Cancun-London

Tue 1725 At the airport voice typing this while standing around basically everything's been fine slightly edgy about the flight as always not the actual flying in search of getting on and everything

Didn't sleep too badly, not brilliantly. Tiny bit of stomachache or was I just hungry or was it just nerves? You know and at bits of times today my stomach and my guts have been churning a tiny bit. I think nothing major and fingers crossed I feel all right now.

Being really slack with correcting the boys typing mistakes because I just want to get this bashed out So I probably actually got up about 8.40, 8.50 probably more like 8.50 went down for breakfast. There was me the Austrian couple and the bloke who was on the terrace last night and didn't speak to me upstairs and I didn't really speak to him Turns out he's not the Austrian couple bloke who I hadn't seen and just heard behind me doesn't matter Didn't not really much chat with anyone or in between anyone else

So, breakfast was the same as yesterday, you know, a bit of fruit and some toast, but better than nothing and I had two cups of coffee and then I came up and I think I had a shower and I shaved and I put the razors in the plastic bag I was treating as a bin and I packed and I changed into my clean clothes, the socks to be honest seemed a tiny bit smelly, but probably a water only wash, but not too bad. I felt a tiny bit rushed by the 11 o'clock check out, but not too bad. I got packed okay, as I say, and I went down and checked out. Well, basically at 11, the woman had taken the remote control for the air conditioning about 10 minutes before that.

Just browsing around the shop here. They want 79 pesos for a 600-700 milliliter bottle of water. Absolute fucking piss-take. There's no fountain as far as I can see. The signs in the toilet say not drinking water. I suspect it would be okay if I put it through my filter. I really don't want to dredge the filter out because I've already had my bag of parts several times as I squash the duty-free and maybe I should do that. I don't know. Let's have a play with that, fuck.

1739 Okay, I've dredged the filter out the bottom and I've just filled a 600ml bottle. I don't intend to drink it if I can avoid it, although I'm sure it's fine. I mean, there's no reason to think the water at the airport is any worse than water anywhere else. I've generally been filtering it, but at least it gives me a reserve. And to be honest, if it saves me paying 80 fucking pesos or whatever it was for a bottle, then, you know, that goes a lot towards justifying carrying the filter with me. Apart from that, I have used it occasionally.

So I had another coffee at the hostel I asked and they said I could. I did have a quick look at the rules. I even photographed them while I was standing at the desk waiting to check out. I was in no rush obviously and it did say you were allowed to use the ground floor after you checked out. It said you could only use the ground floor. So I had another coffee and then I went out. I went and printed the boarding pass just and I was gonna have some quesadillas at the place next to there where I'd had some yesterday but I figured I wouldn't because I didn't want to overdo it. So I walked down to Plaza Las Americas and I wandered around a bit and as I say my stomach and my guts were churning a little bit. I had a medium pizza which was 30 centimeters at Pizza Hut about quarter past one. About 240 with the drink not too bad but a bit expensive but way better than obviously eating at the airport and that helps to ensure that I don't feel any temptation to eat here and even if I can't eat on the flight at least I've had something fairly substantial.

So I then went back to the hostel of course, during all this time and in the shopping centre. I'm getting that, ooh, do I need to go? Gotta walk to the hostel and then walk to the bus terminal and buy a ticket and blah blah blah and all flight. So, you know, there's a certain tension there but anyway, it was all fine in the end.

So I picked up my bag and I might have gone to the toilet, I'm not sure. I'm suddenly wondering if I should clean my teeth but I'm not going to. I also don't think I put my toothbrush anywhere super accessible.

1745 Okay, well that was a bit weird, but okay, I guess the gate was announced a few minutes ago. Well, not announced, they don't call it out, but I saw it was there. Me and a handful of other passengers got called up to the gate for passport verification. I went up, I was luckily first in the queue, handed the passport over, the guy scammed it and he gave me a paper boarding pass. He asked for my carry-on and I sort of waved it at him, thinking he was going to say something about the size. And he said, no, that's okay. So I don't know why he asked for it, he didn't put any stickers on it. But apparently that's all okay, I don't know why they were doing that, I don't know why not everyone, but ugh. (I mean, if I am suspicious in some way, wouldn't they be doing extra checks at *security*, not at boarding? If I had to guess I would say it is because my passport struggled to scan on departure, but I wouldn't be very confident of being right.)

I mean, I don't know if this means I'm on some kind of bizarre watch list, but then why would that require extra verification here? Maybe this is some sort of weird, oh, there was multiple scans of the passport before it worked last time, and that's why they're doing it early now. I guess it's one of those air travel things you'll never know, in theory. I could try and ask someone on the web, but anyway.

So as I say I picked up the bag okay and then I walked over to the bus terminal and there's a special ticket office as I half remembered for buying bus tickets to the airport so I had no trouble, wasn't stuck in a huge queue there, paid on the credit card and I got the coach no big deal. It was nearly empty, they made me put my bag in the bottom. I could maybe have argued but I didn't, it was fine. I was a bit worried, it would disappear as I hadn't even got any kind of receipt for it but as I say it did. We got to the airport, I was feeling a tiny bit stressy, but not too bad. There was some film on, which no one could have had any time to see. It was set in medieval France, and you know, all that crap. And some woman got raped by some guy, and an oval chap, and then her husband wasn't happy, and God knows.

Group one's boarding, I'm in group five. I should probably start putting my fleece on stuff just to be ready.

Okay, done that and I've got my little onboard at my seat, back day pack on my back to maybe help reduce the bulk But I guess the guy's already seen it. I don't really know anyway So yeah, I came to the airport. I had toyed maybe having a beer or a margarita at Margaritaville in Remembrance of the 2013 trip, but I wasn't that keen to be drinking before going through security and stuff and even a 12-ounce beer Whatever the hell that is, was like 160 pesos. So, sod that

So, got through security, no problem, guzzled all my water beforehand, wandered round a bit, went in the duty free a second time after passing through. I got some Mezcal, which was like 699 pesos, usd 30 odd, maybe a bit expensive but probably okay, what the hell. Wandered round a bit, called mum, had a quick love with dad, you know, that sort of stuff. Chap advised me at duty free but I had has a browse on my own and didn't feel too browbeaten. I suspect a cheap tequila would have been less than this but it did feel fight to get some mescal.

1756 first in group 5 to board, in my aisle seat (right end of centre row), put my bag in overhead locker across aisle so I can kind of see it.

I have my NC headphones and in theory anything I might need which I do actually have is accessible in my hand luggage. So although I wonder wtf that passport check was for, I don't think it is unprecedented or that unusual. And I am probably basically OK now, fingers crossed.

1825 flight is notionally full but have empty seat to my left and behind me and my bag (perhaps unfortunately as there is nothing to stop it sliding or rolling around) has an overhead locker to itself. This is a boeing 777 fwiw.

Mild headache but feeling broadly fine. Thrlat slightly dry but nothing major and will try to hang on for some kind of service rather than touch filtered bathroom water if I cna help it, though really it should be fine.

Flight time should be pretty short due to strong winds but there may be some turbulence. Right now not worried about it. We may also take off ahead of schedule.

Gentleman in Moscow is still on in flight entrainment and I have been mildly looking forward to watching episodes 2 and 3 so will turn that on once we take off. I could do it now but would rather wait I think.

1853 just been for piss as soon as seatbelt sign off, to avoid rush and imminent meal service. So much nicer than going to toilet on bus!

