Travelling Solo in Cancun

Once you get the touristy things out of the way, there are two things to do in Cancun: party and veg out. Not to say that you can't find local culture in Cancun. The town, for all its faults, is still the perfect launching point to explore the Yucatan.

Quick Tips:

Of course you must see Chichen Itza. Every hotel will set you up with a tour, and it will set you back about US. Alternatively, find the bus station in town and get yourself around a lot cheaper. Go to Tulum and Playa del Carmen, easy day trips. You meet the nicest people on the bus, and get a look at real life in the Yucatan Peninsula. Some of the more deluxe buses are clean, air conditioned (important!) and show movies to pass the time. For 50 pesos I got a great ride to Tulum that took about two hours.

Best Way To Get Around:

Taxis can be an incredible rip off. It's cheaper (12 pesos) to just flag one down in town than it is to pick up what they call a "standing taxi" (40 pesos). Ask before you get in. If you are going from the Hotel Zone to town, get the Route 1 bus, jump off and grab a cab to whereever you happen to be going. The bus station in town in close by with connections to everywhere. Find the bus station and use it - hit the road, Jack, because if sitting on your duff drinking margueritas gets dull, there is little else to do in the hotel zone.

I had an ocean front room with a small private balcony, a nice bed and traditional Mexican looking decor. Not luxurious, but definitely comfortable and quaint. The rooms had a stocked mini bar and a decent bathroom. The hotel itself was showing a little wear. Some of the stucco was crumbling and the railing on my balcony was, well, a little loose. The pool area and beach were really super, however. The beach is sheltered with its own patch of coral reef to snorkel around. The water, warm like turquoise bath water, was always calm and held all sorts of marvelous fish that weren't at all shy about checking you out. The beach area has a dozen or so palapas. I spent all day under one, staring out at the sea, with lounge chair side waitress service. The pool was wonderful: clean, large, slightly heated, sheltered from the sun with a wide shallow "deck" if you just want to sit in some shallow water and read or zone out. Towels, snorkeling equipment provided at the beach side palapa/bar. The highlight was the hotel spa. I highly recommend getting the nighttime seaside massage. Man, oh man, if you're at all stressed, that'll do the trick. I purchased a package for around $260: three massage sessions of my choice in a super clean, luxurious spa. The hotel restaurants left a little to be desired. They attempted to create a generic American style menu that fell flat. The hotel had a more formal dining room which I did not try, a casual restaurant with the breakfast buffet and an outdoor buffet style nighttime restaurant under the palapa: picturesque but mediocre food. For snacks and so forth, the outdoor grill poolside is just fine. The staff was attentive and polite (honestly, I''ve never encountered rude people in Mexican hotels) and all were bilingual. Its location at the top of the hotel zone near town and the ferry to Isla de Mujeres made it convenient as well. It's near several modern shopping centers and the bus stops near the door. For the price, (I had a 3 night/1 night free package) I was quite pleased and would definitely go back.

I'd never before had what would be considered Yucatecan food. Raised on the tortilla/cheese/hot sauce fare that we get in the US, this Yucatecan was a real delight.

I had the traditional local Sopa de Lima (a soup with chicken, tomatoes, onions, and fried tortillas flavored strongly with sour orange - a strong lime flavor). I had a turkey dish served with a mild buttery sauce and olives. Other Yucatecan specialties, Papadzules, Cochinita Pibil, and Pok-Chuc are available as well.

The atmosphere was a little sterile, with a cold tile floor and white walls. I understand that there's live Mexican music, but there was no band while I was there. The service was prompt and courteous.

A cab from the north end of the Hotel Zone would cost about 80 pesos (~$8 US), but its much cheaper to hop on the Route 1 bus out of the Zone, then getting a taxi to the restaurant, which is directly across from the Bull Fighting arena. At night there isn't much else going on in the area, or all of the downtown area, to be honest. Treat yourself to a cab back to your hotel, and sample the nightlife in the hotel zone instead. But don't miss this restaurant if you want to try something delicious and different, or if you just had your fill of hotel food.

The Yucatan Peninsula is dotted with many ruins, but Chichen Itza is a good place to start, especially if you aren't as adventurous as Indiana Jones. Your hotel will be able to set you up with a tour. It's a three hour drive. My tour detoured through Valladolid, a town with a bustling central plaza that warrants further exploration. We also stopped at a roadside craft market to load up on souvenirs. No bargains to be found; really, there aren’t anywhere in the area.

Make sure you have a guide at Chichen Itza; wandering the site is in itself rewarding, but there are little signs or brochures and you'll miss a lot of history. Take an umbrella, as there is little shelter from the sun, and a big bottle of water. Really. It’s hot. Not kidding.

There are two areas to the site, one much older and in a further state of ruin than the other. It’s amazing what they know, and how little they don't know about the Mayans and Toltecs who built Chichen Itza. Beautifully carved stonework abounds; look for Mayan and Toltec symbols of the jaguar and eagle in the later ruins near the El Castillo, and everywhere is the ever present feathered serpent Kukulcan. If you happen to be lucky enough to visit on a solstice, you’ll see Chichen Itza's magic at work; but I believe you’ll get your share of freakies coming, too.

The main pyramid, El Castillo is full of surprises. Stand at the base of it and clap your hands. The echo will sound like a bird cawing. If you are in good shape, climb up to the top. Vertigo sufferers beware: the climb is steeper than it looks with no guard rails. Some thoughtful soul hung a rope down the stair case which doesn’t do much for one’s sense of security. The way down, well... me and many others resorted to scooting down on our derrieres. At the top you’ll look out over miles of green jungle and the flattest terrain imaginable. You can climb inside, too, but I passed, as the heat and the people were getting to me.

