Trip Reviews, Ratings and Comments - Trip Review - Di & Chuy #1

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**For those of you who don’t know: My husband, Chuy a.k.a Jesus, of 11 months-geez, time flies!!--is from Cancun and we are making this trip to close out his bank accounts in Cancun and to collect his “exit money” from Planet Hollywood. We have not told his mother we are coming so this will be a big surprise for her.

Day 1 • Wednesday, February 16
We awake to the alarm at 4:00am after only 4 1/2 hours of sleep. The car service arrives at 4:30 and we are at the Northwest terminal at LaGuardia at 4:50am. We leave on time at 6:25am. A quick stop in Memphis where we change into shorts then we are off to Cancun. The woman sitting next to us is envious because she hadn’t thought of it herself and is wearing a lot of clothing. Chuy keeps saying he’s not excited, but I know better.

We land in Cancun at 11:10am. No lines at immigration but had to take a moment to fill out a form with the deputy since Chuy is Mexican and the plane didn’t have the form we needed. Got our luggage and the green light. I quickly saw my sister-in-law Maricela (Chuy’s sister) and her husband Mario. A cute little boy was trying to get Chuy to notice him--it’s our nephew Cristian! He is a little afraid of me (but I will get a kiss goodbye when we leave!). Hugs all around, out to the car. We have to kill time until our niece Alexia gets out of school at 1:30 so we drive up 307 to Plaza Las Americas. We went up to the second floor above the food court to the arcade and Cristian played all sorts of games, a quick snack for them at Los Bisquette’s de Obregon and off to Ek Balam to pick up Alexia. She was so happy to see her uncle. Now, off to mom’s for the big surprise.

Her house is all the way to the north and quite a ways west of the development of Cancun. No paved roads here, just a lot of pot holes and white dust/dirt. The homes are either concrete or thick wooden sticks. No yards to speak of, though some homes try to do some things with plants. No buses go out here, you either have a car, take a taxi, or walk the 20 minutes or so to the nearest bus stop. Her house is two levels, the front of the ground floor is her store. She sells a little bit of everything: glue, pens, paper, ribbon, toys, candy, marbles, photocopies.

We pull up and I turn on the video camera. Chuy has sprinted into the house and I follow through the store. I can see her face through the window...she just stares wide-eyed with her mouth open and finally manages to whisper “Jesus”. I come into the house and get their embrace on tape. Both have tears in their eyes. She comes around from the kitchen and hugs me, then starts to sob. I hold her for a moment until Chuy comes back and takes over the hugging. It was priceless! His grandmother also lives here, as does our stepfather, Fernando who is a plumper (he’s still at work when we arrive).

We settle into our room as his mother showers, then off to La Parrilla around 3:00pm!!!!!! We are joined by Chuy’s brother Ramon, aka Moncho and two cousins: Wendy and Jamie. Finally, the beloved sopa de lima passes my lips...I’m home! We take Alexia to gymnastics class from 5-6 then head home for a shower and relaxed on the upstairs terrace. Around 9:00 we drive about 10 blocks to Pepe’s gym, where in the evening there is a taco stand on the ground level. We purchase 55 tacos for 180 pesos and head home to eat. We fall into bed (Chuy his hammock) around 11:30pm.

Day 2 • Thursday, February 17

Up at 8:00am. Today will be spent dealing with the banks. But we also need to get mom’s car fixed as it is leaking water. We drive around looking for the mechanic she uses but we give up after 45 minutes. Decide to start on the banks: Bancomer, Banamex. Wait, lines, wait, lines, etc. It is 39 celsius and it is only 11:00am. We stop at 100% Natural on Sunyaxchen and have brunch and some of those yummy shakes. We drop off the car and are told it will be ready at 4:30pm. So we grab a cab and head over to American Express on Ave. Tulum to confirm his accounts are closed. Turns out the woman who waits on us went to school with Chuy and since she is not busy, they catch up. We head up Tulum and run into Moncho. Now it’s only 2:00 so we head over to a place across the street from 100% Natural and Chuy gets a haircut and he insists that I have a manicure. Groovy! It’s now 3:45 and we decide to see if the car is ready, which it is! We arrive at the house to find chicken mole awaiting us...yum!

