Day 164 - Cancun, Mexico - 14th January, 2005 ..... (I'm carrying on from the previous one - see below) I was immediately in a bad mood (you know how difficult that must have been) and kicking myself all the way to our hotel. We talked about it and decided that even though I was going to loose the $40, we wouldn't prostitute ourselves by pretending to listen to a presentation. So we never went. 

We checked ourselves into our hotel and went immediately to the pool. The boys both love swimming, since they were taught by a young lad from Twyford School and spent the rest of the day swimming in the pool and jumping in the Jacuzzi. 

The trip from the airport was quite interesting and all of us had our ears on stalks listening to the other passengers in the mini-van. Unfortunately Cancun is at this time of year, used by businesses to reward their staff for achievements made and sales targets met. 3 of the passengers were from a pharmaceutical company who sold, amongst other things, breast implants. They were obviously on a "high", having achieved their quarterly sales figures and were on an all an expenses paid jolly. But one guy admitted that he had only been in the business for a few months which didn't stop him doing a great deal on 125 implants for a hospital near New York. Another deal he closed recently was for over $250,000 but he was (to us) clearly a product of the United States of America. His motto (the words actually came out of his mouth) was "Work hard and play hard". He was living the American dream. If you want it bad enough you can get it. All he had done was work hard and have a bit of luck. Now he was going to make good on the "play hard" bit. We heard stories from the others of previous beanos, with boasts of drinking and off the record (and without the wife knowing) escapades in "gentlemens establishments" and with other party members.  

There was not much we could do about the boys being within earshot. One of the party did kindly ask another to clean up his language due to the presence of kids. But when we got to talk about it both boys knew what they heard was outside our code of behaviour and they dismissed it as such. Julie and I were both like "Oh dear what is this place like?" 

It turns out that Cancun is a kind a bachelor party, corporate jolly sort of place. But aside from that it is a beautiful place and the weather was mostly good. We did have a bit of rain but they were only showers and passed quickly. 

On our first day we just got to look around the hotel and discover the restaurants and facilities. We had lunch in the pool bar, did some beach and had a rest in our room in the afternoon. We took a cab into town in the evening passing Porsche, BMW and Volvo dealerships on the way. We headed to the Walmart store which was about the size of 5 or 6 football fields. It also contained a McD's, a Dominos pizza and 6 or 7 other mini stores. It was more like a shopping mall. We were amazed at the prices which for something like a baseball hat (the reason we went there in the first place) were 3 times the price in Texas ($10 as opposed to $2.79). Given that the average Mexican around here probably earns a tenth of what the average American does, it pretty much staggers me that they can get away with it. The place was full of Mexicans. Very strange. I just can't figure it out. We came back to the hotel using the same cab driver that took us. If a tourist gets in a cab you keep him for as long as possible. So he had a kip whilst we did our shopping. Makes you feel rather important or exploitative depending on whether you are me or you are Julie. 

We came back to the hotel around 9:00 pm and went for a quick stroll along the beach. It was still in the 80s. The boys sand castles were still in tact (although requiring some repairs) so we patched them up and then watched a huge electrical storm lighting up the night sky from some distant spot far away across the Carribean. Bed felt good and this was just the beginning.