2057 We had slme turbulence earlier, bunpy but nothing too major, had a surprising decent chili con carne with rice, it wasn't too sloppy I guess, and I had a beer before that, and a small bottle of chardonnay after the food (I would guess but only guess it should be red with meat and mildly spicy at that, but given turbulence I didn't want red wine near me plus I drank the wine after the food not with it and I never claim to have any class in this regard anyway), and I quite enjoyed the gentleman in Moscow. I ought to read the books it's based on, although maybe I should wait and see if there's a series two of the TV series first, and I'm now watching Nightmare Before Christmas, which I have sort of wanted to see for a while, but anyway, I think there might be some coffee yet to come, and then obviously if I do fall asleep that's fine, and if not, that's fine too, not feeling too bad generally, it's not a wild party, but yeah, this is actually quite nice, and I was pleasantly surprised by the edibility of the chili con carne.

6h41m flight time remaining according to screen while paused during film.

P7 has plenty of battery as i left it in bag during the early afternoon excursion and I have topped the o6 up to 90% from power bank so I think i am good for power.

Did get a bottle of water (small) but not drunk any yet.

Need to make an effort to use my time constructively and on stuff I care about when I get home (I don't mean literally tomorrow, slacking modulo lesson tomorrow is cool) and not piss it away on trivia or self generated or societal distractions.

I think for me part of the appeal of gentleman in Moscow is a vague surreality about it. Luckily it does appear to have avoided over much lecturing. I was disappointed - but who knows how it may pan out on later series/the books - at how Nina (? The precocious but likeable and oddly charming girl) turns into an indoctrinated slogan spouter in episode 3 but this is also maybe kind of in keeping with the setting. (I mean, OK she is not supposed to be that old though she looks way way older, but even if I didn't agree with her, if she showed signs of her own intellectual embrace of communism with her own opinions it would be vaguely respectable, but when I say slogan spouter I do mean it.  But it is just a TV show and also arguably she is playing it safe as who wouldn't in that environment etc. Lots of meta angles and it is hard to say which are fair to consider for a TV series.)

Also the actress who he has an affair with is frankly a bit unnecessarily rude but hey if that's their thing etc etc. She did at least sort of come down to earth a bit at end of episode 3.

The bee analogy felt a little forced but hey it was sort of cool top.

2111 oddly the woman frankenstein thing in nbc with her arm coming off reminds me strangely of the song "detachable penis", which I probably heard about once on some late night weird "edgy" music video show on I a  guessing channel 4 in my teens.

2222 I sort of liked NBC but also sort of dkdnt. Definitely whimsical bit not quite up my alley. Zero was oddly cute though.

Feeling a bit tired so will try to sleep. Would like a pias but seatbelt light on.

Wed 0120 I did sleep to some extent and still may sleep more. Woke up a bit ago (vague I know)and realising I was awake I got up for piss and asked for and received a small glass of water, which has helped with throat dryness after sleeping. 2h21m to dest. I do still have small problems 300ml bottle water I got with meal but want to save that for later hence asking.

Will maybe put music on phone as I did when going to sleep and see if I drift off again bit I may not and of course there will probably be breakfast served within the hour or so.

0156 not feeling super sleepy, but a bit.  The timestamps on the above entries imply <3h sleep, which isn't ideal but I guess something is way better than nothing and if I am tired tonight it may help me go to sleep a bit earlier than I otherwise would on Mexican time and thus to shift towards UK time. Not absolutely ideal to have a lesson tonight or a mildly early train tomorrow but not terrible and both probably better than not doing it.

0204 fwiw listening to music on our via headphone Jack, as I was using Jack to watch in flight entertainment. I suspect I could use Bluetooth to listen to music from phone but not certain about that, and AFAICS "everyone" is using wired headphones for ife and I did not see any obvious bluetooth pairing option in menus though not gone out of my way to look. Just a note with regard to future headphone purchases, some of those in ear only buds with a charger case (cheap version) might be nice, if they have nc, but if they can't be use for ife that is not good. Could do some web searching on this of course.

Feeling 80%+ awake, I think, and the trolleys are moving up and down the aisle so food is probably imminent. 1h37m to Gatwick.

0213 Watching CaddyShack. Haven't seen it in years but have seen it so it doesn't matter that there isn't time to watch the whole thing, and the ife is a smidge more controllable and easy to faff with as there is food service etc.

0245 vegetarian  omelette not too bad, small choc chip muffin and some fruit salad. I originally got the full English but swapped it before I opened it on second thoughts, as it would probably have had beans in (but just guessing). White coffee and orange juice.

1542 Back home! Using a real keyboard!

On a random note, I didn't actually need to buy that small toothpaste in Mexico because I never actually opened it - if I had cleaned my teeth at hostel when I collected my bag to go to the bus terminal to go the airport I might have needed it, but even then I could probably just about have squeezed enough out. Not a big deal.

We landed a few minutes ahead of schedule (0900 UK time - the difference with Cancun time is 5 hours, BTW) and there was no real fuss getting out of the airport, almost straight onto a Thameslink train (paying with First Direct contactless - fingers crossed the price is OK) and then home. I say "no real fuss" but the automatic passport gates (which I hate somehow) didn't let me through - I wasn't deliberately trying to fuck them up and I was also hustled into them a bit and the instructions seem a bit nonexistent or you don't get time to read them, but I had my glasses on for the first two of three tries (took them off for the third, and I wasn't wearing my cap for any try) and maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. Anyway, I wasn't allowed to try more but sent over to the manual attention queue, and for whatever reason there was a bloke at the front of the queue who was obviously a source of some irregularity and it was taking ages (probably well over 10-15 mins, but not certain) to deal with him and we weren't moving. In the end another guy with a queue of presumably non-UK citizens started taking people from our queue alternately with his and the problematic guy did get (politely!) taken off somewhere, although another at least somewhat problematic guy soon blocked that officer up again. I was just a tiny bit edgy given the passport check in Cancun but when I actually spoke to the guy who was alternating between dealing with the two queues it was utterly trivial. It was a bit confusing though as he asked/commented, probably just conversationally (but this *is* an immigration officer), if I'd been born in the US and I said I was British and then he said about my town of birth and I realised and clarified and it was fine but it all felt just a tiny bit odd. (I've made this joke myself independently, I wasn't offended or anything, it's just in this "WTF is going on and this is an official passport check" it felt somewhat disconcerting that he appeared to think I was American or born in the US when I'd just handed him my UK passport.)

No trouble at customs, just walked through green channel after going for a piss. Only had to wait a few mins for the train.

When I got back to the flat there was a fucker (not in uniform) dressed all in black with a tablet of some kind "examining" my block. Probably nothing to do with me but I didn't want to go in and have him start talking to me or asking me questions (especially if for all I knew there was some official summons or something in my mailbox which hadn't been redirected) or seeing me open my mailbox and thus revealing which flat I lived in. So I walked past and went and got some milk and came back and he was *still* there so I wandered down the street feeling pretty peeved and called parents partly to rant and partly to pass the time and after a few more minutes he finally fucked off so I could go in.

Two items of "real" post which should have been redirected and loads of junk, but the two real items (one of which was addressed to my first two initials plus surname, but *did* have the hypothetically-critical middle initial on) were not important. Still, this is pretty shitty service from Royal Mail. Everything OK at the flat (I didn't check but the desk thermometer may have said 13C and the fridge magnet thermometer 16C when I got in) so I really shouldn't complain.

