Travel in the Time of COVID – Part 2
Previously: Our first vacation after coming home from South America was supposed to have been a resort stay in Cancun. Then the never-ending pandemic for which some of us are still wearing masks two-and-a-half years later (ahem) kicked in, and we put off our plans for as long as we safely could. We started going stir crazy. We dipped our toes back into travel with short trips to New York and Tampa. (Read it here.) Then the day finally came when we had to go abroad or go nuts, so Lea, our friend Melissa, and I were off to Mexico.
(But first… mea culpa. The events in this article took place a full year ago, I wrote it all down a month later, then I’ve sat on it for nearly a year. In that time, I’ve been distracted by finishing another novel and starting a job as a writer for Shortform, but that hardly excuses my new heights of procrastination. Anyway, back to the story in progress…)
Cancun, October 2021
Here’s the thing about resorts. You can book a stay for a very low price that comes with food, drinks, and airfare included. The catch is that they’ll want to sell you more. This is the dreaded “time-share sales pitch.” Sometimes it’s brutal; sometimes it’s benign. You just need to be prepared to spend part of your vacation having people try to sell you even more vacations. When you’ve been cooped up in a house for two years, even more vacations can sound very tempting.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
After landing in Cancun, dashing through customs, and extracting some pesos from the ATM, we faced our first gauntlet. Between baggage claim and the exit is a hall of rental car, taxi, and tour excursion companies, with some degree of overlap between them. But oh no, the staff don’t meekly wait behind their counters; they’ll step directly in your face and grab you if they can.
In years past, I remember running through this scrum to escape from the vendors as fast as I could, but this time I didn’t feel the salesmen-induced panic that’s overcome me before. Maybe it’s because we had a specific group we were looking for—people in blue flowery shirts—that helped me avoid making eye contact and triggering my primal “run from the lions” instinct.
The Blue Flowery Shirt People were stationed at waypoints every fifty feet to help direct us to the shuttles conveniently located at the absolute far end of the ground transport lot. Once there, we were welcomed (and sales-pitched excursions to) while waiting on our actual van. We said “no thanks” several dozen times and were finally hurried along. Our room at the resort wasn’t ready yet, but not to worry—we’d planned for that and packed shorts in our carry-ons so we could sit by the pool and start drinking right away.
However, before that, we had another “welcome” to sit through. This wasn’t a normal sales pitch, exactly—it was a sales pitch for a sales pitch. The rep gave us drinks, told us about the resort, and offered to schedule a tour the next day. (“Not a time share, I promise!” he said.) In return for a 90-minute presentation about this particular chain of hotels, we’d get a bottle of tequila and 2-for-1 massages.
We said, “Sure, why the hell not?”
For the rest of the day, we sat by the lovely adults-only pool and drank ourselves silly. Masks were required indoors but not outside, so we crossed fingers that we wouldn’t regret going face-naked in public. (This was between waves of Delta and Omicron.) Lea did the math on our beverage intake and calculated that if each of us drank at least eleven free cocktails per day, we’d have paid for the trip in alcohol consumption alone.
I swear we’re not drunkards. This only happens in all-inclusive resorts. The first time we’d gone all-inclusive like this was in Negril, Jamaica, 2007. Before that, I’d never been a drinker at all, but Negril began my love affair with rum, from which I’ve now branched out to tequila, whiskey, and vodka. Thank you, Caribbean! I never knew what I was missing.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah: the sales pitch.
The “90-minute presentation” took two and a half hours. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly a time share. The pitch was for a membership to the resort, with access to others all around the world. Instead of hotel rooms, members are given beachside suites anywhere in their network, with a small added fee if the resort is all-inclusive. The math was tempting when looked at as a cost-per-year basis. My eyebrows were definitely tingling at the view from the guest suite’s seaside balcony. Had the membership been an annual subscription, I think we would have considered it. The words “yes, please” tasted very good, and I hadn’t even had my first cocktail yet.
However, a subscription wasn’t what they were selling. Instead, they offered a 25-year membership, paid for up front as if buying a car (financed for two years). Once we said “No, that’s not going to work,” they kept coming back with more spins on the offer—try this portion, try our travel agency, use the membership every other year. But resort travel isn’t our style. We may do it once every five or ten years, but it doesn’t leave room to explore the way we like.
Still, after two and a half hours of being marketed to, I damn sure made off with that free bottle of tequila.
The next day we went snorkeling, something I hadn’t done since staying on Isla Fuerte in 2019. (In South America, Lea snorkeled more than I did—see also: Morro de São Paolo). On this trip, the swim was invigorating (a polite way of saying “holy crap, what a current”), but the views were certainly worth it.
