Cancun, Part 4, Getting Around

Cancun, Mexico, January 2015
Getting Around

Cancun has a local bus system that one can use to get around. The routes R-1 and R-2 are basically the ones that most tourists would need, as they go through the Hotel Zone and all the way to the north of Cancun via the centre. There are bus stops, but in the centre the busses seemed to just stop where ever people would flag them down, so we went along with that. The fare to the hotel zone was 10,5 pesos (not sure about the other busses which don't go there, they might be cheaper). You simply pay the driver, nothing mystical about this. Also getting off is as simple as pressing a button. The same as pretty much anywhere else in the world. So don't be afraid of the busses.

As for taxis, first of all, don't count on them speaking English. It might be because we only took taxis in the downtown area, but we only stumbled upon one driver that spoke English. Luckily my Spanish is veeeeery good... Meaning two beginners courses at the university almost ten years ago. You also need to agree upon a price with the driver beforehand, so knowing your numbers in Spanish is definitely needed. The highest price we paid was $4 from the bus station to our hotel (the driver had to stop and check the address on the way), and the lowest was 25 pesos (about $1,70) from the hotel to the Puerto Juárez harbour, which is actually a longer way than the most expensive route we took.

The taxi drivers, as I mentioned before, didn't recognise our hotel's name. And Cancun doesn't really have proper addresses, or at least I'm having a hard time interpreting them ("Av. Lopez Portillo y Torcasita, sm63, mz22 L-11" was our hotel's address for example, and the fish restaurant Ciego, which I promoted earlier, had written down theirs simply as: "Av. Nader esquina con Rubia | a una cuadra de av. uxmal"). Put that on your GPS, will ya?

There was one time at the harbour when the only taxi present refused to takes us to our hotel for the amount of money we offered him and just took off. This was quite late in the evening, but we still decided to start walking back to our hotel (some three kilometres). We tried to catch a taxi on the way, but to our surprise the car (not a taxi) that stopped was a well-groomed middle-aged man, who just wanted to practice his English and give us a lift. Despite all the warnings against hopping on private cars of people you don't know, we decided to go on and accept the offer for a ride. And lo and behold: nothing bad happened! He took us all the way to the hotel, even though it was not even on his way and refused to accept any money from us. His reward ended up being a shy kiss on the cheek (not from me!).

To be continued...