When the sun gets to be too much, seek refuge in the gift shop and cafe. There’s a craft market next to the gift shop pavilion, that didn’t impress me. It’s dark and a little forbidding, and I doubt there are any bargains to be found there either.

The tour took the better part of the day. I was back at my hotel by evening, so the tour was a good full day. All things considered, Chichen Itza is relatively unspoiled and worth the trip. Make sure you do it early in your visit, as it is a bit physically demanding. Partiers, don't go with a hangover!

Another ruin site much closer to Cancun is the picturesque and secluded Tulum. Tulum is built on the cliffs over the Caribbean Sea. I’d made a friend, Mario; he and I hopped on a bus at the central bus station (50 pesos each). There’s no scenery, along the highways are nothing but flat green brush, so the "in-flight "movie was welcome. We reached Tulum in under two hours with a couple of stops along the way.

Tulum is smaller and less commercial. The site is, truthfully, stunning, mostly because of the turquoise ocean laying below. Guides may have been available; we didn’t have one, so I didn't learn much about the site as, like Chichen Itza, there is very little signage or literature available. Wander around until you get hot, then walk down to the beach and have a swim in the sheltered beach area. Tulum has some nice, unspoiled flora and fauna; we encountered a couple of peaceful iguanas wandering around, and there are lovely bougainvillea everywhere.

You can do the site in a couple of hours. Go early and pack a picnic lunch. The beach is perfect, with soft white sand and lots of shade. If a tour has stopped there, however, it will be a little crowded.

We encountered yet another craft stand near the entrance with more of the ubiquitous blankets, hammocks and trinkets. Mario pointed out a weathered man by an ice cream cooler propping up a handpainted sign that read "cool coconuts." He spoke briefly to the little man, who whipped out a lethal machete. He whacked off the tops of two huge green coconuts so that a tiny hole was exposed on the top of each. Then he stuck a straw into each and held them out to us with an eager smile.

Freezing cold and creamy, the coconut milk was absolutely delicious and perfect after a long afternoon of sun and surf. After we drank a little, the man winked and said something in rapid Spanish to Mario that I didn’t catch. Mario nodded happily, and soon a fifth of gin was brandished from the cooler and Mario's coconut was refilled. As if that wasn’t enough, when we emptied our coconuts, the man whacked them into big pieces and sprinkled chili pepper all over the white meat. Delicious!

We caught the next bus north and hopped off at Playa Del Carmen. Playa is really charming, especially if you've had your fill of Cancun’s Hotel Zone. Buses run back up to Cancun well into the night, but check first for times. Combining Tulum and Playa into one day trip would be ideal and easy to handle, especially if you had a family along. Playa has clean wide public beaches and a bustling little main street. See my entry on Playa in this journal.

You can't really call Cancun picturesque, or charming, or lovely. It's a beach, plain and simple, with all the glitz and crassness of any beachside tourist trap.

Go with one objective: to chill out on the beach. You aren't going to find heaps of Mexican culture here, (well, maybe if you venture past the TGIFridays and the Wal-mart), and you will have trouble finding anything not commercialized, homogenized or pre-packaged for tourist consumption. Driving around the town of Cancun itself, you might think you're in some American border town, not another country.

Night life in Cancun is loud (really loud) bars catering to the 18-22 set, dance clubs, and big air conditioned malls for shopping. I can get all that in Paramus, so I wasn't really excited by it. Going to the restaurants was a bit humbling; I was hoping for a little less attention and fewer dumb questions from waiters about why I was alone. But I did massively enjoy lounging in the shade with lounge chair side waitress service. My hotel had a marvelous spa, so I planned activities there and devoted my four day stay to rejuvenation, not hell-bent-for-leather partying.

You'll have to go farther afield to see culture and crafts, and a lot of what you'll see in the marketplaces was not local to Yucatan and didn't seem to be of high quality.

All is not lost. Take your bathing suit and a great book. Plan day trips to Playa Del Carmen, Isla de Mujeres and Chichen Itza. Keep your expectations simple (not low) and enjoy. I had a good time, I did make friends and talk to people and I've been back since. Cancun is a beach. It is the most lovely water and sand I have ever seen. It's not really Mexico.

I'm not a resort type of person, so when I laid eyes on Playa, I made a promise to myself that I would return. Playa is everything Cancun is not. It's quiet, quaint, not commercialized. The beaches are open to the public and easily accessible.

Buses run to Playa all day long from the station in cancun. It takes maybe 45 minutes to an hour to get there, and its well worth the time. Playa is lovely, unspoiled, not commercialized at all. I understand that there are some resorts there and more to come, but for now, its perfect and relatively unscathed by Cancun.

My companion and I arrived in the late afternoon, and took a long walk along the beach and through a quiet residential neighborhood. Many new houses were being built, if that's any indication that the town is prospering, and it felt like home, like a place you could call home.

Nightlife in Playa along the pedestrian street is civilized, especially compared to Cancun. You get the sense that there are actually "adults" there. You can have an inexpensive meal, shop 'til you can't carry anymore, then settle into one of the many cantinas or bars and listen to live music all night, all without getting chatted up or puked on. ***big sigh*** What the hell am I doing here? If the idea of mega hotels, Spring Break and spandex disco nightlife leave you cold, consider moving your party down south to Playa. I know I am, next time.