Travels With Santana
La Ruta Maya (part I)
Cancun 1996
Authors note: This is my version of the journey, it is not
intended to be 100% complete or acurate. Some names and
situations have been changed to protect the innocent.
"I took of for a weekend last month, just
to try and recall the whole year" - Jimmy Buffett
4th of July 1996 was upon us. A 4 day weekend. I was not
about to waste it sitting at home. I also had an unused ticket on
Continental Airlines worth $945.00US. Free time off. Free
airfare. Where could/should I go?
Since I only had 4 days, I had to pick a place that did not
take too long to get to. Where does Continental fly? From San
Francisco? (my home) not many places without first passing
through Houston. That limited my choices. If I had to
layover in Houston, then travel time adds up. I had narrowed my
choices down to Costa Rica, Belize, Guatamala, or México. These
were destinations that Continental serviced from Houston, were
within the cost of my free ticket, and I could get to in the time
allotted.
I had also been invited to go water skiing in the Sacramento
River delta with a group of friends. I was considering dropping
the whole idea of Central America, and go water skiing instead,
except that I had gone camping a few weeks before with the same
group, and some of the people were so boooooooorrrrrrrrring as to
give me shivers!.
So, back to the task at hand! Where to go? We ruled out Belize as
a friend of ours had just returned that week from there with
stories of pending hurricanes. Bad move. We had to rule out Costa
Rica as too expensive (Santanu had a budget of $550 for airfare).
That left Guatamala and México. As we only had 4 days, we
decided to play it safe and choose a destination where we knew
there would be things to do other than wander about the jungle;
Cancún.
I did manage to talk one of my friends and coworkers, Santanu
into not going water skiing and to go to Central America instead
(he agreed about the boooooooorrrrrrrrring component).
Santanu is an interesting character, he's a Bengali. Born and
raised in India. He has a degree in Mining Engineering from the
Indian Institute of Technology, and is currently serving out a
period of indentured servitude (for reasons of not having a green
card; only an H1B) to my current employer as a Software Quality
Assurance Engineer. Besides his accent, which is easy to get used
to, he seems very American, and it is easy to forget that he is
not. Which is why when he reacts (or fails to react) to certain
stimuli, it seems so strange! How do you explain the phrase
"Danger Will Robinson!" to someone your own age that
has never seen Lost in Space?
This makes him a good travel companion, because he is not afraid
of new cultures, or dirty places, or strange food, and you
can guarantee that he will perceive everything from a different
perspective. Besides he packs light.
While we were in México, Santanu had difficulties with his name.
No one had a hope of pronouncing it (Say shahn-ta-new), and when
he spelled it, the locals looked at him weird because they were
wondering who Saint Nu was (Santa being Spanish for saint or
holy), why this was his first name, and if it was indeed his
first name shouldn't it be San Nu? (Santa being the feminine form
of San). Being practical, he decided to change the last letter of
his name and go by Santana.
Our plane (flight 1020) was scheduled to leave SFO at 12:00
PDT. I had planned it this way so that I could get into work
early and not have to take the day off. Santanu had other ideas.
He had arranged for our transportation to the airport, and thought
that our plane departed at 10:20. He confused the flight
number with the departure time. So we ended up leaving work
at around 09:00. And sitting in the airport bar for 3 hours.
Well, all is not a loss, as we head into the bar I steer Santanu
and I into seats at the bar next to 3 lovely young ladies. Who
proceed to Ignore us (with a capital I).
Well, all is not a loss, we do manage to have 3 rounds before our
(delayed) flight is called.
We get on the plane, our first leg to Houston, and my bladder is
bursting (3 20oz beers'll do it to ya). I walk right past my seat
and head into the head. When I come out, I can't get back to my
seat as mobs of French passengers (have no idea what the F@*%
they were doing on a flight from SFO to IAH), are in my way, so I
take the nearest seat. Right next to a beautiful young woman with
long, curly, brown hair (just like I like 'em). She turned out to
be quite nice, but also quite attached.
After we land in Houston (now sober), we find that our next leg
has been delayed. Bummer. More beer is necessary!
We get on the plane ahead of the crowd. We're both in Aisle
seats, on opposite sides of the isle. After we sit down, these
two awesome looking girls come down the aisle to sit next to me.
My lucky day! (Yes Russ, it NEVER stops).
I ask if they want me to move so that they can get to their
seats. The first one says, Naw, I'll just crawl over
y'all!
Well, after I wake up to find out that she was serious, the other
one introduces herself as Stephanie (or something-or-other; I
really wasn't paying attention. Can you blame me?)
So, Stephasomeone now has my attention, and refuses to give it
up! Every time I go to talk to Santanu, she hits me, and says
"Hey you! I'm talking to you!" and makes me take her
Cosmopolitan Magazine's "Perfect Man" survey. I must
have done OK, because she won't let me leave the airport before
getting my card, finding out where I'm staying, and giving me her
and her friends real names (Leitha and Karen, not Stephanie and
Susan like they said earlier) and their hotel's phone number.
