mexico

I’ll be trying to prolong the hangover of my Tulum trip as long as I can. Also, it takes time for me to curate hundreds of photos. So, it will take me awhile to rattle off my photos and whatever slight narrative I have to offer. I don’t do travel narrative well, so I really will try to keep it brief.

As for the photos, they did seem to get progressively better as the trip progressed.

Newbie Mexico Tourist Lesson #1: The rental car company will extort you. The website says $15/day, but it’s more like $95/day. You must get insurance. Yeah, but my car insurance would cover– Yeah, but if you don’t opt for all four insurance options, Thrifty (and I can only speak for Thrifty) will put a hold of between $1500-$4000 on your credit card. But I’m not going to get into an accident! They won’t really charge me anything. Ok, between the topes and the unmarked lanes and lax abidance of stop signs, go ahead and roll the dice on that one. I did not. And given the freedom the car gave me, I’m glad I got it instead of using a shuttle service to get from Cancun to Tulum. I do wish I had not been “upgraded” to a Dodge Avenger, however. We bailed out Chrysler so they could keep making crap like that?

(I’m not doing so well on my brevity.)

Puerto Morelos…I stopped there because I had asked Thrifty for a recommendation of a place to eat once I left the airport and would be on Highway 307 to Tulum. It seems to be a sleepy coastal town with not much too tout, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I got to see the Caribbean. I got to eat some good food (at Pelicanos). I got to see a dog that reminded me of Herman. I got to experience bargaining at a tourist gift shop.

Newbie Mexico Tourist Lesson #2: Merchants will try to extort the stupid Americanos who don’t enjoy bargaining. How much? 600 pesos, my amigo. Um… Let me wrap it up for you. Tell me how much you want to pay. Hand-painted! Well, 600 pesos is a bit steep. Um…400? See…amigo…hand-painted! I can’t. How much you give me for this? I’ll give you 500. Ok, deal. But, amigo, you give me tip? Um, no, I just gave you a tip by giving you 500 pesos for something that is worth much less. (Trinket would have been reasonably priced at about 250 pesos.)

Newbie Mexico Tourist Lesson #3: Merchants/service providers will always tell you when you’re supposed to tip (and sometimes how much) so you don’t have to guess, like the musicians who wouldn’t play me a second song until I had sufficiently tipped them for the first, which I really hadn’t asked for, given I was dining alone, and NO, I didn’t want something romantic. (I told them to play something “happy”; they obliged, and they earned a pretty good tip.)