Mexico 2022
Day 10: Not a good last full day
I didn't wake up until 6:45am and the sunrise was missed this morning. I slept a little better last night but did awaken once with chest pain in the middle of the night. The rest of the fam didn't rise for another 2 hours so it was just me and my caffeine this morning for awhile. Only it wasn't MY caffeine because the store wasn't open last night for me to get any diet Pepsi or Coca Lite and it would be a morning of suffering. I did have a bottle of the apple pop and that would get me at least kick started on my day. Then I'd revert to water.
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Everyone got up around 8:30am and Sakari made us egg omelets. She loves cooking breakfast. It was a little flat since we really didn't have anything to put in it other than cheese.
We were low on food since this would be our last day here and didn't want to have to throw a lot out. However, since this place didn't have an oven, I would be taking a lot back with me that I brought. I didn't realize it didn't come with an oven when I booked it.
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It had been so hot in the house that some of my stuff exploded in the box.
Then all of a sudden it started pouring down raining. It would be the first rain we had (or seen) since we've been here, even though it predicted rain several nights...then it never came. But no worries folks, the rain would not cool anything down. ;)
We waited until the rain stopped and then decided to head to the grocery store. We also really needed gas and every time we went into town, it was too late to stop at Ciro's for gas. I think at this point we were on day 5 and we were supposed to stop every 2 days for a fill up. It really had me worried about running out. I mean what do you do if you run out? I think this happens to a lot of people while on the island because I would see people pulled over with one of the golf cart companies there helping them or pouring gas in the cart. Oops. Don't be that person I told myself. But, we just might be that person at the rate we were going.
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I started getting a bad headache, probably from not having enough caffeine running through my veins this morning.
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We dried off the golf cart and got ready to head into town for some gas and pop. Sakari didn't want to go and said she was going to stay back and draw in her room. I told her I would bring her back something special. Only she didn't know what special was...you'll see. lol
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As we headed down our road to the main road, we stopped to check traffic before pulling out and all of a sudden the golf cart wouldn't move. It was still running but when you put it in gear and gave it gas, it wouldn't go. The hubby tried putting it in reverse and it was fine, but forward...nothing. He tried putting on the choke. Then all of a sudden it went forward and stopped...in the middle of the road...blocking traffic. How embarrassing. We did eventually get it going and out of the way but we took it nice and slow trying to preserve gas as much as we could. We had to be running on fumes at this point. I've never been in a gas golf cart, they've always been electric.
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We made the decision to go straight to Ciro's instead of stopping for pop or the grocery store first. We were supposed to return the golf cart today and I was really hoping that they weren't going to keep it when we showed up. We picked it up at 5:40pm the day we arrived, we should at least be able to keep it most of the day right?
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Along the way I was snapping pictures...in case I had missed anything the previous 9 days. I feel like I've seen everything so many times and I didn't really know what pictures I had missed.
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This artist put a lot of thought into their mural on this building. They had painted the building with these flowers. However, there was a pole in front of the building. So, they painted the pole as well to match the flowers so that when you were standing across the street from here, you wouldn't see the pole or the pole be in the way and it blended in. How cool was that? I had wished that I had stopped to take a proper picture of it. It sucks that someone decided to put advertisements on the pole on the painting.
This was the first (and only that I noticed) tope that had a picture of a car showing it. All the others were just humps.
We finally made it to Ciro's and they filled up the tank. No more running on fumes. Whew! They did not even question when we would be bringing it back so that was a relief.
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The hubby was on a hunt to get me some pop to tie me over until we made it to the grocery store.
We had heard that there's only 1 traffic light on the island. We had yet to see any traffic lights. But...I finally found it. It was right in front of the Chedral grocery store. I had never noticed it this entire time. The reason why...because it's not working. So, I guess they don't use it anymore.
At the grocery store and got my pop, some donuts for the next day and Sakari's surprise. Nope, not anything you would think of. I got her pan (bread). They had a loaf of bread there that was sliced long ways. She seen it the other day and said she wanted some. It was so neat. I'm honestly not sure what it is supposed to be used for. But I had an idea. lol
We wondered around the store...twice...and I couldn't find anything at all to make for dinner. Absolutely nothing sounded good or it had to be made in the oven. I started feeling really tired and weak. We needed to go. My chest was also hurting a little more. So we headed home.
