Those inevitable days when the adventure of your vacation comes in the form of exhaustion and frustration.

They happen, it’s part of vacationing out of your comfort zone. When you’re in a new place and are unfamiliar with every aspect of what’s going on (no matter how much you tried to prepare through research), there will be days when you wish you were just laying on your couch at home. There may not be any excitement in that, but at least it’s comfortable and familiar. It’s just precisely in those times when I have to remind myself (sometimes 100 times in a day) that comfortable and familiar won’t bring me new adventure.

The day we left started as most typical travel days: up very early to go to the airport, flight-connection-another flight. By the time our plane landed in Cancun we had been awake for more than 12 hours and were really just getting started on the first day. The plane taxied longer after landing than any other plane I’ve ever been on. We passed concourse after concourse and saw planes representing every airline I’ve ever heard of and many I haven’t. This airport may possibly be more spread out than Atlanta, We finally arrived at a concourse that was obviously very newly built by its ultra modern but not quite finished look. We were the only plane in sight at this newest addition. The eagerness but apparent lack of experience of the airport personnel confirmed my suspicion that we were among the first to enter here. The airport was by far the nicest I’ve ever seen (and the exact opposite of the typical Central American airport). It was ultra modern to the point of looking “futuristic”. The staff was very friendly (even customs) and it seemed we were coming to the end of a relatively smooth travel day.

I fished out our rental car confirmation so we could look for the desk of EZ car rental. When we did not see such a desk we asked several people (who gave us a variety of answers) until we finally learned that their desk was not complete and we had to find the representative outside, which was not as easy as it sounds, especially since they were now going by the name of American Car Rental. Next we learned they were still located at another place in Cancun and we would take a complimentary shuttle to get our car. Not our first choice, but ok (the rental car was extremely reasonably priced after all). So after a wild ride through congested Cancun we finally arrived at the rental place. Once inside, we found a representative who spoke English with such a heavy accent we could scarcely understand him. What we DID understand was that the insurance would cost eight times the price of the car itself (8 TIMES! Literally!) And the GPS we requested would cost 4 times the cost of the car itself! Well we weren’t willing to pay it of course, so after a long and unpleasant conversation, we got our stuff and waited for the next shuttle back to the airport. To what end, we weren’t even sure. So another guy came out to “negotiate”terms and to make a very long story short, we agreed to pay a reduced price (still more than we wanted) to get a car, premium insurance and gps and be on our way. “Only” 3 hours after making it to Cancun. 🙁

The gps turned out to be a good decision, we wouldn’t have made it to our AirBNB in Playa Del Carmen without it. The 40 mile drive to Playa Del Carmen is not like a 40 mile highway trip at home. Cars that alternatively go very fast or very slow while in no discernible lanes make it a bit of a harrowing trip. Even more so in the dark. We took a few wrong turns but somehow found our block. Since there are no street numbers here, finding our block was the best we could do. So we pulled to the side of the street to get out and try to figure out where to go when the very nice Eleanor (the lively young Italian girl who checked us in) begins walking toward us, she had been at the front door waiting on us. Our 1 bedroom apt (with rooftop patio and private pool) was shockingly nice for $60 per night. She told us the A/C was an extra $4 per night (yes please!) and she showed us the ins and outs of the place. We could hardly wait to go to bed, but our rumbling stomachs told us we had other priorities. Those mediocre tacos in the Austin airport at 10:30a.m. hadn’t held us over. We followed Eleanor’s directions to “Mega”, the Mexican version of Walmart, which was an adventure in itself. We wanted to have a little food now and in our kitchen for the week to come so we stocked up. Ironically, we ended up only eating only a granola bar before we fell into bed at an unreasonably late hour. The mattresses in Central America don’t quite compare to American mattresses, which we know. But in the end, any mattress is a welcome end to the day we’d had. We had collected some stories that will seem funny to us later, and we know (from experience) that the first day can’t be used as a barometer of the whole trip.

See you tomorrow. All we are looking forward to right now is a more peaceful and restful day (a little out of our usual vacation hustle and bustle). But it will be welcome.