Mexico, Mayans and....McDonalds?? - 10/8/06

We spent the weekend in Chetumal, Mexico. Chetumal has a real shopping mall, the Caribbean Sea, and a hotel with A/C and wireless internet! wooHOO!! What more could we ask for?

Driving toward the mall, I had to do a double-take and pinch myself. Ahead to the right....are those golden arches? What the.... Yup, after two months of being secluded from civilization I am in a parking lot of a mall containing Office Depot, Burger King and McDonalds! Not only was there a HUGE Micky D's in the parking lot, there was one in the mall food court and a little McDonald kiosk in the mall that sold ice cream and McFlurrys. Mexico, I am sooo sorry for what my country has done to you... Nathan and I ate at a local restaurant that was trying desperately to be an Italian deli. The food was okay, it definitely looked more healthy than the Big Macs and super sized fries everyone else was shoving down. "No thanks, I didn't eat that back home, no point in starting now." The fries did look good though...

It was so fun to window shop in a climate controlled environment again! I got two new t-shirts and I picked up a new skirt and some jewelry as well. Food is cheaper out here, so we did some grocery shopping. But it was nice to spend money on something other than necessities for survival.

We also got to see an actual movie in a real movie theatre!! We saw Las Torres Gemelas. For those of you who don’t have to watch American Movies with subtitles, we saw The Twin Towers. Suffice it to say, we haven’t seen any previews and, since the title was in Spanish, didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into. If you haven’t seen the movie, take Kleenex. If you have seen it, let us know what you thought. I assumed it would be a political movie about the planes, the terrorists, and Al Qaeda. I was surprised- and glad- it focused on the heroes of 9-11, the every day police and fire personnel and their families. It felt surreal sitting in a Mexican theatre, surrounded by our new Canadian and Belizean friends, watching a movie about the worst American tragedy of the New Millennium. But I was encouraged when the movie ended and the lights came up and I realized it wasn’t only the American girl in the 6^th row that had been crying- everyone was touched by the movie. Kinda like how everyone was touched by the tragedy of the event itself…But I really just wanted to see a comedy.

…Anyway, back to our great weekend…

The hotel was perfect and fairly inexpensive- 650 pesos, which equals $65 US or $130 BZ. The grounds were amazing, the buildings were beautiful, and the rooms were clean (a rare thing around here). The wireless internet and A/C secured it as a hotel we will go back to if we ever make it to Chetumal again by ourselves.

Getting back across the border was another great adventure. One of the guys, Henry, is the High School PE teacher and he bought about 20 gazillion soccer balls, basketballs, and volleyballs in Mexico to use at the school. Abe helped him haggle the duty price down so that he didn't have to end up buying them twice. Nathan and I bought a brand new backpacking bag that will be perfect for weekend trips like this one. We stuffed it with some new blow-up plastic couches for our "living room" and my new t-shirts. When the customs official asked us about the bag, Nathan jumped in and told him it was our "beach stuff." Nice save. Then, he eyed our Sauza tequila and a few computer gadgets and lectured us on trying to bring both across the border. He talked about charging us a duty, threatened to charge us a duty, but when I offered to pay the duty he just put his hand in my face to cut me off and said, "I'm just telling you." I think he thought he was being helpful, but he just confused us.

Also, during the border crossing, we found out it is actually illegal to transport soda into Belize. ILLEGAL! Isn't that insane? Apparently, because there is a Coca-Cola factory in the country, soda is regulated and controlled by law. Of course, I found that out after I was safely on the Belizian side of the border and sipping my cold Diet Pepsi. Rebellion tastes sweet!

So, we are back, safe and sound. We have a few new articles of clothing, some computer parts that make our lives easier, some whole bean coffee and blow up furniture that makes our apartment look a little less like a sparsely-furnished apartment in a 3rd World country and a little more like a college dorm room. But hey, at lease we finally have somewhere to "entertain!"