פסק זמן לשניים... נתראה בקנקון, מקסיקו

Monday 10.10.22, Cancun International Airport. I have already landed, received the rental car, checked in at the accommodation, and now I am picking up Nico from the airport. As soon as Nico arrived, the chaos began... :-D

After 2 ½ hours, he finally came out of the terminal! And of course it had to happen... His luggage did not arrive with him. It also affected 9 other passengers. The airline Condor really messed up. Luckily, my husband packed spare underwear in the small backpack. I would have been in trouble :-D As he always says: 'Think ahead! Who knows what could go wrong.' Yeah, I always think to myself: 'Everything will be fine...'. And when chaos occurs, I have my husband for that :-P

But the good news is: his backpack finally arrived after 3 days and we were able to pick it up at the Portugal counter (for some reason... probably had a layover in Portugal).

To keep things from getting boring, I caused a few more 'disasters' during our stay in Mexico... 😊 But I'll tell you about that later.

We spent 3 nights in Cancun. The place is not exactly to our taste for staying there for a long time. But since Nico came from Germany, he needed time to acclimate and relax. Cancun mainly consists of large hotel complexes lined up on the beautiful beaches. It just doesn't look nice, it's overcrowded and commercialized. We settled in a nice, small, and family-run accommodation (homestay) away from the hotel scene. We had a delicious breakfast every morning and could refresh ourselves in the rooftop pool. The beach was across the street. It was small and right next to the road, but it was okay. We stretched our hammock between two palm trees and swayed with a view of the turquoise Caribbean Sea. But too much relaxation couldn't be allowed... otherwise it would be boring. So I made my wedding ring disappear in the sand... Well, I took off my wedding ring to apply sunscreen and put it on my lap. Clumsy as I am, I forgot that my wedding ring was on my lap, jumped out of the hammock to wash my hands in the sea... I didn't notice it then. Only a short time later, when we were told that we couldn't hang our hammock at that beach (for some reason...), I realized, while we were packing everything up, shit! My wedding ring is missing! Oh shit... No, no, no. This can't be happening now! Now the question was, did the ring fall off when I jumped up or was it in the hammock and fell into the sand while packing...?! I could have cried. It's not just a ring, it really means a lot to me... So Nico and I started combing through the sand extensively. I was about to give up and then, I couldn't believe it, my incredibly amazing husband unearthed my wedding ring after 45 minutes of excavation work! I was soooo happy!!!! I knelt before my husband - on command! - and worshiped him :-D

Fortunately, the journey could continue with my wedding ring. It would have been really stupid without it...

On the second day, we went up to the island of Isla Blanca. An absolute insider tip in Cancun! We didn't know what to expect. We only saw on the map that there were no hotel complexes there. After a gravel road with hole after hole, the 'road' ended directly at the beach. There were only a few locals there. The beach extended further north. We walked along the water, enjoying the tranquility and Caribbean feeling. There was not a soul in sight. The locals gathered at the entrance to the beach. After a few hundred meters, we arrived at a small sea of palm trees. Perfect! This time we could hang our hammock undisturbed. It was wonderful! No people around, white sandy beach, palm trees, coconuts, bright blue sky, and turquoise sea... This is how you imagine the Caribbean. We could relax and let our souls dangle here... And this time without throwing the ring in the sand :-D

We enjoyed our time together and when you're alone in a hammock in the dreamlike Caribbean... You can probably guess the rest 😉

The next day, I wanted to try surfing in Mexico and glide on the waves in the Caribbean. Playa Delfines is supposed to be 'the surf spot' in Cancun. It is located in the hotel area on the Zona Hotelera strip. Even though the beach was crowded, it was still very nice. The water was incredibly turquoise. The short waves and choppy water were not the best conditions for surfing on that day, but it was enough to have some fun. I also rented a surfboard for Nico so that we could paddle out together. Nico is not a surfer and will not become one in the future. He prefers to watch me. Anyway, the local surf teacher and guru, who also caught a few waves, and I had a lot of laughs when Nico unintentionally went into the 'Turtle Dive' and the surfboard rolled underwater along with Nico :-D

Sadly, in the evening a man had to be pulled out of the water and resuscitated... We don't know if he made it. At least he was taken to the hospital by the ambulance. We hoped for the best.

Our journey through Mexico took us to Tulum. We returned our rental car to the airport and took the ADO bus to Tulum. On the way to the rental station, we couldn't avoid a police checkpoint. It just had to be us who were pulled over and allegedly driving 10 km/h over the speed limit. Oh, we were the last ones in the convoy and quite a few cars overtook us... Well. We were obviously marked as tourists. Perfect for being ripped off. The problem was that the officers wanted to confiscate my driver's license. I could only pick it up at the police station in Cancun the next day and pay the fine. Too bad we were just passing through... To turn the whole situation around, I played our 'police card' :-P I showed the officer my police badge and politely asked if he would be interested in trading at this opportunity. You could really see how his facial expression changed and he didn't know how to handle the situation now. He went to his colleague, who was already filling out the ticket, signaled that they had to stop here, and then tore up the ticket. Phew, lucky break :-D

BUT: We had to immediately pay 3000 MXN Peso to get my driver's license back. That's equivalent to 150 €. Good thing we had so much cash with us. Anyway, the important thing was that we could continue! We actually wanted to take a photo with the officers. But they said it was illegal... Yeah right, they were definitely uncomfortable with the situation 😉 Exchanging badges was also not an option.

This time I paid attention to the speed limits, even though they weren't always clearly indicated or there were no signs... I felt like a traffic obstacle. No, I was a traffic obstacle! :-D

On to Tulum...