January 15, 2024
Day 34: Playa economics
The last time we were at Maya Turquesa they had a sheet at reception laying out the menu choices for the included breakfast, which is served at the adjoining restaurant. It turned out that only one of these was truly included, and the others were extra cost optional selections. We took exception to this scam, and as a result they took down the breakfast description sheet at reception.
This time around, they are clear that there is only one selection that comprises the included breakfast, but for variety, it changes with the day of the week. In the restaurant the waiter will still bring the general menu, but with some work can be convinced that we are only there for the standard, included selection of the day, for which reception has given us a ticket.
In our time here, we have trained the waiter that this is all we are doing. But today, though our usual waiter was around, we had a new young man. He brought the menu, and received our "no, we just want the hotel selection" as we gave him the ticket. He retreated with the menu, and I don't recall him looking at all confused. So we sat pleasantly as more customers came to the restaurant, sat down, and got served. Finally, Dodie's fuse blew and she went to the back to find out wtf. She found our old waiter back there and explained that the other fellow already had our ticket. "Oh, don't deal with him, he's useless", was the reply, in English. After that, our stuff came super fast, in the hands of the proper waiter.
What came was a famous Mexican breakfast, that we had been unfamiliar with. Google Lens, however, knew all about it. It's called flautas. and was really good:
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This breakfast set us up for our next steps today. Our stuff is now a complete disaster on the hotel room floor, and Dodie's chore (something for which she is well and uniquely suited) is to organize it into just a few airplane ready packages. Meanwhile, we had stashed our bike cases at a distant storage facility, and my chore (for which I might be questionably suitable) was to commandeer a taxi and go fetch them.
I had prepared for the taxi chore by learning several key words: maleta (suitcase), pickup (recocer), wait (espera) 10 minutes while I go in, and return (volver) to the hotel. Taxi's in Playa are quite a thing. They are all white cars, and their drivers all wear white. There are snowdrifts of them all over the place, and drivers often stand out in the street with signs that say "Taxi". I don't think Uber is a thing here, and I think I read that the taxis had fought Uber off.
In conditions of such abundant supply, ordinary economics would predict quite low prices. But it's never that simple, because at least there is the question of demand. Taxis are no doubt in high demand. And yet, you always see scads of vacant ones. There also turns out to be two quite distinct markets. Taxis in the tourist section of course cater to tourists, and taxis in the real people section are daily transportation for those who can not afford their own car (or moto). Taxis may also conspire to control prices by using some kind of fixed price schedules for common trips. We have seen these schedules down in the core tourist area.
Whatever the factors, taxi fares here are dramatically higher than what we expect back home. To get run from Cancun airport 2 km to a hotel could easily cost 600 pesos. The same money could take you 18 km from Victoria BC airport into town. So that is 9x more costly!
This is the environment into which I walked, on my mission to pick up the bike cases. I began with the taxi parked outside the hotel. The operator was lounging on a bench across the street. I went and sat down beside him and clearly explained the mission, including the destination, the route, and the total kms, shown on my phone. This is something I picked up from William Taudien, a world traveler that I follow on Youtube. William always shows the driver exactly where he wants to go, the distance, and the route. That way there is no debate and no misunderstanding. It makes me think of one time I got into a tuktuk in Bankok with Dodie's dad, and we got driven randomly around while the driver tried to convince us to go find some girls. That driver was wrong to mess with Dodie's dad, but I think we still paid extra for the long drive.
In today's case, the driver wanted 600 pesos. To be clear, that's $50 Canadian for a 5 km total ride! (It's 3 hours work at the minimum wage back home.) I countered with 400, and the fellow flatly refused. I expected then that 500 would do it, but no. So no deal.
Instead I walked two blocks, out of the tourist zone, offered the first taxi 400 pesos, and we were off!
While we are talking costs, we had paid the storage 900 pesos to watch our cases for a month, and had we decided to stash the Fridays here, for a year, they would have wanted 1300 pesos monthly. That's at least twice what we are paying to store our big bikes in Europe. We used to think of Mexico as a low cost alternative, but sheesh!
It's four hours later, and our bags are packed at last. But we can't finish the line "we're ready to go", because first of all Dodie, our main packer, is now beat. Also it's warm and pleasant outside. Dodie has scoped out flights to Costa Rica. But no, we have our thin "warm clothes" in a backpack and will give BC a try.
We walked to the beach for a last time, and then back to our favourite whole foods restaurant. It was salmon steak and chicken burger this time, all with so fresh ingredients. My pineapple lemonade had a significant amount of fresh pineapple chunks in it. And apple cheesecake - fresh apple!
Some Eurasian Collared Doves came to our table and got some bread. This restaurant features mainly doves and grackles, but they are still fun.
Readers who hang in with this blog will still get to rise with us at 4:45 a.m. tomorrow and shuttle to Cancun, where we will fight our bikes and batteries onto the plane, arrive in frozen Vancouver, and try to make it home. But even if you are not into that level of struggle, watch for us in 3-4 weeks, as we will reclaim our bikes in Valencia, Spain and cycle the Spanish and Portuguese coasts, back to Santiago de Compostella, and fetching up finally in Paris. Are you up for it? We are!
See you tomorrow!
Today's ride: 5 km (3 miles)
Total: 1,482 km (920 miles)
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