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On the way, I had the hubby drive past our place so that I could get a few more pictures along the coast.
The castle house compound with the wall built around it and steps along the wall. I have no idea what this place was but the hubby thought it was really cool.
Here we are coming down our little dead end side road to our house. They were building a really huge house across from us. The workers were there early in the morning and worked until after dark. Then you would see them all sitting on the curb waiting for their motorcycle rides to come get them. Except there was one, that I know of, that had a hammock inside the building and he stayed there all night.
We arrived back home and I told Sakari to come down and see her surprise. I presented her with her pan and she was like "Aww, you bought it for me! What are we going to make with it?" I told her we would have some sandwiches later with it.
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I sat outside with my caffeine and I kept nodding off. I really couldn't stay awake. I was feeling weak and tired and my body was starting to ache. Oh goodness! Not how I wanted to spend my last day here. I thought we would head to the beach or something but I was too tired and very hot! I decided I would head up to the room in the air and take a little nap to try to shake this off...whatever it was.
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I napped from 1-3:30pm and had set my alarm for us to take our Jeep back. I really didn't want to be late and have to pay for another day or deal with it in the morning when we had to leave.
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I messaged Freddy, our driver from when we had arrived, about picking us up once we dropped the golf cart off. He said he would be able to pick us up to just let him know when we arrive and he'd come and to look for taxi #67.
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So, off we went to return the golf cart.
I'm going to miss these guys. I wish we had ate at more vendors while we were here. It was what I really wanted to do prior to arriving. But things never seem to go as planned. I will have to plan a little better next time if I come to Mexico again. Well, I should say "when" I come to Mexico again because I absolutely love Mexico.
We arrived at Ciro's and turned in our jeep. Having a jeep on the island was so much fun. I really loved this. It was so unique to use as transportation. Many people said "it's just so much cheaper to use the taxi's or the bus system" but I can't imagine coming here and staying for any amount of time and not having a golf cart. To be able to come and go when you want and exploring the entire island...that's the way to go! People said you'd find a hard time finding a place to park and not worth it. We didn't have any problems at all. There was always somewhere to park, even if you had to walk a block or two. No big deal.
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We waited around for our taxi driver to pick us up after texting him. We noticed there were plenty of taxi's coming down the road and one even stopped to pick us up. The hubby tried to get in but I noticed the number was not right. Nooooo, we have someone coming to pick us up. We can't just leave him hanging. We only waited for around 15 minutes for Freddy to arrive. But man was it hot while we waited.
Freddy remembered us from when we arrived and how to get to our place. These guys have a great memory! As many people as they see in a day and they can remember you and where you stayed? I'd never be able to do that. We talked all the way back to our house. He was telling us how he worked until really late the night before. I think he said something like 11pm and it was a long day and he was back out at it again this morning. They really work hard. I doubled his money this time and was really grateful for his service. I ask him about picking us up in the morning to take us to the ferry terminal. He said he'd be there around 8am.
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Once back home, it was time to put the pan to use. We were all hungry and it was getting late. So what were we doing with the pan? Making chicken salad sandwiches.
The hubby started making our "Dagwood sandwich". You guys remember that cartoon? (Only if you are older I assume) but I used to make these when I was a teenager for my mom. He was a little unsure how this was going to happen so I took over and stacked the pan in layers.
I started the dreaded task of packing. It's really depressing when this occurs and I dread it so much. I was still really tired and not feeling well. I felt so bad that we had wasted an entire day...our last day...and didn't do anything. Not what I had planned, but what could I do. I was still feeling extremely tired and hard to keep my eyes open.
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I really loved these flowers all around the place. They are so neat looking. Nature is such a beautiful thing. What an amazing world we live in.
As we were sitting outside, I noticed a helicopter go by. We had seen this also late one night, I believe the night before or 2 nights ago, and I wondered if it was Life Flight picking someone up that might have gotten hurt. I would find out the next day what was going on both days and it wasn't a good thing...
