As you may or may not know, I went to Mexico recently. I want to share all of my photos and memories from the trip on here. It turns out I have a lot to say about our trip so I’m breaking it up into multiple posts. Here is part 1, be on the look out for part 2!
Underground light rail stop at the airport. The stripes in the wall are different layers in the rock. So cool!
Our trip included several legs of travel via various means of transportation: city bus > light rail > plane > charter-type bus > one of the scariest taxi rides of my life. Stop signs are more of suggestions in Mexico apparently. And then we had to do it all in reverse to get home!
Since the light rail stops at the airport, that was the easiest way to get there, besides paying hundreds of dollars to park my car in their parking ramp for a week. We only had to take one connecting bus to get to the light rail but it was about -5 degrees F so the wait for the bus was a bit chilly. Especially when we got dropped off at the underground airport stop.
This was my first time out of the US, if you don’t include that time I went to the International Peace Garden located on the North Dakota/Canada border. I was nervous leaving the country, especially since we were traveling to a non-English speaking country. What if I didn’t know enough Spanish to make it through immigration, and they send me back? Turns out, Mexico relies heavily on US tourism and the Cancún airport may as well be in Texas. Everyone at the airport was very friendly and spoke fluent English.
When we landed I insisted that I get my photo taken by a palm tree. Also note the shorts. It was so hot in the airport, I had to change into shorts immediately.
Once we landed, it was dinner time so we wandered around looking for food. I wanted something authentic, like tacos. We ended up at a place called T@cos.com. I think they pronounce it “Tacos dot com” but I keep pronouncing it “T at cos dot com” in my head. I think it looks silly. Excluding the name, it was exactly what I was looking for in terms of authenticity. I ordered a piña colada and I watched our server walk out of the restaurant, money in hand, to buy ingredients for my drink. I probably could have ordered literally anything and as long as the ingredients could be purchased near by, they would have made it for me. They had one guy cooking on a stove top in the front of the restaurant, where you could watch, and the whole place looked like it could be a kitchen in someone’s home.
It took a while to get used to the different currency. $1 USD is equal to about 14 pesos! I felt like I was rich.
Aaron ordered a margarita and our server asked if he wanted it “la roca”. I was super proud of myself for understanding that she was asking if he wanted it on the rocks. I should mention that my Spanish is limited to food items, and everything covered up through level 5 in Duolingo. Which is surprisingly not a lot of useful stuff. I mean when am I ever going to need to know how to say “my penguin” in Spanish? It’s “mi pingüino” for the curious. As a side note, I definitely would like to broaden my Spanish for the next time we go. Nothing screams, “I’m a tourist,” more than staring blankly at your cashier when they say your total in Spanish.
First drinks in Mexico. They really hit the spot.
The table we were at was outside on the sidewalk and I was enjoying people watching when I saw this guy carrying a huge string bass down the street. He then stopped in front of our restaurant and started setting it up. His two band mates then caught up with him and they started playing music for us. I’d later realize that a lot of locals do things like perform music in front of restaurants full of tourists to make money. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t annoyed by all of the performances yet, but these guys were really good! They were a lot of fun to listen to and it really added to the authenticity feel I was looking for.
This is the band that preformed for us.
This was how we got down to the beach from where we stayed. Talk about stunning.
Be on the lookout for the rest of my Puerto Morelos story. You can also check out more photos from the trip on my instagram page.
Thanks for reading!
-Amber
