Thinking Allowed: Yuca-tanned

Well, here we are in our windowless storage locker of an apartment, which is way nicer than it sounds. Today's first half was lovely: the girls played a drawing game, we went to the beach and swam with small fish and a big undertow, we had delicious nachos and smoothies for lunch. The second half was, well, kinda brutal. Our drive up to Cancun was under 100km, but ended up taking over 3.5 hours with horrid traffic. Mexican drivers are ruthless in taking advantage of every trick in the book, and Tamar honked her horn angrily more times than I've heard in awhile. We ended up returning the car in the nick of time, arguing about damages and insurance in the blazing sun, and then splurging on a taxi to the hotel rather than walking 30min down a nasty highway with all our earthly possessions.

Our room is in a literal warehouse, down at the end of a 700m series of flatbeds and loading docks, but someone has cunningly converted it into a pretty cozy room. Despite our pretty arduous trip, everyone was in decent spirits if a bit pooped. Dinner bolstered our spirits: tacos with avocado, jalapeno beans, red pepper, tomato, double-melted cheese (i.e. first in the car, then in the pan) and salsa. We're getting up at 4:30 tomorrow morning, so it's a slightly early bedtime tonight.

We leave the Yucatan with a mixed impression. The cenotes were lovely, the ruins were very interesting to explore, and some of the food was to die for. Yal-Ku Lagoon was fantastic. Valladolid was maybe our favourite town, and we definitely saw more of the peninsula than most visitors. We made friends with a lovely mother and son from Montreal, and spent some happy hours on white sand beaches.

But we also struggled to cope with the traffic, bad roads, persistent hawkers, mosquitoes and stunning heat. We didn't get Montezuma's Revenge yet, but acid reflux and cramps are hard to avoid when most meals make your mouth tingle. So, on balance, good to have visited and fun memories, but we won't be in a hurry to come back soon.