For many Canadians a trip to Mexico in the winter is like
a pilgrimage to the holy land where god is this big bright yellow thing that
shines in the sky. Some claim to have a deep faith in all that is bright and
any talk of anything that smacks of ridicule of this far off land or its people
should be written off as ignorance or the inability to adapt.
A number of years ago when I was single and in my fifties
I would occasionally get into conversations on the net about Mexico and inevitably
I would be told that to truly understand Mexico one had to stay away from big
resorts and find more out of the way places where the locals were more natural
(whatever that means) and hadn’t been influenced as much by the Yankee dollar.
My usual response to the above was that if one is really
interested in rather simple people there are some blue haired old ladies and
farmers in rural Saskatchewan that they could be introduced to. Try taking
local transportation in Mexico and you will find that the locals don’t offer up
the same smiles that they do when they are trying to extract some cash from you
by selling you something or hopefully expecting a tip.
One thing that has always irked me when travelling is
condescending tourists. We are all people and some of us have been luckier than
others as to where we were born and raised. There is nothing cute about being
poor and having to work 6 days a week at some lousy job that is leading
nowhere.
I have been to Mexico over a dozen times. Linda has been
there 6 times in the last 6 years and I have been 5 times in the same period.
(The other year we went to the Dominican Republic.) We always stay at resorts
because we like to lie around the swimming pool. Linda always has a book on the
go and I am more inclined to have my headphones on while watching the passing
parade. The rooms are always very nice and the food and booze is included.
We try not to over complicate things. We aren’t
archeologists. We aren’t writing a book on socioeconomics. More than anything
else we are in Mexico to break up the long days of winter on Vancouver Island
where we live that offer us very little sunshine or bright colours.
This year we chose a resort that is part of the Bahia
Principe chain. The resort is located on Mayan Riviera about an hour and a half
south of Cancun by car. It is actually 3 resorts and as a guest you have access
to all of the amenities provided by each resort, Coba where we stayed, Akumal
and Tulum.
Walk to lobby and dining room. |
Coba lobby. |
After getting off the plane in Cancun, we found ourselves
in an extended van along with two other couples from BC being driven to our
destination and we arrived at about 7 p.m. in the evening. The first thing we
noticed was the giant thatched roof above the reception area. It was about 4
stories high and quite impressive. We were offered a couple of margaritas while
we were signing in. We were told that a lock for our room safe would be 5 bucks
a day.
Coba main lobby entrance. |
Lobby ceiling. |
We found our room and within a few minutes our luggage
arrived. We slipped into out tropical duds and made our way to the buffet
dining room. We were told that there was a Mexican show that night that cost
something like 15 bucks and took a pass. It was one of those been there, done
that, kind of things.
Our Room. |
One of the things I learned a long time ago about
travelling to Mexico is to roll with the punches. It isn’t Canada. The warm
weather and usually sunny skies far and away make up for any minor
inconveniences.
For most of the first two days at the resort the skies
were cloudy and there were some showers. We spent a bit of time at the pool in
those two days and took a ride over to the beach. The resorts have a capacity
of something like 6,000 people altogether (maybe more). There are close to
2,600 rooms.
On our 2nd night we saw an excellent group of
musicians that included a singer who was kind of an Amy Winehouse clone. An
older duffer was out on the dance floor with his younger girlfriend and a
stubby French Canadian guy with a cowboy hat couldn’t help himself and joined
them as a threesome. The old duffer seemed to put up with it good naturedly.
Later when the couple was seated the French Canadian guy asked the woman to
dance with him alone. He kind of looked like he was pushing the envelope and
not long after the couple departed. The singer said the band would be back the
next night but they were MIA when we went back the next evening.
On the 3rd night we spent part of the evening
in a quiet lounge at another of the resorts. A Latin singer and organist were
the entertainment and they were quite good. They did tunes like The Girl From
Ipanema. We ran into some people from Vancouver Island at the lounge.
I know that there are many who like the music that is
played at Mexican resorts but I am not one of them. It starts about 12 noon
around the bigger pools and runs until about 11 p.m. near to the main lobby.
