Mexico

Mexico. Cancun. 1998 I think. Then again, it may have been 1999. It’s a bit difficult to remember. Not just because it was quite a long time ago, but mainly because, due to the effects of tequila, its pretty much two weeks of my life I can’t remember a great  deal about.

This was a post-divorce holiday celebration. Me and Ady, fed up in February, decided to go somewhere hot. I nipped round to a local travel agent (in pre internet days when you still did that sort of thing) and in no time at all we were off on our South American adventure.

For those of you that haven’t been to Cancun, it’s basically a string of American hotels on the Yucatan Peninsula. It could be anywhere really. There is a Cancun town which provides the labour force for the hotels. (We visited the town for a beer – in a rare break from Tequila – and experienced two things you don’t come across in Northampton. First, guards armed with machine guns outside the bank and secondly a bloke who offered us the services of his lady friend and when we declined that kind offer, his sister and brother. He obviously had all bases covered).

Our hotel – The Aquamarina, (www.aquamarinabeach.com) was perfectly ok and most importantly fully inclusive! This led to the swift and inevitable decline in Englishmen abroad standards of etiquette. The “we can’t start drinking until” time drifted quickly backwards from noon to breakfast.

Every day started with a head clearing swim out to the diving jetty visiting Cedric the starfish on the way and every evening ended in farce at a Nightclub, surrounded by drunken Canadians and American students who were on Spring break.

Im sorry its all a bit muddled and the quality of the pics isn’t great, but we did manage to fit in a bit of culture too. Here are some of the (few) things I remember:

•  Mexicans are very, very good at beach football and we are not. We will never win another World Cup as long as there are Mexican footballers as good as our hotel entertainment team. A German bloke turned his knee in a game on day one and spent his entire holiday in plaster.

•  We met Paul and Paul, two Geordies who worked on oil rigs in the North Sea. After two whole weeks hanging out with them I don’t think either of us had understood one single word they said. There was more chance of learning Spanish than getting to grips with full flow Geordie. On the way home they were skint and we had to lend them money to pay to get through the airport.

• The flag in the picture was huge. Quite possibly the largest flag in the world.

•  Cedric the Starfish didn’t move for two weeks – not an inch. In fact he may well have been dead. I hope not.

• The Dolphins were lovely, and furry, which was a surprise. But it was very sad to see them cooped up in a tiny area of sea for our pleasure. We should have let them out.

• I read Birdsong (on Ady’s recommendation) which is a brilliant tale. A much better book than the recent TV dramatization.

• On a coach excursion we were entertained at a road- side stop by some dancers. It was all a bit rubbish really, but Ady gave them a tip, which I’m sure, in a moment of foreign currency confusion, was about £100. (Due to his extreme generosity they have erected a statue to him in the village, where he is now a saint).