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Thanks to being on the Isla Mujeres facebook group, my questions were answered:
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CODE RED ON ISLAND WOMEN SHOOTING IN DAYLIGHT
Report more than 20 detonations of firearms near the park of the colony la gloria, practically all the public safety elements came to surround the area but so far there are no detainees.
Unofficially reporting a possible dead, but this has not been confirmed
One person wrote: "I live by the blue dome, there were boys training volleyball and they had to throw to the floor by the bullets, ended up rescued in the economic development offices, that sadness gives me the island and the children who can not leave" and another wrote "I still remember years ago what happened in the country,.. and we said that would never happen on the island"
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Now it does get a little confusing when they talk about Isla Mujeres and this is why: The island is made up of two zones, one is the continental zone that is on the mainland on one side of cancun and the island is the insular zone. So even though they may say "Isla Mujeres" it could mean the island or the mainland. People were confirming this happened on the island.
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Then the day before:
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Shooting in Isla Mujeres
In less than 3 days Isla Mujeres has been victim of dozens of shootings. During the early morning on Friday, more than 30 bullet detonations were recorded in different parts of the island, hundreds of residents managed to capture videos of what happened.
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So this was scary. They were saying it was in the town of La Gloria, which happened to be real close to us and the town that has the Rainbow stairs and cute planters in the middle of the street. We were staying right outside the little town as you can see by the marker in the picture below.
Someone wrote that bullet casings were found on the brand new playground in town. Only some were stating they were a lot bigger than just a bullet casing and more like a machine gun. So the helicopter we seen flying around was not a Life Flight and was the military helicopter.
Now most people say violence happens everywhere and when people complain about it happening on their vacation and unsafe conditions, most would reply that it's worse in the US. I'm only going by the post of the island people saying it doesn't seem to happen on the island and this is abnormal. It brought concern to a lot of the islanders.
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Packing continued off and on throughout the day. I was so hot. Hotter than normal. I actually stopped at one point and took an ice cold shower...downstairs...then got out and continued to pack more.
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We cleaned up the house the best we could. The hubby did the dishes and put them away. But, without a broom or mop, there wasn't much that we could do about the floors.
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As the hours passed by, the sky was giving us a spectacular show. It was so pretty out. I bet the sunset on Playa Norte was amazing tonight. Too bad we couldn't be there to watch it.
It was time to plan dinner, but we had nothing to make. Of course the family suggested ordering pizza...from Pizza Mike's Pizza. We always seem to have pizza twice when we go so why not. I definitely didn't feel like cooking. We ordered the meat lovers pizza again and it arrived and was awesome just like before complete with the yummy rolls.
We decided to head up to our rooms after that. Everything was packed and the suitcases were downstairs waiting on us to leave the next day. I was really going to miss this place! This had been an awesome vacation and we enjoyed it so much.
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I needed to take another ice cold shower because I was burning up. My head still hurt and I hadn't managed to get rid of my headache all day. My body was aching, I felt weak, and I was still extremely tired.
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When I went to get in our shower, I had a peeping Tom in there. I immediately took a picture, showed the hubby, then sent it to Sakari and told the hubby "I give her 10 seconds"....she made it in 5 and the door was flying open and here she comes.
I told the hubby to go down and check that everything was locked up downstairs and when he came back up, he showed me these pictures.
We were being invaded tonight by gecko's.
It was time for bed. I was exhausted. But before I went to bed, my worries of me being sick got the best of me and I started thinking "What if I caught COVID while I was here?" Everyone knows the vaccination doesn't keep you from getting or spreading COVID, but it is supposed to lesson your symptoms. I'm not sure if my symptoms were "lessoned" or not. I mean I wasn't on a ventilator, so maybe it was a good thing.
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I always bring a COVID home test with us, but never thought I'd actually have to use one. But this time, I'm using it! I had to know. None of my family was sick. It was just me.
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So I took the test. It was negative. Ok, so I'm not sure what I have or if I'm just exhausted from all this heat this time around. I mean normally we have a house with air and normally we are traveling around in a car with a/c. Also, I've never felt it this hot on vacation before either. The hubby told me I probably just had heat exhaustion and maybe he was right. I really didn't know. I did have the symptoms.
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So off to bed we went for the night and my mind was a little at ease.
