Cancun? Don´t bother.

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  Cancun, Mexico
Saturday, July 26, 2008

Hello from Tony here in Cancun, counting down the hours until Tuesday morning (your time), when we can leave this hole and go somewhere that still has some integrity as a destination! My initial impressions of Mexico were good, especially the way people are quiet and courteous, drive carefully on the roads, and keep their cities clean. None of these things can be said for mainland South America, which is full of people with loud-mouths and lunatic motorists who are yet to discover the function of rubbish bins.

After a couple of days sharing Cancun with Hurricane Dolly, I finally got out and about to see what the place is all about. Being a beach resort, that was the first place on my list. There is 20 km of white sandy "public" beach at Cancun. The problem is that it is barricaded in by 20 km of high-rise private resorts that won't let you set foot on their properties unless you are a paying guest. So guess what? It is almost impossible to get to the public beach unless you are a private guest at one of the adjacent resorts.

Not being one to give into the curse of capitalism without a fight, I made an illegal entry to the public beach, only to find it strewn with wall-to-wall, privately owned deckchairs. Everywhere I looked there security guards on stand-by to make sure that no members of the public attempted to sit on, move, or otherwise have contact with the said privately-owned deckchairs in any way. The end result is that, while you actually can find somewhere to sit on the beach, you must first commit the criminal offence of trespass, then either find a hotel that is closed for renovations and has some unoccupied beach, or squeeze yourself into the undefined areas where two hotels are disputing over the boundary. Its such a pity - the ocean is incredibly clear and beautiful, and I can tell you from experience, glorious to swim in.

So I figured the best thing to do in Cancun is to leave. I booked myself two tours, one to dive a submerged wreck from a boat, and the other a trip to Chichen Itza and the Mayan ruins. The dive trip was first off, but let me digress for a moment . . .

In places like Peru and Cuba, a considerable amount of care is put into protecting tourists and their possessions from harm. The hotels have wall safes and electric fences, there are security staff on hand to mind you and your on-board property when you leave a tour bus or boat to check out a location, and the safety precautions are explained to you just in case you are too thick to notice them for yourself. When I went diving in Mexico, there were no such precautions, and considering that there were 6 staff and 18 guests, all floating in the middle of the ocean with no other vessels in sight, it might be presumed that security would not be too difficult to arrange!

Not so. After what was a truly magic dive, we all returned to the boat to discover that our bags had been tampered with and certain valuables removed. My involuntary contribution to the pirateīs fund was 100 Euros - which in this area would have paid for 10 nights private accommodation. When another man on the boat announced that his credit card and dive card were missing, he was told by the crew to look under the seats to see if he could find them! Um, they weren't there. Of course when we got off the boat there was nobody with any official status who was free talk to us. There were lots of other tourists waiting with money in their hands to give to the dive company, and THEY had to be given priorty!

So I announced an immediate a total personal boycott of the Mexican tourist industry, cancelled the other tour I had booked, and told the travel agency that I will never spend another dollar in this country as long as I live. It means I have missed seeing Chichen Itza and the Mayan ruins forever, but after Peru, that's probably no great loss anyway. But now the only thing I have left to do is count down the hours until Clare arrives from her bus trip, and we can hop on the next plane to Havana.

For further advice about travelling to Mexico, be sure to tune into the next episode of Grumpy Old Men on your ABC.

Better stories are still to come! Hopefully Clare has had more luck on her 7-day bus tour.

Oh well, thatīs another 30 minutes gone!

Best wishes,

Tony

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