Travels with Hayley

Even though I wasn’t due to leave for the airport until 3pm today, I couldn’t really venture far just in case. I’d considered booking a half day tour but not only was there not masses I fancied, I was distinctly worried about delays – one of our tour had done a different optional activity to the rest of us last week and his bus home broke down, leaving them stranded on the side of road for almost two hours! Not worth the risk.

So I decided on a plan we’ll call ‘mooching about a bit’. I had a lay in (felt super weird I have to say) went to the shop for breakfast (bland foods only today, in consideration of being stuck on a plane for 9.5 hours. Say no more…) and then decide to walk the mile and a half to Walmart, as on my search for the rare Prime flavours (as part of my bid for Auntie of the Year), it had been suggested they might carry some.

My word, it was humid. It felt like walking through soup! I eventually made it there and discovered 2 things:

1. No Prime, rare or otherwise. Sorry kids, I really did look everywhere I could I promise!

2. Walmart must be a bloody awful employer as everyone working there was so miserable! Even my most winning smile got absolutley nothing back. I was a bit miffed – who wouldn’t be charmed by me 😉

Sweated my way back through town, checking out the gift shops to confirm no, I definetly didn’t want a 4 foot wide sombrero (I mean, to be honest I kind of did, but sanity and hand luggage restrictions prevailed) and made it back to the hotel.

By this point I was officially checked out of my room but really needed a shower before the flight. There was no complimentary room, the best they could offer was the open air shower by the pool on the roof. So lugging my toiletries up there and finding it deserted I had a speedy wash wearing just my bikini bottoms (I figured I could get away with no top if someone came up but I didn’t have enough hands to cover all the private bits if I took the bottoms off too!) and so nice and clean, changed into my airplane clothes.

The taxi driver from hell turned up, he was desperate to chat to me but I was too hot and tired to remember much Spanish and he had barely any English so while careering along the dual carriageway kept typing into google translate wildly important questions like ‘why are you alone? Where are your children? Why you no have husband? Do you no like the boys?!’ while I screeched ‘look at the bloody road!’ as we missed other cars by inches. This might be the best inducement to improving my Spanish that I’ve had so far, avoiding death…

Cancun airport leaves a sour taste in the mouth, almost literally. I’ve never been anywhere so expensive in my life. Bearing in mind the tap water is undrinkable so there’s no water fountains, the cheapest small bottle of water was £4. A burger and chips from the knock off McDonalds was £23. Outrageous. Fortunately I had currency that needed using up so splashed out twenty something quid on a bowl of chips, a can of Coke (literal can, not even offered a glass or ice) and a bottle of water from the shop. You could hear people grumbling about it the whole way through the airport!

Onto the plane to the front seat in Premium again, woop! Not sure how I managed that but I was very happy. Got chatting to the girl next to me who revealed her boyfriend was up front in business class! Some rubbish about he had a business class ticket that needed using up, he really had offered her the seat but he was taller and had to work in the morning so…Girl, that man is not a keeper, trust me.

Nice easy flight with a little turbulence that apparently I was too tired to care about and truly inedible food (karma as the food on the way out was so good!) and from touching down at Gatwick was inside my front door within 90 minutes.

Thank you all so much for following along with this incredible journey, I know this has been a long one! It’s so, so lovely to share the experiences with people that care and your comments make me smile and laugh the whole way round. I’m so lucky I get to do these trips and I’m so lucky I get to tell you guys about them too.

Special thank you to mum and dad for all their help over the years – without their support – emotional and financial – I wouldn’t be in a place to have this amazing life and I’m eternally grateful.

Love you millions and millions, always xxx

Ps. Special bonus content as I’m now home – the unwrapped nativity set and Christmas bauble, the hummingbird in situ and Pedro & Juanita in their new home!