Downtown Cancun--Monday Nov. 19

We woke up late and admittedly a little sore from our snorkeling adventure of the previous day, so we decided to take it easy and explore a little closer to home. Jeff said that it was easy to get around on the city buses from his experience from his last visit.  We wanted to see the downtown and have an authentic meal.  Oh, and maybe find a casino.  So we headed down to breakfast to fortify ourselves

Unfortunately, we got going late, and I (K) made the mistake of taking my meds on an empty stomach.  The upshot was that I started getting faint and sick while waiting in the egg line, and just when the cook was finishing my omelette and Jeff's sunnyside up, I started to black out.  I managed to make it to our table as the world narrowed to a pinpoint and Jeff went to get the eggs while I tried to compose myself. I ended up puking in Jeff's cereal bowl.  Poor Jeff!  I disintegrated right before his eyes.  After about 5 minutes and some juice and eggs I started to feel better, but we decided to postpone our trip to town.  I fell asleep for about an hour and then off we went.

A word about traffic in Mexico, or at least Cancun.  Everyone goes as fast as they can all the time until they can't and then they slam on the brakes.  It makes for a rough ride.  And there are huge tour buses and city buses and cars and trucks all mixed up together doing this.  Add to that the lack of any stop lights or pedestrian crossings and it can be downright terrifying. Oh, diesel is the preferred fuel, environmental concerns are low on the list which equals breathing - a competitive sport.

So we asked the front desk person which bus to take to get downtown, and which bus to take to get from there to the casino.  She gave us the numbers, but no other information.  We figured it couldn't be that hard (ha--we were like babes in the woods).  The first bus is R-1 and it comes right where it is supposed to be.  The buses seem to have no schedule, but there are lots of them, big and little, and they all have the R followed by a number of their route and a brief listing of where they go.  Anyway, we made it downtown and found a nice restaurant.  The food was Mayan and delicious and they even gave us our "coca light' in a glass bottle!  Then we walked around and saw a few sights, but it was getting late and we decided to find the casino.

On our stroll be met a number of nice helpful folk.  The most interesting individual was Karami, a twenty something tattoo artist.  He told us how all the people hawking goods and trying to catch our attention are just trying to do their job.  To ignore them is to be rude and unkind.  He told us to simply just say, "We are leaving tonight." which allows them to not waste their time on us and allows us to not be rude.  We began to use the phrase, a lot, and it really does work.

Exploring downtown

Pancho Villa memorialized on the wall of the cafe

Coca-Lite in a bottle

Jeff plays hide and seek

We knew we had to catch the R-27 to the Plaza Las Americas (a giant shopping mall much like Valley River Center only 4 times the size) and near there was the casino.  Jeff's Spanish is even worse than mine, so we asked various passersby where we could catch the ventesiete autobus to Plaza Las Americas.  They were very helpful, but we couldn't understand what they were telling us to do.  Finally we found the bus, the Plaza and after a pretty long walk, the casino.  They had all the familiar games, but the gambling was in pesos.  It was cool, quiet and peaceful inside.  Mexican casinos have an isolated smoking area and the rest of the casino is smoke free, which is the opposite from the US.  Anyway, we soon lost our 300 pesos and were ready to find out way home.  We walked back to the Plaza, dodging traffic, and waited for our bus.  We were in a parking garage under the mall, and the fumes from passing buses and cars were clogging our lungs.  Bus R-27 never came.  Finally an official looking guy came by and told us (we thought) that we should go through the mall and there was a bus stop on the other side where R-27 stopped.

Into the mall we go, and I was stunned.  The place was absolutely packed with people.  On a Monday afternoon no less.  We made our way through the mall, got lost and another helpful person told us to go to the other end by Sears. At least we understood the word "Sears".  Exhausted, we trudged all the way to the other end and finally found the bus stop.  I was near tears and despairing of ever getting back to the hotel, when I heard someone speaking English.  I almost kissed him.  He and his wife were bilingual nurses from Stanford and they assured us that R-27 would come by, that it would take us back to the Krystal.  So we waited, and waited, and waited.  Meanwhile buses of every size stopped by spewing diesel fumes.  Finally R-27 made it's appearance and we hopped aboard along with our new friends and protectors. 

So our trip downtown was quite a trip!  I never was so glad to get home as I was to get off the bus and find the Krystal.  I did enjoy seeing more of the city, and the casino was fun, but trying to find a way around a strange city when you don't know the language is very stressful.  Thank goodness for all the kind people who helped us on our way.