Didn't write this up earlier as I was waiting (perhaps over-waiting) for the files uploaded to my server during trip to sync back down to my PC here.

I haven't undone the cable-tied plastic bag they gave it to me in but AFAICT my bottle of duty free mezcal has survived the trip, as have the sweets/chocolate. I haven't opened the "alebrijes". I will take all this up to parents tomorrow when I go so I hope they all survive that trip too.

Thu 1841 The mezcal made it all the way to my parents' OK. Although the packets are a tiny bit squashed so did the sweets, and I was pleasantly surprised that all six alebrijes made it with their wobbly bits (tortoise heads and fish tails) still attached and working.

Sat 1459 Random note: I didn't always get asked to show ID when I was checking in during the trip, although of course I had (almost?) always booked through booking.com so there was an identity connection there. I was relatively often (vague, I know) asked to show my passport, but almost all the time and maybe even all the time, my credit-card sized photocopy of it was accepted, even if I did sometimes get asked if I had my passport and told them (slightly meaninglessly) "that is a copy of my passport" before they accepted it.

Tue 25 Mar 2316 I should post this soon. I can write the usual post-mortem type e-mail separately. FWIW I have unpacked my bag and given it a bit of a wipe down with a damp cloth, and will leave it to dry before I put it away. It didn't massively need washing but I figured it might be a bit second-hand sweaty or dirty from having loose clothes on the inside and a casual wipe (just with cold tap water) wouldn't hurt, as long as I let it dry properly.

Cancun, Monday

Mon 0925 sitting on terrace with a (cold, but they did tell me) coffee. Have spoken - in English -with mos who asked if I would have breakfast and I said yes and she said it would be 10 mins  I suspect there may be warm coffee too.

Didn't sleep amazingly but not too bad. It feels super muggy down here on terrace, dunno if it is just contrast with ac in room or not. The floors is a bit wet, I don't know if it rained in night or they watered it.

Not feeling too bad. As I say, should be a low key kind of day. After breakfast will pop back to room briefly and then head out to a supermarket for some souvenir comestible and toothpaste shopping. I just *might* be able to get by with the tiny bit of toothpaste I have left but unless prices are insane it feels silly to try.

I may come back to hostel around midday and have a soft or alcoholic drink somewhere on off-chance of chat (unlikely, given most people here are probably in transit or are on the beach during the day - incidentally not seen any other guests yet today) and to repack while avoiding peak heat.

1343 back at hostel.

So I had breakfast and two cups of hot coffee. Desperate needed a dump, even I'd already been so I did that. I then came back to my room I think and cleaned my teeth. Maybe had already done that, I can't remember. And then I headed out. I went around the corner to the place where I thought I could get something printed and I went and had a quick chat with the guy there and yeah they're open from 8.30 I can go in tomorrow and it's about 10 pesos plus 3 pesos per print so 13 or 16 if I want two copies. I don't think I have to get the boarding pass printed but it would probably be reassuring to have it printed and so I probably will go there tomorrow timing myself to be there for 8.30 and come back for breakfast.

There was a sort of taco and quesadilla eat in place next to the print shop, whatever you want to call it, internet cafe, so I went in there and I got two quesadillas and a small bottle of tamarind juice, probably a bit less than a hundred pesos. Fingers crossed that was alright, yeah they were fairly fair size, not too bad at all. I then wandered up to the Chedraui nearby and I went in there and I spent quite a while wandering around, snapped a few photos of odd things, including some cactus-y looking stuff which is nogal. So now I know what that is and I can actually eat it when I say it, describe, but look at it.

I got myself a small tube with toothpaste, it was only 15 pesos, so even if I don't need it, it's not too bulky or expensive. I got a couple of beers, well actually those sole mescladas, to drink at the hostel. And I also got (as novelties to share with family back home) some chilli type sweets and some non-chilli sweets and some solid chocolate to make hot chocolate drink with. I had to ask a member of staff where that was, so she was really helpful. I had been looking for the sort of solid bar things like the penella I got in Colombia the other year, which I'd seen in another shop. But they didn't have those here, but they did have nice solid little cakes of it in a packet. So I bought four of those, which I think will perhaps pack easier in my bag, but it's not such a giant lump.

I also took some photos of odd stuff like nogal (cactus thing) and some giant skin pork crackling in supermarket  and now I know what nogal is and don't have to avoid it when ordering food! I probably did know at one point but forgot.

I paid on a credit card because I'm trying to eke out my cash supplies that I think I'm fine that was no problem on a whim I asked the cashier if she could swap my 500 peso plastic note for one of the Diego and Frida ones, but she said she couldn't wasn't too surprised I then came back to the hostel and I rang the bell to get in and the woman let me in no problem and then Unpromptedly she asked me if I turned my air conditioning off at 10 and incidentally I had and I said I thought I had and she said oh great Thanks. So I then thinking well, I don't like this very much so I will ask for a favour here. I asked her if she could swap my 500 note and she could she didn't have any super crisp D&F ones but at least I've got one. It it doesn't really matter and in some ways it's an expensive souvenir and I should really have been smarter and set aside the high quality one I got out of a cash machine weeks ago, but as I say not the end of the world and also a small lesson learned there.

When I came out of the Chedraui it was if anything slightly muggier than when I'd gone in and the streets seemed generally wet so I think it must be intermittently raining a bit. I can't say I've felt any rain falling on me and maybe it never gets that heavy but anyway for what it's worth.

So I came up to my room and I found a plastic bag and wrote my name on the back of a receipt and I shoved one of the beers in the fridge downstairs and then I went up to the top terrace and I drank the other one, the mangoia, mango yarda, mangoi, I've got a photo of the can, I can't remember exactly what it is. the oldish bloke was up there with his laptop and earphones, so i didn't say anything, he did leave at some point but didn't say anything, so not super matey. no one except possibly a staff member down on the lower terrace. outside what I assume is a dorm on the top floor by the terrace, there's loads of boots and shoes in a rack, I mean so maybe they don't encourage shoes in the dorm but is everyone really sleeping at this time of day? I don't know.

So while I was in my room before heading up to terrace to drink my mangoyada there was a knock on door and I optimistically thought "ooh, maybe the mos has found a nicer D&f 500 and has come to offer to swap"but instead she wanted to collect the ac remote! Luckily I had decided not to turn the ac on, despite feeling vaguely narked. So they obviously are very anal about no ac outside the designated hours even in private rooms, which does seem out of order to me.

So after I drank that one beer up on the roof, I'll leave the other for later and I might get a straight beer or two at some point later on to bring back as well. I came back here and I haven't repacked properly but I've taken everything out of my bag and I've been through the pockets of the fleece and most of the different pouches and subpouches I've got. And I've picked out a handful of things which I think I can throw away, you know, like just the tic-tac packet that I emptied on the bus the other day and although I haven't done it yet because I'll shave tonight and see which one's the best, I can throw away at least all but one and probably all of my razors before I leave here and there's a few bits of other junk and stuff like that. I've got a huge amount whatever little helps right in terms of weight and bulk when I want to get hopefully some duty free and this food I've got souvenir snacks back in.

The voice typing is clearly slightly buggy because, as I watch it transcribe, it will sometimes show fragments of stuff it already transcribed earlier, which pop up in the new text being entered, and then they disappear in the end. But that still doesn't seem right. And also, for example, there was something about Nogall that kept coming up and then disappearing, and it's only because I just double-checked. That never seems to have actually been transcribed, even though I must have said it at one point because it kept being one of these transient ghost transcriptions later on. Anyway, I mean, I am trying to read what's typed, and it's mostly working, and I'm sure they'll fix it eventually.