Tiina (yes spelled with two ii's) our travel agent hadn't an
idea where we should stay, so I Went into Yahoo! and searched on Hotels and
Cancún to find a fun place to stay. I came up with Hotel Imperial Las
Perlas. We chose this because of what the Internet
University had to say about it:
"Located beach front on the Gulf of Mexico this moderate
level hotel is in a great spot for night life. The hotel has
air-conditioning, a restaurant, a bar, and a large pool. In
addition, it's walking distance from both La Boom and Fat
Tuesday's. One of the cheapest deals on the beach! If you want to
stay on the beach and save money, the Imperial Las Perlas is the
place to be. Beach front on the Gulf of Mexico, the Imperial Las
Perlas offers large air conditioned rooms, satellite color
television, and a balcony overlooking the pool and gulf."
And Let's Go! had it listed
as a Spring Break hotel. Well, that sounds like fun! With visions
of drunk sorority girls in our heads, this is where we decided to
stay.
After a looooooooong shuttle ride from the airport. (due to the
odd one way system in Cancún, even though our hotel was the
closest to the airport we had to get off last), we arrived at Las
Perlas at 01:00. When we went to check in, they only had one room
available. This room had one tiny window
that looked into the lobby. Unacceptable, but they said we
could change on the next day. We decided to drink some more
(common theme emerging?), so we caught a cab to Fat Tuesday's.
Despite the description on the web, Fat Tuesdays was not
walking distance. We had a few beers at Fat Tuesday's, and
decided we were hungry. We walked away, bought a couple of Cuban
cigars, and found a restaurant across the street; La Farándula. Man,
what a gorgeous woman at the hostess stand! Man, what an even
more beautiful woman for our waitress Her name is Irma. I've said
it before, and I'll say it again, Women are beautiful!
Besides the feminine scenery, all I have to say is What a
ball! A sit down restaurant with live theatre and fantastic
food that would serve us at 03:00! Needless to say, after leaving
Irma a very flattering note on a napkin, we didn't make it back
to the hotel until almost 06:00, setting a precedent that would
not be betrayed for the rest of the trip.
Ring!.....RING!RING! Fuck! It's not even 08:00
yet. Who the hell is that on the damn phone! My head hurts, some
animal crawled into my mouth and died there, and besides that I
feel like shit. I guess I had better get the phone.
"Hola, ¿Señor Dasgupta?"
"Hu?, ah no, Me llamo Miguel Alessio"
"Oh, ¡Habla Usted Español!"
"Not at this time of the morning lady, Hey! We want a new
room. When can we get one?" At this point she is getting as
confused as I am hung over. It turns out that she is some sort of
activities director for the hotel, and wanted to let us know
about all kinds of tours and stuff. She also promised us a free
breakfast. I figure that I should share the misery and toss the
phone at Santanu so he can talk to her for a while. I take a
long, cold shower, to try and scare the moths away from the
corners of my eyes.
By the time I get out of the shower, Santanu is snoring away. I
go to see about changing our room.
The guy at the front desk promises us a room with a balcony, but
we have to get out of our room right away so that someone else
can have it. So much for sleep. I grin wildly as I wake the
slumbering Indian from his nap.
The woman who promised us breakfast turned out to be an Italian
living in México. "Wil, the break-a-fast ees not heer. Et
thees Hotel. Eet is at one other. Theya wand you to see eet.
Thees Taxi Weel take yous dere."
So, we clamber into a Taxi to go have breakfast in another hotel.
I bet it's a timeshare. Yup, it's a timeshare. They even pull the
old bait and switch on us; after a beautiful young Mexican girl
shows us to the breakfast nook, we end up eating with some
decrepit old lady who insists on giving us the spiel even though
we repeatedly tell her that we have an appointment in a few
minutes, and no matter what will not buy a timeshare. I even try
giving her the slip by grabbing Santanu bodily and dragging him
out just as the doors close when she gets onto an elevator, but
we get caught. The last thing I want (next to listening to a
timeshare speech) is to be arrested for eating the free breakfast
and not listening to the speech.
We finally slip away and go to rent a jeep.
As we climb into the cab, I tell the driver, "Quieramos
rentar una Jip".
He nods, "Sí", and zips us away. Well, You can't really
rent a Jeep in Cancún, you have to settle for a Geo Tracker. Go
figure. We didn't really care, we just wanted to get a
convertible. We got one. The guy renting it to us glances at the
sky, and asks us if we really want him to take the top
off.
"Of course. Take it off!"
We get in, and head off down the highway to Chichén Itzá. 10
minutes into the jungle, it starts to rain.
By the time we get there, after 3 unsuccessful attempts to get
the top back on correctly, we are soaked to the bone.
La Ruta Maya (Part I) | Chichén Itzá (Part II) | Dinner
With the Girls (Part III) | Tulum (Part IV) | Toe
Job! (Part V) | Isla Mujeres (Part VI) | Goodbye
(Part VII) | My Travel Journals | Send Mail To Me At: michaelalessio@yahoo.com | My
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