» Home Life

New Hurricane Dean Cancun Blog

Steve — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 03:28:42 +0000

Well it looks like we are on the verge of another biggie. Rather than fill this general Cancun blog with endless hurricane posts I’ve started a new blog specific to the situation. The situation is developing all the time so I intend to make updates several times a day at the new site:

Please visit my Hurricane Dean Cancun Blog for the latest info and thoughts.

Hurricane Dean set for Cancun?

Steve — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:54:32 +0000

The first major storm of the 2007 hurricane season looks to be upon us. It’s still way to early to tell whether Tropical Storm Dean (soon to be Hurricane Dean) will affect Cancun at all, let alone score a direct hit. But after the devastating Hurricane Wilma of 2005, it’s one that all in Cancun are keeping a close eye on.

One thing is 99% sure though and that is this storm will become Hurricane Dean sooner or later and possibly go as high as a Category 3. Several of the forecasted models put the Yucatan Peninsula in it’s path at the moment, but we are going to have to wait several more days before it’s time for panic stations.

Check out our Live Cancun Webcam and the dicussion on our Cancun Forum

Isla Mujeres Booze Cruise Video

Steve — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 04:39:05 +0000

When we were back in England I bought a new camcorder, a JVC fancy thing with internal hard drive. It’s so much easier to use than our old one that ran with tape.
Jannet has developed quite a skill at making montages of video clips, and is in the process of producing several different ones for us to promote our cancuncare website with.

This is the first one Jannet’s made which features our Isla Mujeres booze cruise.

The cruise we do is a private hire of a catamaran and we sail over to Isla Mujeres. It’s open bar all day, lunch included and we normally do a golf cart convoy of the island, I think the most carts we ever had at once was 9. We’ve held about 15 of these cruises so far this year and averaged around 25 people each trip, so almost 400 people have come along.

My Garden Is Being Eaten

Steve — Sun, 06 May 2007 23:28:50 +0000

So, since we moved house we now have a garden that we can actually do something with. If it wasn’t being eaten away as fast as it can grow.

We have a ton of these leaf cutter ants that can literally strip a 6 foot bush in a day. We’ve got through about a kilo of ant powder, had the garden sprayed with insecticide and still it has no affect.

They really are fascinating to watch though, they march in lines following a pheromone scent that they lay down, then carry pieces of leaf that are about three times their size back to their nest. They don’t actually eat the leaves, they use them to create an environment in their nest where a fungus can thrive and then they eat the fungus. They are pretty smart too, they wont eat a plant until it dies, they leave just enough of it left so that it can regrow and then they go elsewhere for a while only to return a few weeks later.

Smart and fascinating as they are though, I still want to kill them.

New Cancuncare Redesign

Steve — Fri, 04 May 2007 18:56:29 +0000

It’s about two years since it really should have been done but the new redesign of the cancuncare website is well under way. I’m hoping to have it all finished in the next month or so.

The current site I cringe at every time I see it, it looks so amateurish and unprofessional that I hate to add new pages as I have to use the same crappy design. I suppose it was the first ever website I made though, it’s done well in the search engines and makes sales - so as far as it goes it’s been successful.

The new site is going to be something else though, I’ve already made a ton of new pages and with the system I’m going to use it will mean it’s very easy to add many more pages.

I’m going to be using a lot of video too, which I think will be a first for a Cancun site and is so much more 2007. Hopefully, the slicker more professional look, the crisper coding and the new content pages will be a lot more appealing to both surfers, and just as importantly the search engines.

I’d love to be able to say I designed and built it all by myself. However my design and coding skills, although improving, don’t go as far as what we will soon have at cancuncare. My good friend Kim (Rivergirl) at Magnolia Web Design is the one to thank for that. Kim came up with perfect code, right on the brief and made me some great easy to work with templates. Thanks Kim!

Now all I have to do is fill them with juicy content. You can see a screenshot of one of the new pages above left, but you’ll have to wait a little more yet before the new site launches.

Our House Move

Steve — Wed, 02 May 2007 18:34:59 +0000

We moved house last month and are just about settled in.

The main reason we moved was because it was too noisy at the old place, with teenage kids on skateboards every night, and the main road that was a few feet from our living room window often used as a racetrack. Of course, here, functioning silencers on cars are an optional extra.

