A $95 stomachache and a 50-cent bus ride

Greetings from Isla Mujeres, finally!

Somewhere along the road from Guatemala to Mexico I got, for the first time in my 2 months on the road, a terrible bug. Food? Everything I ate was in packages, including the delicious fruit paleta in Belize. Germs from some surface, like a bathroom? Could be. Anyhow, about halfway through our long journey across two borders (Guatemala-Belize and Belize-Mexico) I knew I was in trouble, and when we arrived in Chetumal, Mexico, at 6:00 pm, I knew I couldn't make it to Tulum. Having done little research on Chetumal, the only hotel I knew of was a Holiday Inn. After weeks of home stays and the occasional $10 a night hospedaje, my encounter with US prices was shocking. But $95 bought me 12 hours of sleep and access to clean water and a bathroom, which was pretty much all I needed. Those soft sheets and extra pillows felt wonderful.

Since I couldn't figure out what caused this, I tossed out all the crackers I had been carrying, plus my water bottle, and even my toothbrush. Yesterday morning I bought water, juice and a new toothbrush from stores around the hotel before catching the bus to Cancun. Mexican buses are very big and comfortable and my last six hours passed more easily than the 10 hours on the direct but rudimentary shuttle...and I didn't have to drag my stuff across any borders.

Arriving at Cancun at 4:30, I put my experience with Mexican living to work by ignoring the taxi line and crossing Avenida Tulum to where the local buses called rutas stop. I found the one that said "Puerto Juarez" and paid 5 and a half pesos to take it to the boat dock that takes you to Isla Mujeres. By 5:30 I was on the island and settled into my little room at Steve Broin's Casa Sirena, where my main objective is to swim and relax and rest up for Sunday, when I fly from Cancun to Miami to Trinidad and Tobago to Paramaribo, Suriname, arriving a little after midnight. After all my activities in Guatemala--visiting dozens of churches, climbing temples and a volcano, cruising up rivers and across lakes, sharing little microbuses with Guatemalans and tourbuses with internationals--I need to do nothing, in a lovely place!