The first site was a shipwreck, and unlike others we’ve seen, this one still looked like a boat. The second dive was over an undersea art installation (see above), and it was here that I suffered a wardrobe malfunction (one of my flippers broke loose, so with only one remaining I had a really fun time not swimming in circles). At the third spot, we snorkeled over a wide bed of grass that was a haven for turtles. We found one, whom the whole tour group stalked as it went about its little turtle business. Though our snorkel excursion took us off the resort, we never left the clutches of the Cancun tourist industry.
So on the day after that, we got on the bus.
This was more in line with how we travel, and to be honest, I was nervous as hell. Google Maps doesn’t track Cancun’s bus routes, and though Moovit does, it’s pretty inaccurate (as we’d find out). We’d ridden Cancun’s buses before, so we weren’t in completely unexplored territory, but it still felt like stepping back into the unknown.
The market they normally direct tourists to is Mercado 28, so of course our destination was Mercado 23, where Cancun’s actual residents shop and eat. Nevertheless, many of the stalls sell tourist merchandise and, because ‘tis the season, Día de los Muertos paraphernalia. The “Ruta 1” bus from the hotel strip doesn’t go all the way there, but if you hop off at the McDonald’s on Avenida Tulum, it’s only a five-block walk.
And walking is the way to go. There are several streets that lead to Mercado 23, but why anyone would drive is beyond me. Traffic was deadlocked all around the market, and I couldn’t begin to guess where anyone thought they were going to park. The market itself was crowded and hopping, so we wandered all through it, bought souvenirs, and inhaled the smell of fresh tacos (we’d be back). Mercado 23 doesn’t take very long to explore, but woe betide any tourist who thinks they’re going to make it out without buying something. Can’t be done.
Where to go next? A graveyard, obviously! (Note for new readers: Lea and I go see dead people.) On our last time to Cancun, we visited a tiny cemetery on Isla Mujeres, but this time we searched for one in the city. The closest we found was the Municipal Panteón, but I grew leery when I realized that we’d have to take a mini-bus, which I’ve always found to be cramped, bumpy, and untrustworthy. (Looking at you, Lima.) Moovit showed the routes but not the cemetery itself, so I looked up the address in Google and off we went.
Of course, we ended up in the wrong place. After riding to where we thought the address should be and finding nothing but a string of auto repair shops, Google confirmed we’d overshot by a mile. Thankfully, the second ride didn’t take too long, but the cemetery was a little disappointing. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s the most poorly-kept cemetery we’ve seen in our travels. It appeared to have reached maximum capacity in the 90s, and no one had tended to the graves in a while. Some had even cracked open, and human remains were clearly visible. Apologies for the lack of photographic evidence, but taking pictures of someone’s skull in the dirt felt grisly and inappropriate.
After leaving, we waited and waited and waited for a minibus heading our direction. The first one we spotted with the right route number passed us by without stopping. The next one did stop, but the driver kicked us out well short of where Moovit said it would go, requiring us to hoof it back to Mercado 23. (Because tacos.)
The taco stall we found was the emptiest in the market; at that moment, Lea and I were its only customers. But dios mio, the tacos were good. Our server also brought us a mystery drink that looked like old milk. Being us, we said “Why not?” It turned out to be horchata —sweetened rice milk with a hint of cinnamon. We liked it enough that we bought a second bottle to have the barkeep at our resort mix with rum.
While we waited in the heat for the bus back to the hotel, my legs sore and shirt sweaty, Lea said to me, “See? You know you missed this.” Well… maybe? I think it helped that an ice-cold swimming pool was waiting for us, a luxury we’ve rarely had in other parts of the world.
With only two days left, it was time to find out if fate would let us come home or if we’d be stuck for an extended stay abroad. To return to the US, we’d need a negative COVID test within 72 hours of our flight. The State Department didn’t specify which type of test was required, so we chose the rapid test—not the most accurate, but in case of a false positive, we’d have time to test again before departure. In case of a positive positive, Lea and I had lugged our work computers all the way to Mexico while dreading what a two-week quarantine room service bill would look like.
Thankfully, our tests were negative. While we’d been as careful re: COVID as we could, I attribute our continued good health to the Inverse Corollary of Murphy’s Law—any negative occurrence that you actually prepare for will not be the thing that goes wrong.
(Please note: I’m not a doctor, but I only play one on TV.)
(Second note: If you understood that reference, you’re old.)
We spent the rest of our days sitting by the pool, grazing on buffets, and getting up early to take pictures of the sunrise. And thus our time in Cancun came to a close.
The transit home was a full three-ring circus. But that, my friends, is another story…
