Sunday 31 May 2015

Cancun, Part 3, Food



Cancun, Mexico, January 2015
Food

One of the first things you think of when you think of Mexico, is naturally the Mexican food. Tacos, burritos, ceviche etc. Cancun has a wide variety of choices: you have your Burger King, McDonald's and Buppa Gump, if you're into that, and yes you guessed it: these are mostly found in the Hotel Zone. Then you also have the small restaurants selling mostly tacos and the likes, which can be very tasty, and not necessarily at all spicy, if you're worried about that, since you get to build your own taco from the ingredients they bring to you.

But what we went all in for, was sea food. Despite the first cockteleria/cevicheria -type restaurant in the rather outskirts of the town that we tried was a bit... strange. The house in itself was a sight to behold. A building resembling a garage, in lack of a better word, covered in murals of all kinds. Inside the walls were covered in paintings of mermaids and topless white, blonde women... The plastic table and chairs seemed to be a bit sticky. The music was on full volume, we were the only customers and the waitresses were rather odd. The first thing they offered us when we ordered beers to drink, for example, was their special offer of ten beers for some "amazing" price. Hmm, I think ten beers might be a bit much to go with your lunch around noon... We did however order a wide range of seafood, from soup to a plate of fish and ceviche mixto. Ceviche, the raw seafood "cooked" in lime juice, was an interesting experience. It was alright for the most part and didn't cause us an upset stomach (this didn't happen at all for neither of us, which was unlike Mexico's reputation would have lead us to believe), but there was a mystery creature there with very strange gristly texture. We never could identify what this sea monster was, that we were eating.

Having decided to steer clear of ceviche, the seafood options were still plentiful and we ate more prawns than anywhere before. Basically every day. One seafood restaurant was the pick of the bunch: El Pescado Ciego on Avenue Carlos Nader. Wonderful seafood soup, amazing tuna, nice tacos, good seafood pasta with a whole crab... We just kept ordering more and more as we ate.

Prawns

Seafood soup

Pasta with some crab

Mmmm... more prawns...

Around the Parque de las Palapas in the centre of the old town there are many restaurants and bars to choose from. We mostly stayed outside of this area, but we did try out one of the places there as well. Pescaditos, a seafood place (what else?), was our choice. Sampling their offerings, they were mostly just regular, but the charm of the place came in the form of a three-metre-tall puppeteer in front of the entrance trying to lure tourists in. And seemed like it was successful, seeing that there were some foreign girls inside getting a lot of attention and free alcohol from some local playboys... Luckily for everyone the girls ended up leaving without the guys.

Tacos then, lime juice, coriander (or cilantro if you like), guacamole and the optional hot sauce to compliment your choice of meat. Mmmm, awesome! My favourite was arrachera which translates to skirt steak, if I'm not mistaken. A seldom-used cut of meat in Europe, but rather tasty one. However, al pastor style tacos, similar to döner kebab or gyros, which was brought to Mexico by Lebanese immigrants, proved to be a bit over-hyped for me, which was a real shame.

To be continued...

Tuesday 26 May 2015

Cancun, Part 2, The Hotel



Cancun, Mexico, January 2015
The Hotel

After a very long search online, we decided to skip all the hotels in the Hotel Zone, Zona Hoteleria, in Cancun. For a couple of very good reasons. Firstly, it's a pure tourist bubble within the town with very little authenticity. And secondly, and more importantly, the hotels were very very expensive. We're not saying the Hotel Zone is a bad choice, it just wasn't the right one for us for this trip. We opted for a downtown hotel, called Dogtown Suites, by the Lopez Portillo Avenue quite far to the north. However, the hotel is actually known by the name Santa Maria, and the "Dogtown Suites" seems to only exist online to attract, well, dog owners. That said, 0% of all the taxi drivers we had knew either of the names, so it was a very low key hotel. But the price was right: we paid in total $206 for five nights in a double room.