Mostly it is a kind of driving beat with shades of disco and 1990s techno pop.
Mindless crap mostly suited towards twenty somethings. In between the music the
Mexican DJ is often screaming. We are told that we are simply not hip if we
don’t turn up that night at some disco or other. Sometimes we would be exhorted
to join in a game of “bolleyball” at the pool.
Most resorts have an “adult” or “quiet” pool where you
can get away from the noise and quietly read a book without distraction if you
care to. Not at this place. For starters the “adult” or “quiet” pool had an ice
cream machine. From time to time a parent could be heard screaming at their
kid(s) from across the pool. It may just be me but I am not fussy about seeing
babies in diapers in swimming pools. I don’t care how much chlorine is in the
water.
By 8 a.m. pretty well all of the lounging chairs around
the pools had been reserved for the day with a book or beach towel placed upon
them denoting that they were not available. After that the best you could hope
for is to stretch out on the grass or try to marry up a pair of single chairs if
you can find them and drag one of them over to the other. There are signs all over the place saying you can't reserve a chair but nobody pays any attention.
One of the pools in early morning. |
Other than walking, the way to get from one place to
another in a resort as big as this is to take a “train” which is basically like
a larger golf cart pulling trailers with bench seats. The is a big sign on the
trailers warning drunks of the dos and don’ts and absolving the resort of any
responsibility should an accident occur.
Train? |
Hotel Guests
People come from all over the world to the Mayan Riviera.
There are a lot of Europeans and lots of Russians. The men seem partial to
wearing speedos. Although the resort is on the Caribbean Sea, Canadians and
Americans, who are the majority of the guests, come from both eastern and
western regions of those countries. If you are into people watching this is the
place to be.
The first thing you would probably notice is that many of
the guests are really, really fat. (I am carrying some extra pounds myself.) I
am talking about extra fat. It is as if every huge person from back home
somehow managed to scrape up the cash for a trip south in the dead of winter to
air the old body out.
The resort is family oriented which means there are kids
of all ages around. At night in the lobby you can see the glow coming off of
lap top screens and hand held devises, many of them being used by teenagers and
kids even younger. Also by a number of adults. You don’t see a lot of family
vacation bonding going on.
Most tourists are pretty friendly and capable of a short
conversation which always includes the question “Where are you from?” A few are
a waste of time trying to talk to perhaps because they are just anal or maybe
distrustful in sea of humans.
You can kind of break the hotel guests down into groups.
There are the Mexican cowboy hat types who can’t get enough of the watered down
booze and who often like to party. There are the young fashionistas who are up
date in the latest trends. Young gals in their twenties with short skirts ready
for the disco and guys with leg tattoos and yellow sun glasses perched on their
foreheads. There are the “first timers” who are totally blown away with Mexico
and are of varying ages. You see people who have come down to attend a wedding
on the beach. There are a few mothers who have had their young daughters hair
dyed blonde and made into corn rows and you might be kind of tempted to tell
the mothers that their kids just aren’t that special. Most people staying at the
resort are over 60 years of age. If not Mexico now when?
Many French Canadians love the tropics. They tend to be
cliquey and remain within their comfort zone. It is like they have transported
their Quebec culture with them. Often if you try to engage them in conversation
you find that they have little curiosity about English speaking people and make
you struggle with the little French you know instead of speaking English which
a lot of them know. Not the most sophisticated travellers I have met.
Most American tourists are fine. Occasionally you run
into one who thinks the world revolves around the US.
The best conversation we had with a fellow tourist was
with a gal in her late 20s from Toronto. Somehow I missed out on the fact that
she was topless when we first parked ourselves next to her. Linda told me
later. She told us that she had a black boyfriend from Nigeria and sure enough
he turned up about a ½ hour into our chat. The gal was telling us that she was
hoping to buy a condo back home and that she needed some more cash for the down
payment. I suggested that her boyfriend might kick in and he rolled his eyes.
It was kind of funny.
The tourists who really amaze me are the old gaffers.
