We have arrived!! After hours of traveling from Texas to Mexico plus waiting in long lines at immigration, baggage claim, and customs we finally made it out of the airport and to our hotel. Praise the Lord! My initial thought from the sky was WOW!! Oh my goodness guys. The state of Quintana Roo is so beautiful! It was nice to see acres and acres of trees and other vegetation. The sparkling turquoise seas captured my attention immediately. I couldn’t wait to get off the plane.
When we left the airport it hit me… I am really in foreign country!! Yo estoy en Mexico! I can’t believe it.
Here are a few things I have observed since our arrival.
1.Riding with these Mexican taxi drivers is quite scary. Posted speed limits mean nothing to these people!! And I haven’t quite mastered how to say “can you please slow down?” in Spanish but I’m sure screaming in fear is a universal language. I almost did that tonight. Our driver was whipping around curves doing 120 km/hr (75mph). I think he is secretly practicing to become the Hispanic version of Mario Andretti.
2. It’s totally unnecessary to do a currency exchange from dollars to pesos. Many shop owners and most of the tourist areas prefer dollars. I’m glad we didn’t bother to do this prior to arrival.
3. The people in our area are very friendly and they are nice enough no to laugh when try to speak our broken Spanish to them. One thing my husband learned is never say “es mucho caliente” to describe the weather. It’s “mucho calor” for it’s hot here. If you say “mucho caliente” it means that you are hot and I want to have sex with you according to our tour guide. That was hilarious to me. I’m pretty sure thats not what my hubby wanted to say to him.
4. We rode through a really poor village on the way to our hotel. Seeing children laying on the filthy sidewalk was heartbreaking. I just wanted to scoop them up and bring them to our hotel. Unfortunately that would be considered kidnapping and I don’t want any trouble with the policia.
5. I was having a bit of the trouble understanding the taxi drivers. It turns out the people in the area where we are staying primarily speak the Mayan language. There are 32 different Mayan languages. So that’s no bueno.
6. The food will take some time for me to get used to. Some of the spices on the food are a bit too spicy for my liking. Also it seems cheese makes it way into everything from breakfast foods to dessert. I ordered a piece of tres leches cake and it came topped with Edam cheese. I am not a fan.
Overall, so far so good. Can’t wait to see what else this place has to offer.
Have you ever been out of your home country? What were your first impressions of your new surroundings? Let’s chat about it.