We now no longer have to put up with the dogs too. There were about 15 of them (from just 20 houses) and almost all were noisy yappy things. Some of their owners clearly coudlnt care less for them, leaving them on hot 6 foot square patios for 24 hrs a day and only letting them out to either bath them in the pool or let them do their business where one of the toddlers would fall in it.

The new place is a detached place rather than a house within a complex and is much quieter. It has an extra bedroom to use as an office, is much bigger overall and has been maintained much better than our old place. The only disadvantage is that we dont have access to a pool any more (I never went in it anyway), but we do have a fairly spacious garden by Cancun standards and our daughter has a nice big paddling pool so it’s no great loss, and the new quietness and privacy more than makes up for that.

Sea Lice in Cancun

Steve — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:03:19 +0000

Every year, between the months of March and August, Cancun is affected by a phenomenon called “sea lice”.

These little beasties are not lice at all, rather they are the microscopic larvae of the thimble jellyfish. The larvae get between your skin and your bathing suit and cause large red welts to appear that itch like crazy. Given that it’s the areas that your swimsuit hides that are affected it’s not nice at all.

Last week we were doing one of our regular booze cruises to Isla Mujeres and we came across about twenty or so ribbons of the adult jellyfish, you can see one pictured above left. The ribbons were about 6-10 feet wide and stretched as far as the eye could see.

Amazing how these ribbons could be so narrow, yet so long. In any case, where the adults are the larvae are sure to be there too. So I dare say there will be a few uncomfortable tourists over the next few days or weeks. One thing you can do to prevent being affected is to buy a product called Safe Sea. This is a suntan lotion which not only proetects aganst the sun but also contains an ingredient that protects against marine stings, including sea lice.

You can’t buy this locally in Cancun (at least I’ve never seen it) so you should bring some from home if you’re coming to Cancun in the next few weeks. Dive stores and marine shops may well stock it but if you can’t find it where you live then you can always buy it online from Amazon

If you want to read more about Sea Lice and how to prevent and treat the irritation then please check out one of my other sites: Sea Lice Cancun

Oops - no posts for 3 months!

Steve — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 17:32:03 +0000

Looks like I’ve let things slip again.

I thought I’d better get a couple of entries in before the end of the month as it’s been 3 months since I last updated. I’ve said it before and, no doubt I’ll let things go again, but I am going to try to post more often. The blog is still receiving around 60/100 visits a day so I ought at least write something for people to read.

I think part of the problem was I was writing too many long entries and messing around editing and uploading photos and videos. A “quick” 10 minute post often ended up taking half an hour or more, and became a bit of a chore.

I’ll try to post shorter more snappy articles and not insist on a photo with almost every post, as I used to. In fact, I’m going to set up half a dozen or so blog entries right now and then let the auto post feature publish them over the next week or so.

So, hang around and check back for hopefully a more frequently updated Cancun blog.

Cancun Give a Smile Day

Steve — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 18:33:53 +0000

Sorry, I haven’t been posting to the blog much lately. I’ll try to update a little more regularly once again.

Here’s another little cute story that is the kind of thing that makes living here a pleasure. On Saturday, we had a drive through to the Hotel Zone, we haven’t been there in a while so it made a nice change. Anyhow, on the approach road the traffic was backed up a little and their were people in the street stopping the cars. Day to day life here and especially driving involves being approached for money at almost every intersection and traffic light. Usually, it is for charity donations, windscreen washers, people selling drinks and snacks, newspapers, telephone cards etc but this one was a little different.

We slowed down and there were a group of children wearing big smiley T shirts. One of the girls (about 12 years old) beckoned me to wind the window down and when I did gave me a big smile and said ’sonresa por una dulce’. It took me a few seconds to realise what she was saying, and she could tell that. So, she repeated in perfect English “smile for a candy”. I gave her a big smile and she gave me a sweet (candy).

Nothing really significant in the grand scheme of things but for the kids to give up their Saturday afternoon just to spend a couple of hours making people smile typifies the attitude here, and is one of those things that happen from time to time that makes Cancun a great and happy place to live.

Our Long Weekend in Mexico City

Steve — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 19:55:57 +0000

I finally found some time to write the trip report from our recent stay in Mexico City. Once I started typing I couldnt stop so sorry it’s so long. So here goes:

SATURDAY

We left the house around 7:45 for the short walk to the place where we bought our flight tickets ($250 pp) as that is where our included airport transfer was departing. Once at the airport the flight was delayed by about an hour but eventually we were on our way. It seemed strange to be heading in a different direction to our usual airport departures, we flew over Merida and out across the Gulf. Over the sea for about an hour before once again crossing a very different coastline on our approach to Mexico City for a total flight time of 2 hours.

