driver is High!

Mexico is a beautiful country.  I've spent about six weeks exploring the Pacific and Atlantic shores of this great country.  Hands down the best food I've had in my life has been in Mexico:  quesadillas in Oaxaca with pumpkin flowers embedded in the cheese, chuiquilines (nachos on steroids), and ceviche in the Yucatan!
Isla de Mujeres

I visited the Yucatan with my little sister, and we started our journey in Cancun.  We were staying with a friend in the suburbs of Cancun.  We used shared taxis and buses to get around the area.  We spent our first day lounging around the resort for La Joya, we didn't pay, we just walked in like we owned the place...more or less...probably less.

The Joya resort at Sunset
After a leisurely dinner on the Cancun strip, reminiscent of the lights of Vegas, we took a bus to get us back to our suburb.  One of my favorite things to do when I travel is use the local transit.  Whether it's a shared taxi with 5 people sitting in the back of Corolla or bullet train headed to Beijing - I love it all.

It was time to catch a taxi back to our friend's home.  We hailed a cab down, and he steadily came our way.  The inside was decorated with tacky neon lighting.  I speak Spanish, but just in case, I had a slip of paper with our address on it.  He looked at it briefly and started driving.  My sister noted to me in Urdu that something was off about the way he was driving.  Then she pointed out that he had gone in a circle.  So in an effort to assist him, because my Spanish just wasn't the best in terms of directions, we called our friend.
Ferry from Cancun to Isla de Mujeres

They spoke for at least five minutes.  The cab went this way and that.  Finally, the driver handed the phone to me.

"Ummm you should get out of that cab, the driver is stoned.  You're in the right neighborhood."

So we respectfully departed.  The driver didn't take payment and sheepishly drove away.  We stumbled through the sleep Cancun suburbs and finally found the house.
Amazing Street Address on the Cancun Strip
Lesson learned:  Pay meticulous attention to your landmarks.  It may come in handy around midnight when you're stumbling around in a foreign land.

Lesson learned:  Pay very careful attention to where your driver is going...

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Getting Paddled in Venice with Google Maps







Venice or the Venetian in Vegas?


When one normally thinks of Venice, they think of gondolas, canals, romance, and maybe pasta.  One rarely ever associates the lovely city with harsh brutal winters and homeless on a rampage, but as my story will illustrate, both of these can happen.

So word of advice, do not get to Venice after business hours.  The sleepy canal village falls to sleep, shocker, after dark.  Making navigation next to impossible.

Speaking of navigation, google maps works pretty well in Europe, until it doesn't.

----------------------------

We took an evening train into Venice from Rome.  When we got to the train station in Venice we took a bus over to the touristic Venice, because this is where we had booked our hotel.  Once we got off the bus, we turned on google maps and tried to locate our hotel.  Carrying a heavy duffel bag and a tote, my shoulders were aching, not to mention I was exhausted.  My friend also had a rolling bag and a handbag to carry.  Rolling bags are a little tricky to navigate along the cobblestone, but definitely beats carrying all that weight on your back.  The hard part is when you have stairs in your trajectory, which I assure you, there are plenty of in Venice.

So we would walk a hundred yards, and the blue ball would disappear from the map, and tell us to walk into the water at other times!  After speaking to hotel receptionist, we decided to follow a different route.  We learned at 3 am that everything in touristic Venice is connected by ferries.  We took a ferry to the stop we deciphered from the map the receptionist had drawn from us.
Looks pretty in the day time...very confusing at night time!

Once we got off the ferry, we were smack dab in front of a huge church and alleyway that stretched on forever.  After inspecting all of the forks in the road, we chose the alley.  The thought did cross our minds to sleep in that church in 15 degree F weather (Celsius = pretty fucking cold).

We called our hotel once or twice.  A sleepy woman who spoke no english came to the phone, and offered no assistance to our american cries.

Finally we found a recognizable landmark on the receptionists' map and found the lovely bed and breakfast.  We earned that sleep!

-------------------------------

We took the train out of Venice again.  We recognized that we were carrying too much weight, and needed to mail somethings home to get it off of our backs, literally.  So I went searching around the train station and finally found a post office, I was overjoyed.

As I approached this building, right outside the station, I noticed a homeless woman sitting outside of it.   She was talking to herself, and maybe me.  I couldn't make out the Italian hours of operation listed on the door, as I looked past her.  I made a circuit around the fascade of the building.  As I was returning to the station, she jumped up and ran after me with a large piece of plywood.

I picked up my pace.  Not quite running, not quite walking.  She paddled me so hard on my bottom with that plywood that my butt was sore the next day.  I started to sprint away, as she continued to utter profanities at me.
St. Marco's Square
There was a crowd that had gathered.  Joy!  A gentleman even let out a chuckle.

I sheepishly returned to the train station and explained the impossibility of what just happened to my traveling companion.

Lesson learned:  pack light

Lesson learned:  don't hover around homeless people, especially in a foreign land when they are screaming at you

Enjoying Venice, finally!

Monday, April 1, 2013

Huatulco, Mexico and When Tourism Goes Bad

Overlooking one of the resort beaches

I love buying a ticket to a far away exotic land, and escaping from the routine.  When I come back home, I'm thankful for many of the conveniences and opportunities we have as Americans.  One such trip that made me thankful to be back home, was my visit to Huatulco.


Prettyful!



I went in June, peak of the summer season.  While I didn't travel very far to get there, I was already staying in Puerto Escondido for the month, I still used up a weekend going here.  I made a day trip out of it.

Our cab driver took us to a beautiful cliff where we overlooked the pacific in all of its glory.  This is where the trip started to turn south.

We then drove over to the main beach resort area.  It was over crowded and no where to sit.  We grabbed a drink at an overpriced restaurant on the beach.  About a million people approached us, to buy this or that.  Normally in Mexico, I'm not approached that often by the local merchants - I think it's because I look Mexican.  My traveling friend here was of Irish origin, and stood out like a sore thumb.
overpriced but pretty
We finally caved and purchased a boat ride when the 10th person approached us about it.  It was a quick loop around the bay, I have to admit - it was quite stunning.  Finally we made our way over to the main town, which was dead.  There was no one there, which was a little depressing.

We ended the afternoon at a beach front resort.  Which from the distance didn't look too bad, but when we got close, there were little bits of garbage in the ocean.  Furthermore, there were lots of weird bugs on the beach.  I felt pretty gross after getting out of the water.
Beach El Stinky
So my advice, if you find yourself in southern Pacific Mexico, there are way better places to go to than Huatulco.