We shower and head out to the Deli Mart for the Chatters Meeting. We arrive around 6:30 and say hello. But we have to meet the family at Carlos N Charlies at 7:00 and couldn’t stay. It was nice talking to you Skip! Boy has Carlos N Charlies changed. They enlarged the bar and reverted back to the old, wooden menus. Since the “new” management took over last year there are a lot of new faces, but it sure was lovely to see the old friends. Chuy enjoyed telling everyone about New York. After dinner with the family Chuy and I headed by ourselves to El Mirador but first stop next door to Carlos N Charlies at the Shrimp Bucket to see if Maricio is working. What luck, it is his day off but he was called in. He is now married to a Canadian girl and they are happy. We spend about 20 minutes catching up, but they are busy so we leave, promising to stop back again. We stopped and looked at the menu at La Prosperidad de Cancun but I thought the prices were way too high...we sat for about 45 minutes talking and listening to the ocean at El Mirador. On the way home we stopped at Plaza La Isla and walked around. Looks really nice. Had a shake at Johnny Rockets (one of my favorite places here at home, but looses something in the translation in Mexico). We hit the bed/hammock around 11:30pm.

Day 3 • Friday, February 18

Up again at 8:00. We stop for tacos at a street stand on our way to drop off Maricela at Carlos N Charlies where she works (bookkeeper). These tacos are great (I actually had a torta which is the meat in a oval shaped roll), but I can’t help but thinking that these places wouldn’t even get the grill lit before the health department would shut them down if this were in the states. Raw meat being cut in this little stand, nothing refrigerated and no place to wash. Oh well, this is Mexico!

We have to be at Planet Hollywood at 9:00am to pick up Chuy’s money. Afterwards we drop off the package of maps from Laura at Jim in Cancun’s place of employment...alas, he has not returned from his trip. Stop by the department store Liverpool to at Plaza Las Americas to pay his mom’s bill for the month. Back to the banks for more fun. We also stop by the hotel I usually stayed in when I would go to visit Chuy: Maria de Lourdes. I wanted to say hello to my friend Jorge who is one of the managers there. We catch up then head out to take the car to a car wash over on Av. Nader and go to Los Bisquette’s de Obregon for lunch while we wait. If you haven’t been here, go check it out, especially for breakfast. The pastries are wonderful. My favorite is the choncha. Actually, you may want to go a little later in the morning as this place can get pretty crowded. They also have menus in english. After we get the car we hit the post office to mail the other two packages that I took down for Laura. I laugh when we ask how long it will take to arrive at it’s destination within Cancun: 1 week! Oh well, this is Mexico!

Back to the house to pick up Maricela, mom, cousin Wendy (who drives a taxi, number 3553 I think--if you get her, say hello), and an aunt and head off to Commercial Mexicana. Today is Mario’s birthday and we are having a party at their house tonight and they need to get the food. We are buying about 4 kilos of avocados and when I tell them I usually pay $1.99-2.50 for ONE they almost fall onto the floor. We drop them off, stop off at the house to shower, then head into the Hotel Zone and go to Planet Hollywood to see all his old work buddies and especially his best friend, Jose. If any of you are at Planet Hollywood around 10:30pm, stay and watch the show. Jose is the dressed as Jim Carrey’s character in the movie the Mask. Everyone crowded around and Chuy enjoyed telling them about his new life in the states.

We head back to his sister’s for the party. She lives about 3 blocks from Chuy’s mom. They just finished have the first level of this home built and are living in this area while they save up enough to build the second level where the bedrooms will be. Mari is really proud of her new home, as well she should. All the family is there...lots of talk, food, and fun. We have the biggest bowl of guacamole I’ve ever seen. Plus, Mario grills all the different types of meat we bought earlier that day. Some of them come already “cured” and the taste is unbelievable. They have the store cut the meat into thin slices so they are ready in no time. Our niece and nephew sit entranced in front of our video camera watching tape from our Disney vacation. They don’t move for over an hour! And of course the traditional postre de tres leches (3 milk cake--I LOVE this). After you sing happy birthday, the birthday gal or guy has to blow out the candles then take a bite from the cake. It is at this time they get their face pushed into the cake. Home and to bed around 2:00am.

Submitted by: di -- diane_lopez-velarde@ibi.com
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