1400 So I'm not quite sure what to do as I said I don't need to make a huge performance out of this last day. I think I might call home just to sort of get it over with while it's semi-convenient and then I might wander over to some lake it's you know like an inlet from the sea which is relatively close and just walk along the Malecon there and see what it's like be something to do. As I said I've had those quesadillas I haven't eaten a substantial meal today yet so maybe if I see somewhere half promising I'll go there you know and then I can think about what I might eat where I might eat tomorrow. I may go to Parque Las Palapas this evening after or towards dark but we'll see I suspect there won't be anything on but there may be people wandering round and some food stalls and if I go to the ones I was at the other day I'm probably not taking too much an extra risk I did think that I was maybe taking a risk with that place this morning but you can't just be insanely cautious and have no reason to believe it would be bad.

2126 Back at hostel for the night, quietly voice typing this on the upper terrace which is otherwise deserted, but there is at least one potential dorm nearby. On the lower terrace there's a couple who are slightly physical, nothing major, but anyway, obviously not much chance of a chat there. Everything's fine, I'll try and give a blow-by-blow account of what's left of the day, but I have to say things not too bad overall, considering...

So I did go over to the Malecon by laguna nichupte. It was really quiet. I mean I saw a police truck drive past and there was a minibus with the door open and like a few hundred meters down the Malecon there was a few people hanging around. It didn't feel exactly threatening it just felt a bit quiet. I was gonna walk up and down it but it was so quiet and the view was so okay but nothing special. I didn't see much need to go crazy.

With the aid of a phone map, organic maps, I was able to look across and see where the hotel zone was, which was sort of cool, but obviously it's right in the distance. It was a nice enough view, but mostly water to be honest, you know, with a few things very distantly on the skyline.

So I had a look on the map, and I thought I'd go to the cluster of shopping centres or maybe it's all one big shopping centre, I think it's roughly Plaza de Americas, relatively nearby, so I walked over there, and I thought there might be somewhere I could eat there, like, you know, a noodle place that would probably let me pay my credit card to help eke out my cash supply, and, you know, it might be something to do, and blah blah blah, and indeed it was, so I wandered round, and it was quite big and very consumer-y, but, you know, that's Cancun, and it is still Mexico. And it was vaguely cool, and it literally was air-conditioned, which was nice, and I did indeed find a noodle place, and I had something there, and I paid on the card, and it was alright, yeah. And then I kept walking around, and the place is full of these, like, soft toy claw machines, and the little ones cost 5 pesos a go, and they also have at least one giant one, which is 20 pesos a go. I took some photos of that one, and as I was walking past one, there's a guy, probably a local, playing it, and he's already got two, I think, toys on the floor, one was like a giant soft toy hamburger, I'm not sure what the other one was, and he was playing for another one, and he was wandering around the machine, looking at the angles on the crane, and quite a few people were watching him, so I started watching as well, and he put about 5 lots of credit in while I was watching, and he did finally get a toy out, and I was like, yeah. I didn't cheer out loud, because most people had cleared off by then. The claws were not really gripping, just as floppy as the ones I remember when I was a kid that were small, but that was surprisingly cool, and everyone watching him, although they did wander off before he finished, that was surprisingly cool, and a few other people had a go afterwards, maybe, because he'd been doing it, maybe not, although they didn't win anything. But that was surprisingly cheering, somehow, and I've got photos of him walking off with all three of his prizes, no idea if he wants them, or he thinks it's a good way to get them relatively cheap, because he's good at it, or he just enjoys playing and doesn't care about the money, anyway, I thought it was quite cool.

So after that, I wandered round a little bit more, and I was thinking I might come back here tomorrow depending on how the day goes, but it would be somewhere to come and eat, and there's air conditioning to help stop me getting sweated up before the flight. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. So I had one eye on the clock with regard to online check-in, although of course, because I've already paid to reserve a seat, there isn't really any huge urgency, but, you know, in case there's a problem, I want to be having as much time as possible to deal with it. Anyway, so I bought a can of Corona, a big 710ml, at the Circle K (?) near the hostel. I didn't know about it last night, but I suspect it wouldn't have been selling alcohol because I saw another supermarket this morning that also had a sign about not selling alcohol late on Sundays, and despite the oxo bloke saying it was all oxo, I suspect it's a national prohibition, which will at least make more sense. Took a photo of the go mart (?) Sign this morning.

Whoever's down at reception seems to absolutely love that I'm in love with your body Last night you were in my room now the bedsheets smell like you song it's playing now it was playing this morning I think it was playing this afternoon never been a particular fan but you know someone obviously loves it.

So, I got back to the hostel and I came and sat here on the upper terrace with my non-speaking old guy, as usual, and I had my can of Corona and I surfed the web a bit, and then, perhaps slightly late, not that it really mattered, maybe about half six, I went and had a quick shower, and then I was in my room (but the bed-sheets only smelt like me, not you :-)) about 6.45, 6.50, doing the online check-in. It says I've got to have passport and/or visa checked at the airport, but I'm sure that's normal, and I am a UK citizen, so in this direction there's really no major worry. It didn't even want me to type my passport details in, so it was a bit of a non-event, really, but I haven checked in. I've got a boarding pass and I'm all set to hopefully get it printed tomorrow.

So after that I headed out, I asked at reception about coming back late and they said, Oh, the gate's locked at 10, which if that's true generally, it means I was cutting it a bit fine last night by accident. They said I could take a key with me. At first I said no, and then I walked out and then I thought, Oh, what if I've left an alarm on on the P7 in the room? It's going to go off while I'm out, because I was taking the 06 out with me just in case. And so I came back in and I got a key from reception and I took the old alarm set to go off on the P7. I went out and I walked over to Parquet de Las Palapas and there was no event on, but there were quite a lot of people there and the food court's all going. And there's a couple of young guys breakdancing on the stage, just practicing, doing some quite sophisticated and good looking stuff to my non-expert eye. And there were the kids driving the electric cars on the bit in front of the stage. That's really cute and that would just not happen back home because, you know, there'd be liability considerations or the council would block it or something. But, you know, incidentally, yesterday I did notice they had two boxes of batteries. I assume they take a giant box of the special batteries for those cars out with them charged and then every time they change one, they put the dead battery in another box. But I am guessing,but anyway they don't seem to charge them there.

So I wandered round a bit and then I went over to one of the line of five-ish marcosita stalls and some guy, I was reading what they were and one guy at the next stall said oh do you want something in a nice way and I not meaning to be rude but I said to him "ahora no, gracias" and I wondered whether I should have said "un momento por favor" instead but anyway it was fine I wasn't meaning to be rude and I thought oh okay I will actually buy one off his stall since he asked me and you know so I got a cheesecake one that's what they call (it in English, though they might have misspelled it). At this stall at least the ingredients were queso de bola (which is edam, there was even a whole edam, labeled edam, on the front of the stall), fresh strawberry slices, strawberry jam (mermelada de fresa) and philadelphia which I assume is philadelphia cream cheese not something I normally eat but not too bad. It was 90 pesos I assume that's a fair-ish price it wasn't written down but probably not a tourist tax. I got the thing after a few minutes and it was a bit weird with all the finely grated edam on but I had a bite of it and I'm like this is a bit weird but it did grow on me to be honest and it was quite messy and wrapped in tin foil as well as some paper at the bottom but yeah I quite enjoyed it and it was pretty substantial and I'd probably have another one yet and I'm glad I finally tried one on this trip and that I had my first one in Parque de las palapas.

