Crazy Cancun!

A good day to all my wonderful followers!
It’s been a while since I posted something new on my blog, the reason was that I wasn’t really travelling around when I was in France.
But that has changed now, I’m back on the road  to travel the America’s! To make sure I update you guys frequently, I decided to make a weekly travel diary.
I will update every week from now on, in diary style, with all the things I did and experienced besides the normal blog posts every now and then.
I hope you guys enjoy it, this weeks destination is Cancun! Ready, set, GO!

A full day of travel

17th of June 2015

I woke up much too early today after going to bed too late, so I’m being punished for it by my alarmclock who was set for 6:30 am. But as my brain starts to wake up, it kicks into gear and the excitement about my upcoming trip takes over. Just a few more hours and I’ll be in Cancun, Mexico! Finally my dream of visiting Central and South America is happening. I quickly put some clothes on, rush to the bathroom to brush my teeth and make myself look presentable and check my bags one last time. By the time I finish, it’s 7 am and my mom and Eric are ready to drive me to Schiphol airport for the first flight to Frankfurt. The trip to the airport goes smoothly and without too much traffic jams, so we arrive well on time. We walk straight to the check in counters to drop off my backpack and it’s a good thing we were on time, because it was total chaos there. Hundreds of people waiting to check in, just 4 counters open and a lot of people are getting stressed because their flight leaves within an hour. To make matters even worse, one of the girls at one of the check in counters decides to take a break and no one replaces her spot behind the counter. So now there’s only 3 counters open en still hundreds of people to check in. A few people start to complain now, but nobody from the staff walking around is willing to help out. Finally after too many complaints they agreed to let the people go first who have a flight that leaves within an hour. It was a complete disaster and I was glad when I was finally checked in. My mom, Eric and me go for a quick breakfast before I go through security to go the gate and then it was time to say goodbye, go to the gate and board the plane.

After a 1 hour flight we land in Frankfurt and there I have to take another plane to Cancun. Everything here at the airport goes a lot smoother than it did at Schiphol and after 3 hours I was on my way to Cancun. The flight itself was long and boring, but 3 hours before landing I had a few drinks with 3 awesome guys who were also on their way to Cancun and a while later we were send back to our seats to prepare for landing.
The view when you arrive at the airport of Cancun is absolutely amazing. Just forest, forest, forest, forest and some small dirtroads in between. Even in the airplane you could already feel the warmth from outside.
An hour after landing I had my bag, my stamp to stay in Mexico for 3 months and my host Rene picked my up. It was already starting to get a little late now, so when we arrived at his place, I went to sleep almost straight away.

An early morning beach walk

18th of June 2015

Today I already woke up at 4:30 am (thanks jetlag!), so decided to do some work first. Rene was going to work at 7am and he offered to drop me off at the beach, so at 6:45 we took the motorbike to the Hotel Zone of Cancun where he dropped me off at the beach. The beach was just like you see in the magazines, white sand, crystal clear blue water and I instantly felt like I was in paradise. It was really quiet at the beach because most tourist were still a sleep, so I enjoyed the moment for a while.

Isla Mall Hotel Zone

After my early morning beach walk I decided to walk to the Isla Mall. It’s a large outdoor mall next to the lagoon. It’s very American and pretty damn expensive as well, but also really beautiful. Little canels are making their way through the entire wall and you have to cross bridges to get everywhere. There are a lot of shops, places to eat and drink and tours on the lagoon. The mall is easily reached with the busses R1 and R2. Both busses run between the hotel zone and downtown Cancun and it will only cost you 10 pesos (0,60 euro cent).

I needed to get some groceries so I decided to take the bus to go downtown for some shopping at Walmart. The Isla mall was way too expensive, so Wallmart was a better option. The bus stops right in front of the mall and it takes about 20 minutes to get to Wallmart.
When I arrived at Wallmart the firealarm suddenly went off, I think I was inside for just 2 minutes when it set off and everyone had to go out. It was just a practice though, not a real fire, but it was funny to experience this.

After having done some grocery shopping I took the bus back to the hotel zone and enjoy the beach for a while longer. It was getting really hot outside now, so I was dying to jump into the ocean. The water temperature is pretty nice, about 25 degrees and the water is crystal clear. Because of the sun, I got quite a tan as well. After taking a dip in the water, a suntanned muscular and handsome lifeguard walks up to me and starts a conversation. He wanted to know where I was from and how long I was going to stay in Mexico. He was a surf instructor as well and tried to sell me a lesson ofcourse haha, who knows I might decide to do it some day soon. I don’t know why lifeguards always walk up to me to start a conversation, but it always happens to me no matter where I am. Not that I mind though. And no, I didn’t take a picture. 

After enjoying the beach Rene was coming to pick me up again and I worked a bit more when we got back home. After I finished work, we went to the store to get some drinks and we enjoyed the rest of the evening with some drinks and conversations. Rene gave me a lot of advice about places to see, what to do and more. I have to say, Mexican people are very welcoming and they invite you for all kinds of things and are genuinely interested to get to know you. I had a great first day in Mexico!