Traveling Applejax

For those of you worried that we had already suffered some horrible fate since you hadn’t heard from us, you can relax now. We actually made it to Cancun without missing our flight, thanks to Jennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn26 and Josh. It took us a while to reassemble our bikes once back on solid ground, so we didn’t leave the airport until about 7:00pm; incidentally, this was about the same time a fabulously fierce thunderstorm hit. Biking in a downpour amongst crazy Mexican traffic after a day of traveling and no sleep the night before isn’t ideal, so we pulled into the first motel we found — Las Cerezas.

It looked fantastic. We noticed as we pulled up that each room had its own garage (perfect for our soaking-wet bikes). The staff didn’t speak any English, so we booked the room practising our very horrible Spanish. The fact that we had to choose between booking for 3 hours, 8 hours, or an entire night might have clued us in to the fact that this wasn’t a “family” establishment. Nonetheless, we stayed, exhausted from our travels. It was a very nice room, complete with a TV, air-con, and an up-shower. That’s right — there was a nozzle on the floor as well as the wall. Each had its own faucet. Go figure. See Mike’s pic below.

The next day we biked around Cancun and eventually found Manuel (whom we had contacted through Global Freeloaders). He put us up in his new Cancun home for the night after giving us a tour of the city and going out to eat with us. Today he invited us on a side trip to Playa del Carmen where he used to live until 2 weeks ago. He still has a home here (although he rents out part of it), as well as a fantastic restaurant called el Asadero. We spent the day exploring the beaches of Playa del Carmen, then ate at his restaurant tonight. Tomorrow we’ll head back to Cancun, and then we will probably bike out of the city Monday morning.

So far so good. We’ve already learned a lot of new Spanish words (although our pronunciation and usage are dreadful), and we’ve tried some interesting beverages. Stay tuned for more travel updates!