We officially came back to Mexico, and then finally decided two nights ago that we were going to stay in Progreso, which is the same city we stayed in last year. I like Progreso. I liked it the last time we came here too, but it’s changed since we last came, and there are a lot of things that I didn’t notice the last time we came here. For instance, last year, the little walkway along the beach was under construction. Now, it’s finished, a couple of cars drive on the street now, and there are little shower thingies along the road. It’s kind of cool to come back and see that kind of thing. As we drove into Merida yesterday, I felt strangely familiar with the place. Now, it feels almost like I never left, really. It’s weird. I’m sure that if I went back to Beijing, I would have a similar feeling of comfort and familiarity toward the place as I do here, even though China is a difficult and confusing place to go.
We only officially decided on a rental today, and we’ve existed in Mexico since Sunday, and it’s Tuesday now. But then again, we booked the tickets on Thursday of last week, and went to Colorado on Saturday to make it easier for us to get to the airport on Sunday morning. We had to get there at six in the morning, by the way. But anyways, the place that we’re staying at here is a house that the owner of the Spanish school that we went to last time owns. The house looked pretty nice, I mean, there were people cleaning it and stuff, but it still looked pretty nice overall. There are lots of placed to hang hammocks in the place. So far, on just about every trip we’ve been on, my mom, Jennifer, has brought our hammock with us. Each time, there was nowhere to hang the hammock, so it was pretty much a waste of space. This time, we decided not to bring the hammock because the thing was dead weight all the other times, and of course, we have a use for it. We instead decided to buy some hammocks. I don’t know how many we’re going to get yet, but currently we have one.
Yesterday, we had quite an ordeal with some of the rental properties we had chosen to look at. The first two places were being rented by the same person, so we followed her to them in our itsy bitsy car. The first one looked nice, it really did. I would have totally stayed there, but there was something about how she needed all the money right then and there in cash. My dad couldn’t do that because our debit card has a limit on it to prevent fraud and stuff. She was getting seemingly pissy with us when we were trying to explain our situation, so after a little bit we decided to drop it, but before we did that, we went to see the other property. A condo.
We weren’t going to be able to get in. The only person who had a key wasn’t there, he was picking up his kids in Cancun (which was fine), and nobody had a key into his apartment where there was supposedly an extra key. There was a man named Carlos who offered to show us the condo that we were thinking of staying in, and we went with him. He didn’t have a key either. So then, for some reason I’m still confused about, he took us down this neat little tranquil pathway to some people who were sitting outside. Carlos attempted to explain our situation in his broken English. If I remember right, my dad was on the phone with the man with the key at this time. My dad’s phone was given the white man that Carlos had led us to. The man said cool before taking the phone and talking to the man with the key for a short moment. He came back with the same news. There was no way to get the key. In the end we decided to give up on this little adventure because it clearly wasn’t going to work out.
Neither of these properties were within reasonable walking distance of the center of Progreso, which in my opinion, is kind of a negative thing. I really like being able to walk everywhere I go if at all possible. I just like it. I don’t know why. If I could bike, I probably would, but both walking and biking are rather social in a way that driving just isn’t.
Instead, we went to our old language place and asked Iracema if she knew of any properties that would fit our criteria. Oddly, she did, and oddly so, I do believe that we’re going to stay there now. The house is really close to everything that we would want to walk to, like the language school and the dance school (both of which are right next to each other, convenient right?), and the Malecon. I like walking along the Malecon. It’s strangely calming. But anyways, we decided that we were going to stay in a hotel for the night, and asked Iracema if she knew of any hotels in the area. Her husband owns the one that we’re currently staying in, which, ironically, is right down the street from the same place we stayed in last year.
Originally we were going to stay in Merida so that we could take our car back easily and stuff, but we changed our minds because it wouldn’t be that difficult to just take the car back that night and take the bus back. Which it wasn’t. We were renting from Hertz, which is in the Fiesta Americana mall right next to the Hyatt in Merida. The bus stop is kind of out almost behind the Oxxo gas station across the street. Look for a small group of impatient gathered people. That’s the bus stop. The bus ride is about forty five minutes to an hour long from Progreso to Merida. For the three of us it cost somewhere around four dollars (fifty pesos or so). Not a lot.
So yeah, there’s our ‘first’ day in Progreso, Mexico. Will continue updating.
travelingshipps 