The location was rather good in the end, since we could take a bus to the Hotel Zone quite close by, we could get to the cheaper harbour (as opposed to the one in the Hotel Zone) to travel to Isla Mujeres, we could find cheap restaurants, hole-in-the-walls and taco stands and the neighbourhood seemed to be rather Mexican, but never felt unsafe, even after dark. We also had a small supermarket on the other side of the road and a bank with working ATM right next to us. The centre of downtown (basically close to the bus station) was 10-15 mins walk away, if we used our shortcut through the rugged neighbourhood (again, nothing to fear there).

The inner yard of the hotel


Our room was definitely good enough, despite Marta's initial shock. We had clean towels and sheets, beds were alright, there was TV and a large, fully functioning fridge with a freezer. Our shower had warm water 24/7. We had air conditioning, which however made the room quite cold. Luckily the receptionist, a very nice man that spoke good English, resolved with giving us extra blankets. All in all, we can definitely recommend the hotel, if you're not after only the luxurious of accommodations and want to have a touch of Mexican authenticity for your holiday. If not, there is always the Hotel Zone.

Fridge and air condition unit

The bathroom

The bed with an additional fan

 To be continued...

Monday 11 May 2015

Cancun, Part 1, Getting in



Cancun, Mexico, January 2015

Getting in

We had been in Florida for holidays for some weeks before with my family and while the rest of them travelled back home for New Year, we decided to extend our trip and explore new places, just like we always do. We cancelled our flights back and looked for a decent option to spend the New Year at. Having discarded Jamaica and the Dominican Republic for various reasons, we decided to opt for Cancun. It sounded like an easy enough town to start the whole "Mexican experience" without having to worry about drug cartels and what-have-you, often associated with the country, especially among the paranoid amongst us.

The problem was, however, we were only booking this trip less than a month in advance, so accommodation was scarce. And the little that we found was extremely expensive. So we decided to spend New Year in Miami Beach instead (I know what you're thinking: "surely Miami Beach on New Year is even more expensive!", but we managed to bunk there for free at a friend's place), and fly to Cancun only on January 2nd. Miami was a natural choice, since the flight from there is mere 1,5 hours and not overly expensive. We also managed to book a flight from Cancun back to Helsinki via Manchester for a reasonable price, so we were all set.

Welcome to Mexico


Arrival was a bit hectic to say the least, and not just because of the long and slow-moving lines before the passport control. We had contacted our hotel beforehand asking about airport pick-up. Whilst they said they don't arrange such a thing, they said that they "had a guy, who can pick us up for $25", so having emailed them our flight information, we considered the matter resolved. However, when we arrived there was nobody to meet us. I phoned the hotel and they seemed to be unaware of such an arrangement, and just told us to grab a taxi, which should be $25.

However, the taxi company informed us that the fare would be $64, well over our budget (and not to mention we didn't carry that much dollars with us anyway). Haggling did us no good either. One younger guys did approach us and told us to come with him to the "other parking lot" and he'd take us downtown for $25, but the idea of leaving the crowded area for a remote location with an unlicensed driver in Mexico just didn't feel right for me. Guess that's the paranoia creeping in, or maybe it was a smart move, don't know, and I'm fine with not knowing.

However, the eventual trip downtown proved to be rather simple, so this is what we recommend. There were busses leaving for the ADO bus station in the centre every half an hour and for some five bucks we were on our way, after wondering for a while why there were young girls in bikinis waiting for the same bus. Surely airport doesn't have a beach? They didn't even have any bags with them. Maybe they were robbed by an illegal taxi driver? My friend Marta was staring at the stars with an absent peaceful expression on her face and feeling the ocean breeze on her skin. Her tranquillity was switched to shock when she saw the district we were planning to stay at and our room.

What Marta was expecting to see...
 
...and what she saw

To be continued...

Welcome!

Welcome to Roads to go, Places to be, a blog about travelling and everything surrounding it. Our posts will handle a wide variety of issues from practical advice and tips to funny or otherwise interesting anecdotes from our own excessive travels. Look out also for our special guest writers!

Jus & Marta