January 1, 2014

Christmas in the Caymans was incredible – it served as a nice break from our time on the road with plenty of time to catch up with family and relax. As a continuation of this relaxation, we took advantage of the layover we had in Cancun and spent a week there for New Years. We rented a room in a small house away from the hotel zone and had tickets for the Young Turks festival for NYE in Tulum.

To start off, I have to admit that Cancun is definitely not our kind of vacation place. We knew that when we signed up for it and after having spent a week there, we can say that for the most part, the place has no soul. Most of it has been over-run by outdated and overpriced hotels and tourist traps. Fortunately, we decided to stay outside of the hotel zone and with an awesome host, Fernando (Thank You!) who gave us a little taste of what Cancun could be like without the all-inclusives and Walmarts. On our first day, he allowed us to join him for work on the docks with his fishing company. We got there just as the boats were returning and loaded with tons of beautiful, fresh fish. We sat with his crew, drank some ice cold Pacifico’s, and watched as they cleaned up for the day and threw together the biggest tub of ceviche. It was simple, spicy, and delicious. It was the perfect start to our trip.

After our introduction to some locals and great ceviche, we took the long walk back home. We walked through the hotel zone back towards central Cancun, stopping shortly for some Mexican cocktails and grocery shopping. We now had all the fixins for some Mexican inspired drinks and cuisine, as well as snacks for the beach. We spent the next couple of days cooking in (see Brent’s Salsa recipe) and trying our luck with the beaches.  Unfortunately most of the beaches in Cancun are owned by the hotels which means you are not allowed to buy drinks, use bathrooms/chairs, much less enjoy the beach unless you have a wristband denoting your residency at said overpriced, under-impressive hotel. We ended up finding that the Westin was the friendliest of all and willing to share their beach front property with the occasional plebeians.

NYE finally rolled around and we hopped on a bus headed for Tulum. We enjoyed the afternoon exploring their beaches, learning some salsa, and making friends with some local college kids headed to the same festival. We ended up taking a nap on the beach before catching a cab to the venue for a full night of music. Unfortunately, we may have gone a little too hard during the day and ended up alternating sets with napping in the sand. The XX was great and all in all, it was a good New Years. We watched the sun come up over the ocean and were the first ones to arrive at the Tulum ruins in 2014. We caught the bus back to Cancun, made a grand feast of huevos rancheros and spent the day recovering in bed.

We had a great week in Cancun but we were ready to get back to South America. But before boarding the plane destined for Lima, we ran into a little trouble. At the check-in desk, we were told you can not enter Peru without proof of onward travel. (i.e. gringos need a return plane ticket, or bus ticket into another country in order to even fly into Peru). As backpackers, we tend to do most of our planning on the fly and almost never buy tickets ahead of time. This meant no-go for the flight until we had something saying we were leaving Peru. $1900 later, we had refundable tickets saying we were leaving from Peru to Panama City at a later date. After a short heart attack we checked in, made it through security, and were on our way to Lima.