After a bit of a gamble the South West Train from Axminster to London worked very well.  It’s reputation for being dirty and not too punctual was proven wrong.  As they say, don’t always believe what you hear or read.  Glyn kindly drove us to Axminster station which was quaint and quiet.  The train was on time, clean and the decision to upgrade to 1^st Class for an extra £10 was worth it as we got nice large comfy seats and the compartment was virtually empty. 

The scenery through Devon, Dorset, Hampshire and Surrey was beautiful.  On arrival into Waterloo, due to Covid we decided not to use the tube and jumped straight into a taxi instead.  It was worth it making the journey so much quicker and with absolutely no hassle, 15 minutes from station to door.  We spent the evening with Alex and Freddy, admiring their newly remodelled house.  It’s taken nearly a year to complete and their townhouse is almost 40% bigger than before including a very cleverly designed utility which reclaims the space they own under the pavement at basement level in front of the house. 

After dinner the boys were busy packing as they were off to Canada next day to meet with their surrogate, Winter, for the first time.  We joined them on the journey to Gatwick and spent the night in The Premier Inn before flying out early the following morning to Cancun.  11hrs on a plane is not something to look forward to but hey, it was more than passable after the welcome bubbly, food and the odd glass of grape juice followed by a sleep on the flatbed.  It felt great to be travelling again after 2 years.

We hate the overpriced taxis at airports and Cancun was no exception.  A little hard bargaining later and we were on our way, and with our lack of Spanish, we certainly needed the help of our friendly driver, who even called the owner of our accommodation to check we were in the right place. This apartment, North of the City was only available for 3 nights as we had booked it in a hurry as the plans for Mexico were only just taking shape when we left.  It turned out to be just fine, a little dated but well equipped and right on the sea front with a beautiful view across The Caribbean Sea.

It was lovely to sit on the balcony and watch the Pelicans, Guillemots and the ever graceful Frigate birds.  We also had a distant view of the downtown mega hotel strip.  Our stay was marred to some extent by the very loud Americans and Canadians that congregated around the pool area during the day.  They generally don’t have a volume control which was annoying but it can also prove to be amusing.  You get to hear every word of the endless banal conversations with people interjecting because no one is really listening and everybody has something to say. If only they had something interesting to say! None of the conversations had any substance, just ‘all about me’! 

The most annoying character seemed to have crossed the barrier with his cohorts at one point as the next day he sat by himself for an hour or two just gazing out to sea.  To our amusement he hadn’t put on any sun cream and the following day he looked just like a Red Panda with white eyes and a very red face – karma and natural justice spring to mind!

Being far from the centre, food options were limited.  We were close to a public beach and the beachfront restaurants were tourist traps with unexciting food and pricey drinks.  The service on one night was so bad we left before ordering and our only other option was a dinner of processed fast food snacks from the local Oxxo convenience store!

We moved on to Malecon Suites which were central to the city.  The plan here was to have a comfortable apartment for a few more days to allow us to finish our travel plans as the logistics were proving tricky to work out.  There was access into the shopping mall with supermarket underneath the complex.  We had a large kitchen, dining and sitting area and a huge balcony with what looked on the booking site as an incredible outlook across the lagoon.  Well, it would have done 10 years earlier when the photographs were taken!   Since then, 2 more blocks have been erected, one for offices and the other was a building site with an unfinished tower for apartments.  There were also some very noisy bars and restaurants and a busy main road. Whilst it wasn’t the end of the world it was just disappointing.  

The planning went well, we managed to get to the bus station to book a first class bus to Valladolid despite having minimal Spanish, and generally enjoyed the luxury of the apartment.  As Covid rates are climbing here in Mexico, and Cancun was one of the worst hit areas, we chose to avoid restaurants and instead catered in.  Not a bad idea either as it meant we could get plenty of salad and fruit to hopefully make up for the excesses to come as we set about our real travelling. 

The weather was good, mostly sunny days and temperatures hovering around 30 degrees.  We enjoyed sitting on the enormous balcony looking at our partial view across the huge lagoon which separates the town from the Hotel Strip.  One afternoon we took a long walk through the a large open area between the main road and the Malecon, which means boardwalk, which ran along the town side of the lagoon.  It looked as if there had been major spend on the road infrastructure.  A huge waterfront area without a single hotel, shop, bar or restaurant – just roads, paving & attractive planting.  The expensive all-inclusive holiday hotels with beachfront access were a fair distance away across the lagoon and completely isolated from the town.  Cancun was not our kind of place but it made a useful first stop to get over the jet lag, finish the planning and settle into Mexico.

Next stop Valladolid.