My Mexico City Pics

Mexico City is huge, one of the largest cities in the World with a 2000 population recorded at 18 million. Here’s a shot from the air as we were coming in to land:

Once landed it seemed the terminal was about 3 miles away and it took us about 20 minutes on the bus just to get there. Once there though it very quick to reclaim our baggage and being a domestic flight there was no customs or immigration to negotiate. We were advised to take one of the airport taxis which you book from inside the building but cheap as I am I thought we could get a better deal by getting one outside, as long as it looked official. There was a uniformed taxi driver with id badge hanging around the entrance so we negotiated a 150 peso fare and expected the car to be a few feet away. Instead he took us on a ten minute walk out of the airport building and to some back street. Jannet was starting to get worried, especially when the car wasn’t marked as a taxi at all when we finally got there, I suspect the uniform and badge were both fake and he as just trying to make some cash. Rather than go back to the airport as sensible people would we got in and headed off to the hotel. It got worrying when he said he was taking a diversion to avoid traffic and we ended up in a very poor area, even more worrying then he stopped at a greasy taco stand with about 8 very rough looking Mexicans hanging around. Turns out he had got lost himself and was asking directions, but our hearts did skip a beat.Eventually we ended up at our hotel which was the 3 star Hotel Fontan in the middle of the historic centre on Paseo de la Reforma Avenue. Here’s a link to our hotel We had one night included free with our flight and we booked an additional two nights using my own hotel sales system. Price was only $44 per night. We had a room on the 6th floor that gave some good views, here’s a pic of the traffic below:
View from our hotel:
We dumped our stuff and headed out for a walk, first though we got chatting with the hotel bell boy who told us about the tours available and also offered to get us taxis. Of course, we are pretty wise when it comes to tours and taxis so we declined but soaked up all the local info. First impression of Mexico City was that it was like a huge Market 28 - everyone had something to sell and most of it was crap. Lots of greasy dirty looking taco stands everywhere and lost more street people then you ever see in Cancun. You can tell that there is huge poverty there but then every so often you’ll see a H2 go gliding by! The amount of traffic is amazing and the driving standards ridiculous.

Mexico City Traffic:

We walked for a while and saw some of the sights, finally ending up at the big square called Zocalo, this is where the famous Independence Day celebrations are held. There was a religious convention just starting so we didn’t hang around long.

The Theatre in Mexico City:

Government Buildings:

This is the famous bell rung by the President on Independence Day

The big flag at Zocalo (although I thought the one in Cancun is bigger)

We decided to find a slightly more upscale restaurant! although the price was good! (5 pesos = 50 cents) funnily the piece of paper underneath says 6 for 5 pesos. There were about 20 sheets of paper so I guess the price changes according to demand. We went to a Chinese buffet place where it was 55 pesos for all you can eat. The food was good. We went back to the hotel to shower and change and then headed out to one of the lively areas for some bars and drinks.

We caught a taxi to Zona Rosa, so named (Pink Zone) as it is the gay area of town which also has the liveliest bars. The bell boy offered to get us a taxi for $15 but we flagged a cab and got it for less than $2! Nearly all the bars had bands playing, but all were the same kind of stuff - Queen, ACDC, Bon Jovi covers, not really our thing at all. We found a bar where the band had stopped for a break and got a table, the only table was about 4 feet from a huge speaker and the seats were about a foot high and not at all comfortable, but swayed by the litre of beer for 45 pesos we stayed for a few drinks. There was also a cut through from the main street so passers by would wander through every so often. Bearing in mind this part of town, there were many, shall I say ‘flamboyant’ older gentleman wearing clothes that would make Elton John look tame. As I mentioned the seats were tiny, so small that when I sat down my knees were pointing in the air and as guys do I absent mindedly had my knees apart while sitting which I only realised when a 60 yr old in a glitter shirt blew a kiss at me!