So I wandered round a bit more and went down a couple of side streets which had kind of stalls on and I took some random photos and I was thinking I need to be careful not to overly milk this but it was quite nice and I do quite like Park of the Las Palapas to be fair and also especially this second visit to Cancun it feels like it's a bit more of a known quantity now and while there might still be some after-long flight kind of worries I think it's now a lot more likely that if I were to fly in at a similar time I'd feel reasonably comfortable getting an ADO coach from the airport into the centre and then walking over to somewhere like where I'm staying now or near Park of the Las Palapas or generally near the terminal on that first night so you know there's options there and that might simplify future trips via Cancun.

Don't get me wrong I did like the first place I stayed and I'm not not staying there now because I didn't like it, it's just that it's location while it's near the airport being here is near the terminal to get a bus to the airport. And I also had no idea how to get to that place I stayed at the start of the trip from the bus terminal easily because I don't know which local bus to take and I wanted to see somewhere new like Park of the Las Palapas so those are the reasons I didn't go back there but not not anything about not liking it

This is just super waffly and like like and oooh and oom but I'm just trying to bash it out. So this is what it is, right?

Gonna go get another beer and then I'll come back. I bought some on the way back just to jump ahead.

So I wandered round a bit more and then I went and got three arrachera Tacos at the place I got them yesterday. I didn't get any quesadillas, not because I didn't like the place, but because I had some earlier. I'm a tiny bit worried about my cash levels. In hindsight, especially given how relatively expensive this place turned out to be, although I've got 150 key deposit to come back, I should have withdrawn more money and it would have been fine if I was stuck with it. I could or would have should have. I think what with putting stuff on the credit card a bit today and tomorrow, it's going to be fine.

While I was sitting at a table eating the tacos the woman who'd been singing to backing tracks At some point near yhe food court came round for tips and I fumbled a tiny amount of coins (I'm a bit short actually) out of my back pocket. As I was leaving to come home, by the way, She was singing a song I've heard quite a bit which basically goes "es un escandalo" over and over again. It's actually not too bad a song. But it always reminds me of that Kirsty McColl song that has that as one of the lyrics, although her song has other lyrics too. I can't remember for sure what it is At the moment, I think it might be "in these shoes", but I'm not sure, probably off tropical brainstorm anyway.

There was also another guy busking with a guitar on the opposite side of the park. I didn't really watch him very much but at one point he was doing some song I sort of knew and quite liked. Maybe the name of it will come back to me, not that it really matters.

So after I had the tacos, I wandered around a bit more. As I say, I was trying not to milk it, but it's also my last night and, you know, it was quite nice. As I think I already said, I do quite like Parque de las Palapas. I am a bit sad to be going. I'm feeling a bit better about Cancun as a whole. Well, not as a whole. This part of it, maybe, than I did before. Albeit, yeah, I'm not crazy about it. I mean, I could see staying around here another night or two on another trip and maybe exploring somewhere else and going to the park one night. But, you know, anyway, I feel better about Cancun than I did, and I'm a bit sad to be leaving both Cancun and Mexico. I should also say this afternoon, I expect it to be cooler anyway, getting on for three or four o'clock. It was basically overcast, and there was quite a breeze up, and I'm not saying it wasn't at all muggy, but it was mildly comfortable, you know.

Oh, on a random note, the guy doing the announcements during the echos of carnival thing last night said, I think, that there was some sort of metal band or maybe rock, but I think he said metal, maybe I got it completely wrong. In some park, whose name I certainly can't remember now, starting in 20 minutes, that sounded vaguely interesting, but I didn't know where the park was, and I kinda wanted to finish watching the echos of carnival, and I didn't really want to be out super late. Good thing, as it turned out, if it really was a 10pm curfew without the key, but just mentioning it, you know, so there were options, so to speak.

Going back to the weather at points this morning-ish when it wasn't overcast it really was very sunny and like when you get a great big open area of just sort of white grey concrete it was almost blinding it was a bit I mean obviously not ridiculous it's just one of those things but yeah quite intensely bright and uncomfortable at times.

So I think I left the park about 9.15 tonight and I went into the oxo the one that was the second oxo last night for what it's worth and I got a couple of cans of beer and a bottle of Pepsi black and I already had and still have at this moment um a clamato in the fridge from last night or was it this morning whenever probably last night so I came back and I used the wrong key I used my room key to try and open the gate. I was here before 10 anyway and some woman came to open the door, but bit annoyed because it would be nice to try the other key but anyway. It's not as if I was drunk at this point remember, I hadn't had anything since that can several hours earlier. Just one of those things. So I came in she gave me the air conditioning control and I went and put my beers in the fridge and there was the couple in the lower terrace and I came up dropped my bag off in my room and started drinking the first beer up here and writing this and now I'm still up here here on the second beer.

Oh, when I came in, the larger, I think, friendlier of the two cats (one of the staff had told me that this cat was friendlier than the other earlier. They do look very similar, I don't know if they're related, but they're not the same)  was near the gate and I stroked it a bit, it let me stroke it and it was rolling over a bit. I took some video of it, but that was nice as well.

There was no one on the lower terrace when I went down to get this beer out of the fridge, by the way. There was an Austrian couple, I was ear-wigging on them talking Spanish with the woman checking them in, who checked in when I was writing the first bit of this, but don't know where they've gone, maybe they went out again. It's a shame it hasn't been more social here, but obviously there's nothing I can do. I'm not saying that someone like Mark would not have managed to get chatting to someone anyway, but really, it does feel like it's been pretty thin pickings, and while it would have been nice, it's not a huge deal. It's been fine, and it's the end of the trip, and it is what it is. On the whole, things haven't gone too badly. Yeah, I've been feeling a bit weird and moody, and I was hangry the other day, but like today, the guy getting those toys out of the giant claw machine and the park, just the atmosphere, it was nice, right? So yeah, I can't really complain.

I think Austrian guy has just come out, he said his or hola and I replied. I don't know if I ought to chat to him or not. Yes his presumed gf will probably be out in a minute but that isn't an absolute reason not to. He is looking at his phone though, as to be fair am Ihijust checked buses and they go directly to terminal 3 and at the komd of time I am looking at they are roughly every half hour and take about 35 mins and cost approximately 100 pesos. I am not booking tonoght, I may book tomorrow but I may instead want to play it a bit by ear and just buy one when I decide I am ready at the terminal. I can pay on card either way. I am sure I will end up going to airport earlier than really necessary but I will try to strike a balance.

2229 put phone down a bit but he is just on his. FWIW there was a bar type place on the square with a faded chalkboard suggesting they had 50 peso Margaritas and I was tempted but decided not to, I have had the odd Margarita but it isn't as if I needed one there and then or as if I have generally drunk them in normal bars and the price was a bit suspiciously low (another place nearby wanted 130ish) and I also in a strange way - though it might have added to the memory - want to "taint" the park with having an alcoholic drink. Just making a note, not a big deal.

