November 20, 2021
Day 3: Cancun
Our location here at Casa Jorge y Marvin is a classical B&B, even to the extent that I think we might be in Jorge's room, while the real apartment which is downstairs is renovated.
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Jorge woke us up at 8 (5 a.m. our time) with scrambled eggs and ham, toast, tortillas, and fruit. One other feature was starfruit juice.
We soon set about unpacking and unfolding the bikes, which came through the transport unscathed! Dodie proceeded with reorging our gear while I undertook two tech projects. In fact, it turned out to be Jorge and I on the projects, one of which was really for him and one for us.
The first project stems from our near miss last night, in which the inaccuracy of the latitude and longitude recorded with Booking would have had us completely unable to find this place had "one of us" got his way and put us on the bikes out of the airport. I used my mouse on my relatively big screen computer to pinpoint the house location, and get the lat and long for it out of Google maps. Jorge and Marvin then went to work to make sure Booking had it right. We also took the liberty of slightly correcting their spelling on the place name. We felt proud to be able to help out with a real Booking listing.
The second project was to put phone and data service on our two phones and one computer. I had read an article by a seasoned Mexico traveler, and already knew that I wanted to deal with Telcel, and which of their plans would be best. Also, it appeared the ubiquitous OXXO stores would be good to buy the SIMs and the plans. But the nearest OXXO was quite distant and I spotted a "Telcel store" nearby. I explained to Jorge what I wanted, and he took me down there. A lot of quickly spoken Spanish transpired between Jorge and the store lady, and it turned out she could sell and activate the SIMs but could not top them up with any plans. We bought the SIMs and Jorge and I came home, where he used a service of his bank to buy the top ups. The Telcel SIMs worked swell, each offering unlimited talk, even to Canada and the US, and 2 gB of data, for about $10 Canadian per month.
I tested this out by calling Joni in Canada. At first she didn't answer, because she thought the call could be from some Mexican scammer. Quickly she remembered that she does know some sketchy people in Mexico, and that these are her parents! So next time she picked up, and I put Jorge on. Joni, a former Spanish teacher, said his Spanish is very good and clear. Nice going Jorge!
The computer got 8 gB of data for the month for $44. I understand from that article I read that these SIMs will still work when we return to Canada. Since I can top them up online, it could be goodbye Canadian Rogers with their double and triple priced offerings!
Jorge and Marvin are happy with their newly polished Booking listing, and we are thrilled to have such good cell service.
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My walk with Jorge took me outside into the neighbourhood for the first time, and Dodie and I did a little tour later. It's partly that we live alone on a quiet farm and partly that a Mexican neighbourhood is nothing like a Canadian one, but we absolutely adore this place. The streets have little traffic and are lined with very humble shops - groceries, BBQs, hairdressers, bars, fruit stores. The pace is slow and the people nice. I joined a short line up for wood broiled chicken, carrying 120 pesos from Jorge and 240 from Dodie. This returned us three whole chickens, with tortillas, two sauces, and rice. That's $25 for three chickens and the sides. I'd call that a little under 1/2 the Costco price!
Next stop the bakery (panaderia) of course. Mexican bakery is vaguely reminiscent of French, but danish type things are drier and lighter. They are still great, and cost about 8 pesos (56 cents) each. Later in our tour today we saw where we could get them for 6 pesos, but with not the same selection.
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Wandering in the neighbourhood. The track makes us look like drunken sailors, eh.
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We are counting today a great success, with the bikes now ready to go, the phones ready to go, two new friends, and an excursion into a wholly different culture from our own. Tomorrow Jorge agreed to an early breakfast, and then off we go straight south on 307 toward the (in)famous Playa del Carmen!
Bonus: More on some local foods
Jorge fried up some Yuca at suppertime. (Not to be confused with Yucca). Wow, if McDonald's gets onto this, regular fries could be in for some competition. This is like sweet potato fries, but there is a little more flavour.
After supper I developed a hankering for some chocolate. So I headed on over to the Abbarrotes (grocery) on the corner. But very quickly I could see that in the shelf space that normally would have chocolate bars, there were to be found only a million kinds of cookies. The reason was obvious. The one or two Mars bars that were lying around were like limp noodles. It's just too hot here for normal chocolate. If you want Toblerone, Steve, go cycle in chilly Switzerland!
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OK, you’ve got my attention now! And boy am I jealous. The Yucatán is one of the places in America del Norte that I always wanted to see, until Cancun and it’s resorts came along and brought tourism en masse. But you have found the way to visit, in close touch with the local people, that looks like it will be perfect. A dear friend of ours used to go “down” to the Yucatán every winter and disappear into the jungle for a month. But he is a quiet type, and never wrote or said much about the experience. So I will be counting on you to provide the details and a few photos to make our cold Burgundy winter warmer.
Saludos Amigos!
Keith
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