The band came back on and the noise almost threw us out of our chairs and we couldn’t hear each other speak so we headed off to another bar. We found one with an all female band singing Mexican pop, so we stayed there a while. Strangely there was no drinks menu and they said they didn’t serve soft drinks when Jannet asked for a coke. We ended up sharing a jarra of beer (a jug of beer with about 4 pints in it). We were about to order a second when we decided to ask the price 260 pesos we were told, which is stupidly expensive - about 4 times higher than the place we had just been too. Jannet asked another waiter and he said 220. It seems like the waiters just make the price up for their own gain, with no price lists anywhere. Needless to say we didn’t order a second and the waiter didn’t get a tip either. We found a third bar where the prices were much more reasonable and had a few bottles there before calling it a night and taking another cab back to the hotel.

SUNDAY

Sunday morning we would be out of the hotel all day, we planned to visit Xochimilco which is one of the tourist attractions, it was quite a long way south from where we were staying and then go direct from there to the Robbie Williams concert.

Still a little fearful of the infamous Mexico City subway system we flagged a taxi and it took maybe an hour and a half to get there. Partly because it was quite a long way away but also because we were caught up in football traffic as Pumas were playing Americas that day. The cabbie we got was very knowledgeable and friendly and explained how we should get from Xochimilco to the concert which was on the West part of town. We finally arrived and the price of $15 for the fare was not unreasonable.

We had a quick look around and decided it wasn’t really worth the effort of getting there. This was a floating Market 28! Xochmilco is basically a canal system and you either rent your own boat which are much like gondolas or jump on a collectivo (shared boat like a bus). You then float down the canal for an hour while various other gondolas come up to you and try and sell you crap. After that you then go back up the canal the way you’ve just come and more people try to sell you crap.

Before we went on our boat trip we had lunch at a Mexican Restaurant, where I had one of my favourites - Chicken Mole. Then it was on to the boat, we went for the collectivo option as it was only 10 pesos against the private hire option of 140 pesos. In any case the private hire option just attracted even more attention from the people selling - elotes (sweetcorn), tacos, ice cream, and the floating mariachi bands (many of which were pretty awful by mariachi standards). It really is a comical sight with scores of boats going in opposite directions and crashing into each other on a narrow canal.

We reached the end of the canal and decided to just make a run for it into the nearby village rather than endure another hour and a half back. Besides we wanted to arrive early for the concert.

We flagged a cab to the train station and then caught the train about 5 stops to the subway station. We were both very reluctant to use the subway system but once we did we found it great and used it tons more after our first experience, even late at night. Not scary at all, there are security guards posted at all entrances and just regular people using the system to get around the traffic choked city. Of course there are people that want to sell you crap, there must be tens of thousands of them as at each stop there’s be a new person get on the train, walk the length of the carriage and get off at the next stop only to be replaced by someone else. There were chiclet sellers (chewing gum), ‘bands’, ‘singers’, the deaf and dumb guy who passes out the stuff and then collects it back in when he hears the bell that announces arriving at the next station, people who would speak of their life of woe – the best ones though were the guys who sold rip off DVD’s and CD’s. They’d have a portable DVD or CD player playing their latest mix (which always has Queen on it) and a car battery to power it in their rucksack!

The best thing of all about the subway is the price – 2 pesos from anywhere to anywhere on the system, and the system is very extensive and covers the whole City.

After a couple of changes we arrived at the nearest station to the stadium where Robbie Williams was playing (Foro de Sol). We caught a cab and asked the driver to take us there. There were 9 separate entrance gates, I am sure the cabbie was running his meter up as we passed our gate and he insisted he could get us closer – traffic was horrendous and it was getting late. About 30 mins later he’d done a complete circuit of the Stadium and we arrived back at the place where we wanted to get out in the first place!

The tickets said 7.00pm start – to me that means when the gates open, but no it was when the support band would come on. It was about 6pm when we arrived – me thinking we’d be close to the front by being early, but it turns out people had been arriving since 3pm.

Another major mistake – the tickets said no cameras allowed, my camera is only tiny and I wanted it for some Xochmilco pics too. I wondered whether to risk taking it, but suspected everyone would be searched on entry and then I’d have to hand my camera in and collect at the end with a gazillion other people – possibly to find it had been ‘lost’ so I didn’t bring it with me. Guess what no searches and everyone else had a camera! I could have kicked myself.

Our tickets were the second best, the area right in the middle at the front had sold out when we bought ours, so we had to settle for one of the sides and further back from the front. Jannet did try to bribe our way in to the best section with a 500 peso tip but the guys weren’t having it.