2232 while I have lost track of what is proper laundry washed, what is self washed with soap and what is water only washed, I had enough clean clothes that by wearing the ss tshirt tonight I was able to change everything except trousers after shower thos evening and still have a complete change (and I have been saving the looser grey trousers for this, to some extent, been wearing black for maybe a weekish including tonight) tomorrow morning, ideally after a shower 8ish. I plan to have breakfast 9ish then take advantage of room aircon to pack and will hang on here til the slightly mean checkout time of 11. I suspect they will look after my bag but may charge me 50, can't be helped. If they won't I will have to take it with me and we will see how that goes and I may go to airport earlier than otherwise.

I haven't shaved since yesterday but if I am not too rushed tomorrow I will shave in the morning. It isn't absolutely critical but probably be nice to.

I think I may have put sliced fried? nogal on the tacos at the park last night and tonight BTW.

The views off the roof terrace are nothing special btw, even when you leer over the bamboo fencing. That should have been peer, but the typo amuses me. But hey, roof terraces are always cool and while it is the a bit muggy there is at least a slight breeze.

It was fairly pleasant in the park afaicr, albeit my hands were sticky after the marquesita and then the tacos. And it didn't help that cos of ss shirt I had put mosquito repellent on so when I sucked my fingers I got that along with the leftover sugar.

2257 just been down to get clamato and also to turn ac on in room. Austrian guy going into i assume dorm as I came back, said hi, he seemed V quiet, perhaps shy or maybe tired or maybe thinks i am a weirdo. :-)

I got a Pepsi black along with the two beers at Oxford tonight, I will have it tomorrow (can always take it out when I go at 11), although using card for small purchases seems fine (eg buying the 30ish peso 710ml corona at circle k on card, I did ask if it was OK) I figured buying the Pepsi now would save using cash or a tiny card purchase tomorrow even if i didn't want it tonight.

I could maybe see myself doing another trip in autumn-ish but well have to see what is going on elsewhere in my life, and it is undeniable that especially if it is longish and if it is in the greyer more depressing late autumn/early winter time it does kind of mean I am always for 4-6 months near continuously (except for Christmas back in UK)  which while sort of cool is also kind of disruptive to other stuff I want to do.

It is a way off yet and I will just keep an eye open for cheap flights and see what happens. It may turn out to be practical to do eg a month on early-ish autumn cheaply because of a good flight deal and that might work out as a nice compromise.

Just looked it up online - I really need a better offline app, kudos to devs for the one I do have but I really miss the old pre-AI offline linguee dictionary - and palapa is a palm shelter/roof, and is probably quite a Mexican word. Off top of my head I am not sure if it actually has palm roofs but it is possible, and it may just be historical now wrt that park, but I do have photos to check. Should have looked it up earlier and I dkd try using offline app but as I say I need a better one and mine didn't have it.

Oh, some random stuff on looking that up reminds me that someone did actually use the word "bougie" while talking to me (not about me, and maybe not about herself - I think but not sure it was Holly at San Cris hostel her last night), first time I had actually heard it used for real.

When I was saying about feeling comfortable maybe getting the bus into the centre and walking to a hotel somewhere vaguely like this area on a future trip, I did mean if I landed at like 7 or 8 o'clock at night, it probably would be okay, okay, yeah, you've got the full pack, so a bit more risky and you'd always have that new country fresh off the boat nerves, but honestly I think it probably would be okay, at least the way it seems at the moment, you know, maybe it seems I'd go downhill of course but right now I think it would be fine though obviously always *some* risk. Maybe not at 3am or whatever but then again tbh it feels so kind of dead round here at night that it really might be OK, though of course I haven't been on the streets after 10.

2320 I am vaguely dreading return to UK in the sense of having to eg deal with council and hoping there is no shitty post waiting (so little has been redirected I am worried there has been a glitch, though I dont get much anyway). But notwithstanding the fact things aren't necessarily great there is plenty of political shit here too, it is just easier to shrug my shoulders a bit when I am just a tourist. And it will also be nice to get back and get on working towards various goals with renewed energy and definitely not procrastinating and being lazy and watching junk on yt as I used to. ;-) and as I say there is the possibility of another trip of some sort later in the year.

2324 some woman bustling on and off terrace, I think it might be staff but I haven't had a good look at her and despite my best intentions and having not done too badly overall I never did really manage to get that much better at remembering faces on the basis of seeing them and interacting with them briefly. I didn't speak to her or her to me but if she is staff and we already said hi tonight that would be totally normal.

I have photos but one of the electric Cars at the park yesterday had a bear and a little girl design on. not sure if it's bear in the big blue house, probably not. I'm not obviously well up on these things. unfortunately the way the transfer had been applied to one side of the car the pink handle on the door looks just like she has a Pinocchio style nose. I did take some photos of it but I'm just mentioning it explicitly so as to accompany the photos. on the other side of the car it looks fine, just on that one side of the car it does have happened to be a Pinocchio nose. I don't know if these transfers are official and you know the cars were bought like that or the operators just applied these different transfers themselves to give the cars different designs. I don't think that car was there tonight, maybe it was broken or worn out, maybe there's different people operating them, maybe I just didn't see it but it did look like it was different toy cars there tonight. Same style of thing but different cars.

Oh, and if I didn't already say, I think there's two kind of different sorts of cars, one for the relatively older children and one for the smaller kids (toddlers?). the smaller cars i think they can be driven but they also have remote control because like last night I saw one little girl in a car and she was like zigzagging left and right and she clearly didn't have her hands on the wheel and I'm wondering, well are there like foot pedals to steer as well? And I assume based on what I saw later, not with that girl, I saw other kids in those littler cars and the parent was walking alongside them with remote control so essentially the kids are just sitting in a giant remote control car while the parent drives it. I think there is the option for the kid to drive it if they want to, i don't know how you switch between the two or if both sets of controls work simultaneously but I thought that was quite interesting.

Not feeling super relaxed with this last beer (clamato), it is fine but not meditative as such etc. Just me out here on terrace fwiw.  Nearly finished beer anyway and will move to bed then. Being up 8 is probably even too early, given I just want to shower and shave before breakfast at 9.

2337 There is some sense which it would have been nice if I still had another month of the trip but I think because I've been heading for home for the last week or two so to speak I've got myself into position where I'm now expecting to go home and that oh it's a shame I didn't make the trip longer feeling has kind of somewhat receded and as I've said before the reasons for doing the shorter trip (at least the two main ones) are still and completely valid and so it still does make sense to be going home anyway. I'm sorry to be leaving but at the same time I've got myself into position now where I've been heading back for so long but it's yeah I'm going back and there's no major "it should have been longer" feeling, it's just vaguely sad to be leaving but not specifically related to the Trip length.

And if I didn't already say of course one of my aspirations when I get back is to spend more time working on my Spanish and trying to get lots of input to use the jargon and especially like colloquial and you know different countries input from native speakers talking about themselves you know easier said than done and all that but for what it's worth

The P7 battery is down to 8% and it actually charged to 100% for a calibration overnight but it has had like 7 hours of screen time and I've been using the camera a lot which burns the battery and I don't think it's indicative of a problem and it'll be fine. I've said it to charge to 100% (instead of the usual 80% limit) again tonight so it's ready for the flight, fingers crossed. Although I should be able to top it up at various points on route EG I hope there'll be some sort of charging points at the airport. The 06 on the whole seems to have been behaving quite well, yeah it has done that crash once in a while but not too much and I had a feeling the battery was on the way out a little bit when I was back at home but on the whole, I mean most of the time I've left it in the hostel but I have taken it out and about, it hasn't let me down in a surprising way so reasonably pleased with that. I suspect before the next trip I will be replacing the 06 but we'll see how it goes and I'm not rushing into that because obviously the longer you wait, the cheaper any given phone gets.

