In the last two months I left two homes and two bunches of my favourite people. After moving a van full of things all across Europe, I packed a backpack of only 15 kilos and got on a plane. But it only became real after hearing the flight attendant say »Ladies and gentlemen, we just landed in Cancún. Welcome to Mexico!«. I was at Aeropuerto Internacional de Cancún and my Latin-American adventure was starting!

For all those wondering – nobody clapped when we landed, though it was a plane full of Germans. I consider that to be a good sign.

I’ve been here for four days now and I came to five main conclusions:

Welcome to Mexico – Humidity is really not ok.

My thin European hair don’t do well here. They’re all over the place, so if I really end up selling coconuts barefoot on a sandy beach I’m going to have to do something about that. Also, I’m not yet comfortable being sticky all the time. I went running this morning (my hostel in Playa del Carmen is right next to a stadium and it is safe to run even in the evening!) and I have never been so hot in my entire life.

»Eslovenia« sounds like »Pennsylvania«.

It happened twice already that people thought I was from Pennsylvania when I said with my best Spanish accent »Soy de Eslovenia.« Maybe it had something to do with the fact that both times I was in a taxi and it was loud and humid and sticky. Or, another explanation: my Spanish still needs some work.

Gringa pays double the price.

Talking about taxis – I already try to use them as little as possible. Buses are much better! For example, the other day I needed a ride to my hostel and the first driver told me it was 85 pesos (a bit less than 4 euros), even though I paid 35 pesos for the same distance that morning. The second one said he would take me for 80 pesos. After some haggling around he agreed to 70 pesos and since I can’t really fight in Spanish just yet, I rolled my eyes and went with »sí, vale.« But just then two girls my age passed by, one from Mexico and the other from Chile, both living in Ireland, I later found out. They needed a ride to a bus station really close to my hostel and my taxi driver offered to take all of us – the two girls would pay 50 pesos and I another 50. The two of them of course knew how to fight in Spanish, they, too, thought it was unfair I would pay double the price. But the taxi driver wasn’t really bothered; in the end dark-haired Latinas paid 25 pesos each and the blond gringa here 50. Welcome to Mexico 😉

There’s always an American in a 15 meter radius.

I was warned before coming here: Cancún especially is full of Americans staying in all-inclusive hotels. Though I didn’t meet many downtown, »zona hotelera« does indeed remind one of Miami, and so does Isla Mujeres, a beautiful island only a 20 minute boat ride from Cancún. I spent the day there and it took me hours to find a place where I wouldn’t hear high-pitched noises somewhere behind me going: »Ahaha this is my screensaver, I have my feet up and this beautiful view, oh my this is amazing!« or »Margaritas? Do they have margaritas y’all??«

Hostel life can be so stereotypical.

I was talking to my friend Clara before leaving and she predicted that 80% of the people I will meet will be »aimless teenagers trying to blow off some steam smoking weed and working in a hostel for a year«, 10% will be »35 year-old folks who are undergoing a major personal crisis and have escaped to developing countries to forget about shit and not face it« and then 10% leftover will be normal people. She wasn’t that wrong, except that the teenagers group extends way up to 30 year-olds and that the first two categories often overlap. However, my results might be skewed a bit, since I’m staying in the biggest party hostel in Playa del Carmen at the moment – which is also the biggest party town in the whole of Yukatan apparently. I was the odd one out yesterday evening holding a bottle of water in the hostel bar, while there was a ladies night promotion going on with free drinks for girls from 7pm to 11pm. And, go figure, I was the first – and also the only – person having breakfast at 8.15am this morning (yes, breakfast starts at 8am).

Now, I see that my first observations might read as complaining, but this is definitely not what I’m doing here. I’m just describing what happened, as we would say back in my Brussels days.

A lot of pretty awesome things happened too: I spent the day at one of the ten most beautiful beaches in the world; I had mouthwatering ceviche, in the best way you can have mouthwatering ceviche: sitting behind a plastic table and on a plastic chair, both sinking in sand, with Caribbean sea in front of you.

I was standing on the most Eastern point of Mexico. I hung out with really nice people: an American-Mexican 26 year-old mom of a 10 year-old, a Japanese girl who has been travelling for three years already, a Dutch girl who had her appendix removed in the first week in Mexico, a British guy who came here four years ago and just stayed, super friendly and funny locals working in the best hostel I’ve ever been to and another Mexican who once flew from Europe to Mexico for free.

And yesterday I met Thomas from Paris. He has been travelling in Mexico for some time now and said that he’s a bit tired already and that after a while all heavenly sandy beaches look the same.

Well.. I don’t agree with him just yet. 🙂

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