Some are hobbling. Between all of the noise and the extremely hot sun, and
probably being on medication, somehow they manage to make it back to the plane
home without having to be rushed to a hospital. Some of them look like they are
just happy to be anywhere at this point in life.
Mexican Resort Food
The giant buffet in the giant dining room is hardly an
advertisement for world hunger. Plates are stacked three times a day often with
only half the food eaten. Bacon, which is deepfried is clearly the breakfast
favourite. Mexicans have made an art form out of destroying the taste of food.
A little bit of cilantro goes a long way if you know what I mean. Meat is
usually doctored with some kind of spices and is often tough to chew. Seafood
is a lost cause. Shrimp are mushy and overcooked. You need a chainsaw to cut
through what is inside shellfish.
I found that I had to take 2 tours through the buffet
area before putting something on my plate. Fresh fruit is always a good idea to
keep the system flowing. It is hard to totally destroy pasta. Peanut butter on
toast works. Some of the deserts were OK and they had really good ice cream. I
never went near a hamburger or hot dog.
It is a bit of an adventure going to the buffet. Some
butt in line if they see some food that has possibilities. Many are oblivious
to others around them and it is surprising that there aren’t more broken plates
on the floor.
The resort staff in the dining room are desperate for
tips and you can tell that they are more than a bit disingenuous with their
smiles. Often they tend to run around in a panic instead of logically going
about their duties. Ask for a spoon and you might get it 10 minutes later. Ask
for a drink and it could arrive within minutes.
Part of the deal at the resort is that you could choose 3
so called “ala carte” restaurants to have dinner at. We only chose one, a
Japanese place called The Mikado. (I never was much of a Gilbert & Sullivan
fan….never mind if you don’t get the connection.) We were led into a room that
had seats that surrounded a grill. Our fellow diners were all French Canadians,
a group of three couples and a small child with an ipod, and an older couple
who sat beside us that were from Quebec who never mumbled a word during dinner.
The worldly French Canadians stuck with spoons and forks and knives. I’m not
sure if they took the chopsticks home as souvenirs.
Mexican/Japanese cook. |
We tried to engage the French Canadians in a bit of
conversation even mentioning that I was born in Montreal but that went nowhere
and they resumed chatting to one another in French. I have pretty well given up
on French Canadians. The sashimi was surprisingly OK as was the soup. The chef
turned up and did his act of spinning the cooking utensils around in the air.
Nothing that appeared that dangerous but a decent act just the same. Some rice
and fresh vegetables were spread out on the grill followed by pieces of fish,
chicken, and beef. The latter out were
portioned into chunks which made them look like stew meat. Did I mention that
not a soul who worked in the place was Japanese? I passed on the prawns knowing
that they were just going to be recooked. I also took a pass on the “mystery”
fish. The chicken and beef were kind of passable by Mexican standards. I am
glad that we didn’t bother with the other 2 ala carte restaurant meals.
Smoking.
You can’t smoke in the resort rooms, in the lobby, or the
dining room, or on transportation. Other than that the resort is kind of a
smoker’s paradise and I smoke. It kind of felt like the old days when you could
smoke on a plane or walk around puffing on a butt in a supermarket.
I haven’t seen so many smokers in one place in years. You
would see people coming out of the dining room with a smoke and a lighter in
one hand ready to puff away. I saw an old guy smoking while he pushed his wife
in a wheelchair.
Back in Canada you would probably be verbally assaulted
if you displayed your smoking habit so openly. At the Bahia Principe any
dislike for smokers was camouflaged. Not a place for brave anti-smokers to
voice their opinions.
Fending off the hucksters.
There were two entrances to the dining room at Coba. One
had a number of steps that led directly into the dining room and the other was
an entrance way off of the main lobby. The latter had a number of time share
and condo sales booths that you had to pass in the corridor. You were free game
if you chose this route. The standard plan is to keep walking and ignore the
hucksters. I got a few chuckles from them one day when I asked them if they
would be interested in buying a condo in Victoria, BC.
