Cancun: it begins

On our first morning in Cancun, a big blue sky and hot sun greeted us for our first voyage into town-- most of Cancun's hotels are located along a skinny strip of land that's separated from the mainland by a lagoon; the small downtown is just inland from that. It was time to try out the local buses, a few of which go straight to "Super Wal-Mart", where visiting gringoes and locals alike load up on groceries. At 7.5 pesos a trip (that's about 60 cents), it's a bargain and a fun ride. After an excellent Mexican breakfast of huevos rancheros at a local cafe, we wandered the extremely quiet town — realizing everything's closed because it's Sunday, duh! — and found our way to the Wal-Mart, which was a bit unlike Wal-Marts at home in that it had a big bakery of local pastries, a giant section of cheese, and tequila and beer on the shelves. Our suite's kitchen was soon well-stocked. Awesome!

The afternoon was lovely and the biggest debate was whether to spend our time by the pool or the beach. We opted for beach (as many people did) and relaxed by the stunning turquoise ocean to the tune of vendors honking on giant conch shells and small planes putting by, dragging Superbowl Party banners. Eventually it game time drew close, and since it appeared our TV channels were mostly in Spanish, we figured Planet Hollywood would be showing the game. We weren't wrong — and amazingly enough, the restaurant seemed well-divided between New Orleans and Indianapolis fans. Divided... yet very united in the crowd's universal love of football (even I learned a teeny bit about what was happening).

On Day 2 (Monday), we thought we'd break up what would likely be a whole week of loafing by the pool/beach with a Spanish lesson put on by the hotel. It was fun and we learned a few handy phrases (like "Es picante?"), but our small group of five adults soon found our Spanish skills shown up by the one nine-year-old kid in the group! Little did we know, the sun would mostly disappear after the Spanish lesson and only come out for short stints for each day afterward... ah well... at least we could practice our Spanish numbers in the many malls around! (And maybe make a few friends along the way...)





making friends ....