Okay I've finished the Clamato so let's go clean my teeth and go to bed. Not too bad a day overall, slightly anticlimactic night. I might have hoped to almost work up is a little over the top but you know feel a little more cheery or drunk or melancholy ish about leaving tonight but it's fine. you know I don't feel bad, I'm not pleased I'm leaving, will be nice to go home, not looking forward to all the airport crap but you know I feel broadly speaking okay. and as I say there were a couple of nice little bits today so not complaining.

2359 bed.

Valladolid, Saturday and Valladolid-Cancun

Sat 0852 By the kitchen area near the pool, it's not kitchen its a dining area. But anyway, no one else is around, I've said hi to a couple people inside.

On a random note, I heard a zeta gas jingle being played by something in the street when I was lying in bed just before I got up. I don't think I've heard that since one of the Mexican Spanish schools, probably back in 2007.

Also on a random note, when I got to the cenote yesterday, it was closed, but it opened maybe a minute or too late, nothing major. There was like five or six people ahead of me in the queue, I'm not sure. And when I actually went down after getting changed, I think there were three people in the water, so I was probably like the fourth person in. It did get a bit busy, but hardly insanely busy, not really a problem at all. It was really quite pleasant. One of the reasons I wanted to go yesterday apart from making sure I got it done was that I suspect at the weekend it might get rather busier. Anyway, just thought it's worth.

Someone was in the bathroom next to the door when I got off and they were on the lower floor and someone was cleaning it. So I've not done my teeth or put subblock on yet, by the way.

Just popped over to stick a few clothes pegs on the stuff hanging out to dry. the top had sort of half fallen off, but it was OK. I'll leave it all there until I hopefully swim, flourish, don't send your brush to bring it in. And you know, the underwear always needs a bit of extra time to dry and it's not in direct sun so it won't hurt.

So I need to get my change back off the owner from yesterday's extension. It's not a big deal. I need to go out and withdraw some cash. I need to buy some souvenirs and I want to swim about four. We'll worry about tonight when it comes. I may not even go out, but we'll see. Maybe do a museum, but that's not the main thing. Oh, I'm a little bit hungry and it would be good to perhaps have something Mexicanish. I don't know. I might get a pastry or something. First one I've had for days. Because when i want one, I can never find a bakery. When I don't want one when I find the bakeries.

I've got about 900 pesos on me. I was thinking I might withdraw about 3000 more at the low fees if I can do it with the chase card. That's not too bad. I'm going to be paying for the buses with credit card, I don't need to pay anything else at this hostel, assuming I go tomorrow, so I'm probably going to need to pay something like, even if I go in a private hotel, 900-ish pesos, call it a thousand in Cancun, so I've then got Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, that's four days of incidentals, which are probably going to come in at about 300 a day. So that's 1200, plus 1000 for 2200. So I could withdraw less, but it's nice to have a little bit in reserve for emergencies, you know, taxis or whatever, and I don't mind having a moderate amount back when I'm at home, it's nice to come out with a little bit of cash in case my cards don't work and so forth. I'd have very roughly 1700 pesos on me when I leave the country if those estimates and the withdrawal are exactly what happens. That's about 68 quid. That's not huge amount of money to be exposed to inflation. It's also enough that it would comfortably pay for a taxi and, at the very least, the first night in accommodation when I come back, whatever time that is. And there's always a possibility that I'll want to stash a 500 Rivera and kahlo note if I get one or one of the new plastic notes in my collection. So, that's that. It's only a very small regret, but I did have some half-decent Rivera notes earlier, but I spent them because I didn't want to withdraw any more money at the time. I should have stashed one away. I did keep it aside for a while, but then when I ran low I spent it, not the end of the world, and for all I know I'll get one in this withdrawal.

I don't think any of the stuff I've got to do today is ultra critical. I don't feel totally relaxed and chilled, but then maybe it's partly because I've not put the sunblock on and clean my teeth yet and it's hot and blah blah blah. Anyway, I think everything's basically okay. It would also be good to get that change back just to knock it off my mental to-do list. I'm a bit worried I won't be able to find the kind of souvenirs I want. I'm looking to get some of those tortoise, low-budget alebrijeish things with the wobbly heads because I think that might be nice-ish for the nephew and niece. and not ridiculously expensive if they don't, but I've got a horrible fear. I'm going to not find any of your pain through the nose, and we'll see. You'll see which answer practice must vanish with some of the souvenir shops. Yes, that last sentence is a brilliant transliteration of, we'll see what happens, at least it will be some practice speaking Spanish with the souvenir shops, or words to that effect. To be screw-perously fair, I'm probably muttering a bit because of how I'm out here on my own. There could be people listening to me from the nearby inside kitchen. I'm not saying anything ridiculous, but, you know, there's an actual tendency to murmur and mutter, which probably doesn't help.

I was also thinking, as I probably said, when I was in a supermarket probably a few weeks ago now that maybe I will take a packet of drinking chocolate back with me, it comes in these sort of things, these long solid sticks, a little bit like the panella I got from Colombia, so I might try and buy a packet of that. I'd like to get the souvenirs, not from Cancun, the chocolate I could maybe buy in a supermarket in Cancun and I wouldn't have to carry it from here, but if I see anything sort of cheap and convenient, then I might buy that. I don't want artisanal stuff I just want from a Mexican supermarket stuff.

I do feel a bit guilty about not trying more like tacos and quesadillas or even new novel Mexican foods lately. I've been going for the easy and comfortable option of pizza and noodles and stuff. It's not a big deal. I have eaten some of that stuff. I've got my own quirks with the food and sauces. I might try and get an empanada or something later. Anyway, we'll see. No pressure, no need to get worked up. It would be good to try a marquesita as well, but I haven't seen anyone selling those here in Valladolid.

"Zeta gas" is pronounced "Zetta" BTW, I believe this is just "Z gas" with Spanish pronunciation but ftr.

Fuck me I'm feeling hot sitting here in the shade and it's nine o'clock in the morning. But, you know, I maybe gradually get used to it. I'm not going to die, there's air con. Cancun will, I don't know, be better or worse. Haven't checked the actual forecasts or the geography, but maybe being on the coast makes it slightly cooler there. Anyway, it is what it is and the trip's nearly over and I'll probably be missing the heat when I get back to London. I havent check the forecasts there either, actually. If I had to guess I might say London was going to be peaking about 10, 12, 13 during the day, I don't expect it to be super cold, unless there's a particular unusual weather going on now, but I also don't expect you to be super warm. I'm kind of looking forward to going back. It probably will be a smidge on the over-cool side, but then it will be, even if that's true, it will be nice to get a bit of that and then work through into spring and summer myself rather than going back from here and it's already hot without seeing any of the kind of... early spring weather myself.

0914 As always, I didn't really sleep super well. It wasn't terrible. I think I woke up in the night, maybe I was a little bit mentally uncomfortable, just worrying about minor-ish shit. Also, it was a little bit cold, not ridiculously so. I'm trying to hide under the sheet, and then I'm trying to read myself back to sleep under the sheet, and the sheet's flapping down so it gets between my eyes and the phone, and all that kind of stuff. Nothing huge. Didn't sleep terribly. I'm not feeling knackered, and I woke up. Fine, and I got up without the alarm, because i thought I might as well get up if I wasn't sleeping. Anyway, it's fine, it's fine.

