Isla Mujeres means "The Island of Women" so, naturally, I thought I was going to fall in love with the place. I am sad to say that I didn't. I had imagined a tiny island with barely any roads that had a resort feel to it, with every building popping up out of the sand and hammocks strung between palm trees; I guess "Maldives-esque". Instead, it was fairly touristy and rather ugly in some places. It was in no way the paradise retreat that I had visualised. The beautiful beach that everyone raves about, Playa Norte, was very nice, but nothing that different to what we have already seen in Mexico. I would even go as far as to say that I preferred the beach in Cancun. Don't get me wrong, Isla Mujeres was more than pleasant and if we hadn't had the luxury of seeing what we have in the last few weeks, I may well have been blown away; perhaps I just had too high expectations. Regardless, it is only a 20 minute ferry ride from the mainland so is easy enough to pop over for a day trip or just to stay a few nights.
The long:
Saturday:
Oh dear. The heartbreak of leaving Cancun was only magnified by a series of very unlucky events.
Numero uno (keepin' things local): When we hopped on the bus in Cancun to go to the port we asked the bus driver to inform us when we were at Playa del Tortugas, as this is where we would be catching the ferry from to Isla Mujeres. He signified that we had arrived and so off we got, yet it was the wrong port where the last ferry of the day had already left. We trudged back to the bus stop like donkeys in the heat with our rucksacks on and waited for another bus.
Numero dos: When we finally arrived at Playa del Tortugas, there wasn't a ferry for just over an hour. The wait began.
Numero tres: I spotted some coconuts out of the corner of my eye and got all over-excited, only to find out that they cost £2.60 per coconut (we have paid as little as 10p each and at the most until this point $1 each). Michael fairly put his foot down. I could not accept. I embarked on a coconut hunt in the various beach-side restaurants, getting very sandy in the process. I returned bearing 2 coconuts, having only managed to haggle 20p off per coconut. Michael was not best impressed. And, as it turns out, neither was I, since their flesh was incredibly tough making them horribly difficult to eat; so much so that I had to ask the restaurant that I initially rejected to cut them open with a machete, which was done rather frostily (fair enough!). My nausea then began.
Numero quatro: As we queued to board the ferry, the dense black cloud that had been hovering above us for the last hour decided to dispose of all of its contents, drenching everyone in its wake. We then had a rather bumpy boat journey as our little ferry tried to overcome the insurmountable waves and downpour that hammered the windows, totally obscuring vision. Good news, we made it. Bad news, the rain had intensified during our journey and become monsoon-like. Everyone departing and boarding the boat got absolutely SOAKED, and I mean wet to the bone, just come out of the sea with all of your clothes on, soaked. The streets had filled with water during the last 30 minutes of rainfall, and the taxi that we took to our hotel had to crawl along so as not to flood its engine. Perhaps not the best impression when arriving somewhere that you really want to be wowed by, leaving us with dwindling hope that the fun evening that we had planned on would ensue.
Numero cinco: As we were getting settled in our super basic room and day-dreaming about the beloved Cancun that we had left only a number of hours before, my nausea really stepped it up a gear. I had every intention of pushing through but once I'd actually mastered getting ready to leave the room (this took some time), I just couldn't do it. Michael's suspected food poisoning must actually have been a virus of some kind that had chosen the miraculously good timing to transmit and take and me down just as he was starting to appear fully recovered. Whatever the hell that evil little demon bug was, it was seriously nasty. To put it bluntly, I was sat on the toilet with a bin between my legs doing some masterful synchronised bodily actions. It sapped all of the energy out of you so that you could barely bring yourself to walk or talk, and blurred your vision and thoughts to the extent that when Michael was suffering, he used my toothbrush; couldn't find his belt when it was in plain sight on the bed; spent 15 minutes searching for a room key that was staring him in the face, and I left the room key in the door; said utterly nonsensical things to Michael, and managed to stomach only half of my pepperoni pizza (regurgitated shortly after). Basically, we were not ourselves! We both agree that there really is no place like home when you feel like s***!
Numero seis: To top it all off, we found out that the whale shark season ended as of 5 days ago, waaaaaa!!!
Sunday:
After a long nights sleep and many toilet trips, I believed (and hoped) that I may be out of the woods, since I felt 100 times better than I had the night before; I could actually see now! I crossed my fingers and toes anyway, as Michael and I only had 1 full day in Isla Mujeres and I didn't want to squander it holed up in a nasty fluorescent-bulbed hotel room. On the other hand, I won't be too critical of that lamp as it did at least provide me with some cheer, since it was stupidly low-hanging and located directly between the beds, causing Michael to lock heads with it every time he stoop up; by the 3rd time neither of us could help but laugh!
After nibbling on some oaty biscuits we wandered down to Playa Norte, the famed beach of Isla Mujeres, where we spent a few hours sweating in the blistering heat and cooling off in the refreshing clear blue sea.
Once we'd had enough of the sun we strolled back to our hotel taking in the "sights" of Isla Mujeres. If I'm totally honest the street layouts and stalls reminded me of a cross between San Pedro and Cancun... which isn't really a compliment.
We hit a supermarket en route for a few obvious essentials:
Definitely the most intriguing loaf of bread I have ever seen; there were 5 long slices of that bad boy in the packet!
After a quick freshen up we decided to check out Punta Sur, which is renowned as the most beautiful viewpoint on the island. Again, I'm not sure if I am missing something, but I was a little disappointed. (Looking at these pictures as I type I know that I have been spoilt in the last few weeks and that has most probably affected my perception, but I still firmly believe that there are FAR more breathtaking places on this earth.)
In my opinion, the best part of Punta Sur was the amount of lizards basking in the sun that we got to spy on. These were the biggest we have seen so far!
I don't mean to add insult to injury, but Punta Sur is also known as home to some Mayan ruins, which for what seems like a reasonable cost of 30 pesos/$3, you can examine at your own leisure...
until you realise that these ^ are the ruins, and that you can see them in all their historic glory by standing next to the entrance. I'm not entirely sure where the ruins are, since all we could spot were a collection of garish plastic objects, which didn't even have explanations accompanying their bizarre appearance. We were very amused.
I wholeheartedly believed that I was "good to go", so we had one of our lovely little rum&tonic, coldplay, cards sessions, before merrily heading out for a bite of some of Isla Mujeres' famous nosh, fish tacos. We went to "Bally Hoo", renowned for serving up some of the tastiest on the island, which also turned out to be a Margarita restaurant. It wasn't long before we were slurping on our long overdue first Margaritas of the holiday, of which we had picked the "Bally Hoo special", which tasted much like a salty mojito to our delight.
I was slightly surprised but in no way let down when our delicacy arrived deep-fried; they were pretty scrumptious. So much so, in fact, that I wolfed them down without blinking an eye, only to pay the price shortly after.
Oh well, it was worth it for those few moments of deliciousness. Obviously I couldn't resist the homemade gelato shop on the way home, convincing myself that a bit of After Eight and Oreo coolness would soothe my stomach. It seemed to do the trick, and soothed my taste buds in the process too; double whammy!
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