There were 60,000 people at the concert and this was the second night, another 60,000 were there the night before, the vast majority of which probably bought their ripped off Robbie CD from one of the guys on the subway. RW had just won international artist of the year for MTV Latin America and this was the final date of around 10 dates throughout Latin America on his World Tour, it also went out live on SKY. It seems it’s only the US where no one knows who Robbie Williams is. The performance was great with the usual mix of audience interaction and great music for two hours. He said he’ll be back nst tour and next time we’ll go again and get the best tickets.

The subway closes down at 11 (until 5am) and we just managed to squeeze on the last train of the night back to the hotel…. for another 2 pesos each. One thing I found really strange was that all the bars close down early around 11pm or so. Even in the Zona Rosa they were closing at 12. In a city of that size you have to wonder where people go out at night. Iin the centre where we were there were hardly any bars at all. We fancied a nightcap and a bite to eat but had to make do with a Sanborns before going back to the hotel.

I forgot to mention the weather, the first day we arrived it was sunny and quite hot maybe high 70’s. Everyone was saying to us “is isn’t it hot?” and we were like … mmm not really. After that the days were cloudy with sunny spells possibly low 70’s. The nights were chilly down to the low 50’s. A big contrast to the heat and humidity of Cancun.

Monday

Today we had planned to go and see Teotihuacan the famous Aztec pyramids. We chose the 2 peso subway + 20 peso bus combination instead of the 450 peso organized tour. We didn’t really know where it was just that it was North of the City. There was a far flung subway station called Ciudad Azteca (Aztec City) so I guessed it would be somewhere near there, wrong!

After an hour or so we arrived at Ciudad Azteca hoping to catch a bus or taxi to the pyramid. Jannet asked for directions and we found out we were miles away so backtracked on the subway to a bus station we’d passed half an hour earlier on the advice of the person we asked. Once there we were told it wasn’t the right bus station so we caught a taxi to the correct one. There we caught a bus only to find it stopped to pick up more passengers at the bus station we had been told was the wrong one! About 45 mins later we arrived at the pyramids and went off to explore.

It’s about a two mile walk from one end to the other and of course there are people trying to sell you crap all the way. Hardly any tourists there, the sellers probably outnumbered the tourists by at least 2 to 1. This time the items of the day were magic crystals that were coloured glass, fake Aztec aretfacts, bird whistles, rugs and real dodgy silver that they were selling for 10 pesos for a neck chain. My favourite one was the guy who after showing me his fake silver and receiving a no gracias suddenly produced a bottle of water in the fashion of a magician and said “mira!” (look!). Kind of like I would be so in awe and so dying of thirst that I would have to buy it.

The pyramids were very striking though and well worth the journey. I climbed both and Jannet climbed the smaller one. Unlike Chichen Itza the steps are not uniform with steep phases and not so steep.

Temple of the Sun

View from the top of the Temple of the Sun (with zoom):

Proof I got to the top (the marker at the highest point)

View from the top of the Temple of the Moon:

Aztec Carvings and Paintings:

The bus ride back to the subway was fairly uneventful, except for the fact that we caught the slow bus which weaved in and out of tiny villages for 45 minutes before it joined the main highway.

We had decided to visit both Teotihuacan and Chapeltepac (a large park with museum) on the same day but due to our long journey it was now dark. Still, we decided to head there anyway.

Once we got there we couldn’t find the park and besides the museum was already closed, wandering a dark park at night is not the most sensible thing to do in Mexico City. We decided to look for a restaurant or bar but couldn’t find anything just hotels and commercial properties, finally we flagged a cab and asked him to take us somewhere with restaurants. We ended up at Polanco and even though it was 8pm everything seemed either closed or empty. We found a Chinese place that looked busy and ate there. It had the best Chinese Curry I’ve found in Mexico. After the meal we went back to our hotel via subway and had a little walk – we finally found a bar still serving (at 10:30pm) and had a beer and a coffee. They closed at 11 and we made our way back to sleep.

TUESDAY

We had an alarm call at 5am (our flight was at 8am) and checked out. We caught the subway to the airport for 2 pesos again, much cheaper than the 150 we paid for the inward journey. Check in was smooth and flight was on time, our transfer was waiting for us in Cancun and dropped us off at the door.

Overall I really enjoyed the trip, it was nice being tourists again , since the only places we’ve traveled to in 6 years or so have been England and Cancun. I still wonder where people go at night in Mexico City though.