My last home (Cancun)

Member Name: Cammij

Product:	Cancun
Date:	10/11/04 (11826 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Great variety of Food, They dance

Disadvantages: corrupt cops, too many tourists

Of any review I have ever posted on here, this will be the one I am most qualified to write as I just spent the past 9 months in Cancun. Maybe some of you noticed my disappearence and wondered what happened to me, well I was in the Cancun Mexiko area.

I never had been to Mexico before and hadn't planned to go. I was laying around town watching footie with my mates and driving a lorry when I wasn't on the dole. It wasn't much of a life but it was an existance, living with some tart in a council flat and dealing with her brats. I was helping out the rat man so he overlooked my being there. Then one day in January I got a strange phone call from the year 1993. My mind told me to say no while the heart wanted me to say yes, the promises we make, the oaths we take when we are 21 are not exactly relevant when we have moved on with our lives. But a Serbian friend rang my mother and when I talked to him he said someone I had once been very loyal to needed my help. I can't say who this friend was, I will give you a hint; "My Lads dis is not important". He had gotten into some trouble while fighting against terrorists and had been moving around the world. He had seen my Polonious and my Iago after we found a copy of Shakspeare's collected works in small school outside Srbenicia and considered me a great actor like Eric Roberts or Frank Stallone; a strong man's player.


The gig was my friend wanted to hang out in Mexico but as everyone is so corrupt and into your business trying to grift a peso anywhere they can he needed a cover. They decided to pretend that they were a German Archeaological team studying the ruins at Tulum. This explained the prescence of a number of young seedy looking "students" hauling around duffel bags and equipment. They immediately thought of me. They remembered how I used to like to poke around in the ground after we would blow up a terrorists house or school looking for ancient Dacian and Thracian relics and try to save them while bullets were still flying.

So in a week I went from the grey beaches of Brighton to the sunny Playa de Carmen which is a mere 60 peso (4 quid) bus ride South from Cancun.

Cancun is a real treasure. But there are really two Cancuns. There are these grandiose sanitized resorts void of any culture except excessiness and then the old town where Mexico is alive and thriving. Obviously with so many Germans, Catalanos and French laying around the beach gorging themselves off the all inclusive buffets that they wear cute little wristbands to prove they are entitled to, we did not spend any time on the beach where my friend could be recognized. The resorts are all side by side along the Eastern shore where the rest in a nearly Las Vegesian vulgarity of facade and pompousness, competing in their regality and marketing of the white sand and crystal blue water. Across from the resorts on the West side of the motorway are countless overpriced tourist class clutter that could have been transplanted from Orlando or Myrtle Beach, your garden variety Planet Hollywoods, Hard Rock and Pirates Nest sort of overpriced nonsense.

The town of Cancun is a whole other world. The town is alive and vibrant wih Mexican life; authentic food, great live music and awesome restaurants; German, Italian and Mexican. A person will be suprised to go into the town and find out what Mexican food really is. Unlike the typical fare you find in a stereotypical "Mexican" restuarant that normally offer Northern Mexican, heavy on the tortilla and spices, fare, the Mexican food of the Yucatan is more mediterranean in nature, reminding me more of Corsica than Texas. The town is alive at night with Karoake Bars, Mexican line dancing and cafes. The Mexicans start partying at 11pm and don't quit until 5 AM. The best street in the old town is Nicchehabi. There is a monsterous night club featuring a house band with a fantastic belorussian guitar slinger that turns every old song or new hit into some sort of wild homage to Eddie Van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen. There are enough internet cafes around the town too. I had to stay inciommundo all the time I was there, not even my family could know where I was staying.

Playa de Carmen is a beautiful seaside town that has all the quaintness and character of a real Mexican resort; Indio girls doing hair extensions in souvenier shops, men standing with gigantic, almost Komodo dragon looking lizards, and countless bric brac sellers. To me after a long week of hard work pretending to be a German Archeaologist there is no greater pleasure than sitting on the beach under an umbrella, drinking Corona (5 for 100 pesos) from an ice filled bucket watching topless Catalonian girls jiggle on the beach nearby. If you go to Cancun you must spend at least one day in Playa de Carmen.

Now let me give you some advice, lessons I learned the hard way.

1. There is cocaine in Mexico. It is basically not a big deal to have cocaine if it is less than 7 grams. It is very cheap, like 30 quid per gram. You must be very careful about this. it is not powdered sugar and baby laxative. This stuff is not what you buy at the train station from suspicious looking art students. This is the real thing, it is liable to be untouched straight from Colombia or Nicaragua. It will blow your mind. It is the same level of "trouble" to have smack or grass. If you get busted you will have to pay a huge bribe or go to gaol.

2. The cops pay money to get their jobs and make a living off of shaking down tourists, especially anyone they think is from the USA. They will bust you for any stupid thing and it will cost you 20 quid to get out of the police car.

3. Many Mexican men, when not watching cartoons, try to find a tourist friend. They can be very helpful but you must understand that every commercial transaction in mexico is based on layers of commisions and rebates and rewards. Any taxi or "guide" will take you to the places where they get the largest commission. Once they get ahold of you you will not escape their grasp.

4. The strip clubs in Playa de Carmen are not strip clubs. The charge $10 per beer but everyone of the dancers is available for whatever you may want and they are gorgeous. It will cost you $100. They will want $300 at first but they will chase you down the street when you leave offering themselves for $60 for one hour.

5. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE OFFER MONEY TO WOMEN FOR COMPANY UNLESS THEY ARE A REGISTERED SEX WORKER. One night we had a forty minute debate with the police about prostitutes and women wearing clothes that makes them look like prostitutes. I don't speak perfect Spanish but it was the most comical moment of my life having a cop pointing at a woman and saying, "Sure, only a hooker would wear that shirt but she is no hooker". They will get you for "inducing moral depravity" and it will cost you 250 pesos for your freedom.

6. There is a big Karaoke bar in town that has a fantastic buffet for 4 quid for absolutely great food, meals like you have never seen in your life, the suasages, and chicken, my mouth waters just thinking about it. But if you go to Karoake night there and see an absolutely gorgeous women who is slender with violet eyes sitting there with her friend at one of the small circle tables with that aloof coyness. Sheis not a beautiful woman. I repeat this slender vixen is not a beautiful woman. I do not wish to say anymore about this but it is not a beautiful woman.

I hihly recommend Cancun to everyone with a sense of adventure. There are many nice ruins to visit if you want to see some history. If you have been to Zoser's step pyramid in Egypt you must go to Tulum. There are also many nearby rip-offs like a big sea park where you can swim with dolphins. I was sorry to leave Cancun. My Lads dis is why I left, my friend went somewhere else, Anywhere but DEN HAAG, go to Hell UNIFOR you will never catch him!!!!!!So I got to go home to my greasy chips, fat tart and grey skies and my Dooyoo. PS I am back for good folks. I love you all

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