A couple of good looking young Mexican gals patrolled the
edge of the lobby. They weren’t your typical looking dining room staff. A few
“kills” on selling condos and they could make a damned good living. Neither gal
made eye contact with one another. I think the deal was that they couldn’t
harass the guests but if someone engaged them at all…..that’s another story.
One morning, we were sitting out in the sun having a
coffee (and a smoke) when we were approached by a dignified looking middle aged
Mexican gent. He started to go into a pitch about some “privileged club” and
Linda cut him off and told him we were in the middle of a conversation. Having
spent most of my life in sales I, apparently, am more amused by sales BS than
Linda. The guy asked us if we were Americans and when we told him he weren’t he
went into a 5 point rant about rotten Americans including some court stuff. My
guess is he had an ex-wife in the US who had sued his pants off.
Noise
If you like noise and lots of it, this is the resort to
go to. Turn on the TV and almost every Mexican commercial involves screaming or
loud voices. The announcers all sound like they were trained to do American
tractor pull events. Make the voice deep and drag the word out slowly.
“Waaaaaaaarner Brothers”.
All Mexican all-inclusives have a pool DJ and you can
pretty well count on hearing “Oooha Ooh” at least 10 times a day. That sound
ranks right up there with “In the hole” on golf broadcasts on US TV. I’m not
big on guns but…
Directly across from our room was a fenced off area where
they were building a kid’s water park. The fence was covered by some green
fabric so it was hard to see what was going on. Every morning at 7:30 p.m. the
chainsaws, circular saws, and hammers would get going. It went on all day.
Aside from the DJ yelling at the activity pool from about 12:00 a.m. to about 4
p.m. there was also some dancing or entertainment going on near the reception
area from about 7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. 5 year old kids dancing in the dark
with strobe lights is not cute and probably the last place a single person
wants to be.
The resort management, in their wisdom or lack of same,
made a decision at some point that nobody would care if construction on the new
water park went on to 10:30 at night possibly figuring that nobody would care
when noise was already coming from the nightly deal near the reception area.
One morning at about 7:00 a.m., I could hear a kid crying
and screaming from one of the complexes nearby. It wasn’t exactly the sound of
morning birds whistling and chirping.
And then there was the one of the coffee cups in our room
that had a chip in it. It was there for 7 days which made me wonder if they
used one of our used towels to clean it.
All in all I don’t think the management could give a
rat’s ass about any discomfort they put their customers through. It seems to be
all about the money and moving the herds in and out.
When I got back to BC I read some of the reviews on the
resort. One person wrote about finding mold in their room at the sister club
across the highway by the golf course. Another wrote about stepping on a spider
and all the little baby spiders running around the room.
Upside.
The water at the beach is crystal clear and schools of
fish swim by. There are a number of pretty looking birds (orange, yellow, red)
that make their homes at the resort. It is quite common to see long tailed
critters that look a bit like racoons. You see iguanas everywhere and the
occasional gecko. One morning we saw a creature that looked like it was part of
the pig family. The grounds are well manicured and you can tell that you are
right next to the jungle.
Beach |
Ring tailed varmints. |
Gecko. |
Iguanas. |
Tulum.
I had been to the Mayan ruins at Tulum about 15 years ago
when I stayed in Cancun. Back then you could climb the steps of the pyramid but
not anymore. Our hotel liaison person didn’t recommend Tulum as a place to see
and suggested other ruins possibly because of a kick back. The going rate from
the resort to Tulum and back was 75 bucks a head. Linda and I have never been
adverse to taking public transportation in Mexico (it kind of gives you a local
feel) and our trip to Tulum ended up costing us a total of 24 bucks for both of
us including the entrance fee and transportation.
Tulum. |
Tulum |
Linda. |
Tulum |
Tulum. |
Summary.
Did I have a good time? Yes I did. As I said earlier I
always roll with the punches when in Mexico. I will be 66 in a few months and
spending a week in Mexico and people watching along with the natural and
unnatural beauty of the area is enough to break up months of grey skies in the
winter on Vancouver Island. I’ve always liked an adventure.
Would I go again? Definitely not! Next year we’re going
to Maui where things are a lot more peaceful.
Adios. |
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