Not really a travel thing, but the fingerprint unllck on the P7 is shit, I don't know if it's the screen protector or the increasingly knackered screen protector, though it looks fine over the fingerprint sensor. It feels like at least half the time, I try three times and I have to type the bloody password in. The password's too long and I ought to change it, but I daren't change it while I'm abroad because if I get it wrong, you know, and there's a mistype both of the re-entries, then that's it, all my data's gone. So I don't want to change the password without being at home and making sure I've got a solid backup of all my data first.

I think I'm going to have another coffee in a minute and then go. I just went in and topped up my water bottle. Someone was, I think, doing some new coffee, so I've got to wait for it to drip through into the bowl, you know. And then, of course, I need to do my teeth and put some sunblock on, and then we'll go out, probably getting some cash as the first order of business, and then we'll take it from there. I might make it 3,500, actually. It's like... it's... it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter. The inflationary losses, even if I lose the whole amount, the inflationary losses over 5 years, it's going to be 10% of what, 75 quid or something like that. It's at £7.50, it's nothing. I mean, alright, maybe the inflation's going to be worse than that, but you know, it's fine. And I hope we're out in 5 years and it's good to have some. Anyway, it's good to have it here as well now for mental feeling safe reasons as well.

I'm being lazy and I'm also trying to show what it's like, obviously I could totally tart up what I just voiced typed to get rid of some of the ums and errs and reword it but I'm sure some of this is even worse and maybe the conversational style is not too bad. I do think what I used to just type conversationally was a bit more to the point but you know it is what it is and although the Bluetooth keyboard is by no means useless and I have had some value out of it. It just doesn't have the convenience of the key one being here right in my pocket at the hostel.

I'm going to see how it goes and we'll see what happens tonight etc but my current feeling is very much that I'm going to Cancun tomorrow rather than leaving it till Monday, but that's just the current thinking I'm not booking anything till tonight or probably tomorrow morning and at some point probably I'll come back here either before after the swim but before I go out and I'll do some serious research on booking.com, look at privates and dorms and sociability-ness and see what I think.

Just check the London weather forecast. Tomorrow (Sunday) it's low 8, high 19. But then Tuesday is low 4 high 11. So maybe we're having a warm spell right now but My broad feelings and recollections of what it would be are probably not too far off.

For what it's worth no one is in either of the pools and although there were a few people sitting around on the sun lounges yesterday morning, as I think I said, I haven't seen anyone in the pool at all except for those two guys of unknown nationality last night who jumped in a couple of times and swam around for a minute and then got out and jumped in a bit later. Doesn't matter, just an observation. It is quite nice hostel. I would kind of like to be more sociable. Maybe that's just me not doing it right, but also to some extent if it was really busy obviously the pool would always be rammed and it wouldn't be the same. Anyway, just some wafflings.

0928 Okay, annoyingly the FUTO keyboard itself, not the extra voice typey thing. I think it's the keyboard one I'm using. It won't show you which model you have, but I think I'd set it to the medium 70-ish model. I've just on a whim gone and downloaded the highest model available, so now that I've got a lot more experience with the voice typing, we'll see if that is delivering extra quality in return for being slower, or whether it makes no difference. I'm pretty sure I wasn't on that top model before. I may have been on the default lowest or the intermediate one. I suspect intermediate, but I have no way to really know. Yeah, this one is visibly much slower. It's a little annoying perhaps if I want to write a longish post too slow to be really usable, so I definitely wasn't using this top level 2-4-4ish. I'm not sure I can't see the name anymore, one before. Hard to say if it's obviously better. I think it's still putting commas in strange places, although maybe that's my diction. Anyway, I'll try and stick with it for a bit and see how it goes, especially since I don't need to write a lot right now. Okay, yeah, it just chopped off a bit of my last sentence after transcribing a little bit. I was saying something about, let's form a judgment over time and see how it goes. So it's clearly not perfect, although I guess that kind of meta what to transcribe and what not stuff is maybe not a property of the model. Maybe it is, I don't know. Anyway, we'll give it a go. I could see myself going down to the 70 Werther, that's what I was on before, or Werther I was on the 39 before. But we'll stick with this for a little bit at least. My brother would like that. It's not transcribing my pronunciation of the word whether correctly because I don't say it correctly. Family quirk, I think. Anyway.

I kind of feel I ought to be rushing off to take advantage of the relative coolness and to get stuff done but it's fine, nothing is urgent, just need to chill, have a relaxed-ish kind of day, I really hope I can swim later because that's the last chance for the trip and if I can swim today then that would probably go a long way towards getting me back on the bike, ready for going home. I don't have to go crazy though, probably won't swim tomorrow morning unless I can't swim tonight because it'd be a bit rushed and crappy and there might be people around and feel a bit embarrassed and then I'm stuck with soaking wet swimming trunks on the bus, not soaking wet but you know I don't like traveling with really wet clothes. Anyway, fingers crossed I can swim later today, just don't go getting worked up, take it all easy, nothing really matters in a getting bent out of shape way.

Just for the record, and because I'm waffling, because I'm slightly bored, I'm using the FUTO voice typing, because I like the privacy. Obviously, with this actually being my blog, it wouldn't matter that much if I was using some sort of internet-based voice transcription. But I'm not, because I want the voice typing for other stuff, and it's still good not to be giving extra samples of my actual voice to random internet organisations, if I can help it. You know, consistency and all that.

There's not much yet. I must admit, although it is very slow, maybe this higher parameter voice model is doing a better job. Hard to say. Let me just throw in a few random things which mention Spanish-y words and see if that helps, although it is an English model. So I'm here in Valladolid and I'm going to Cancun tomorrow, probably, and I was in Merida and earlier on I was in San Cristobal. Yeah, it did get those right. I think it missed out the word experience in the first sentence in that paragraph, but maybe I didn't say it. Anyway, let's persevere. Everything's fine. I don't know if people think I'm a nutter, but it's not really any different to being on the phone call to someone with people potentially listening. No one really cares, as I say. It's not like I'm saying anything terribly juicy in any sense of the term, you know. So it's fine. It's fine. Obviously, if I did have anything juicy to say, I would use the on-screen keyboard. I have, indeed, sometimes thrown in a paragraph or so of keyboard typing in the middle of voice dictation for precisely that reason. That might explain why the style of errors and weirdnesses varies.

I have wondered briefly, partly because the voice typing makes me think about it but also just in the past, in theory obviously now and indeed years ago, I could have done an audio blog which would probably not have been postable but you know for myself and just like dictated notes to myself but there is a general privacy concern some of the time so pure audio isn't great also even if we imagine 20 years later there is super intelligdng AI transcription and my crappy audio notes from the last 20 years of travel can finally be turned into something readable it's a bit late by then and it's probably never going to be as good as me writing something properly in the first place because writing does force you to pay attention and do it properly. Obviously I'm not doing with these knobs to some extent, but can't be helped. Also, in the meantime, I'd have a much harder time just dipping into my old blog for entertainment or to remind myself something. It wouldn't be searchable. I don't like the sound of my own voice either, so, you know, I think it's much better to go for written, however I get that written stuff. But written now rather than transcribe something later, at least with the voice typing, it's instant transcription and we're throwing the voice away. And I get to, if I'm not being lazy, review the text on screen and fix the most obvious mistakes and waffles, if I can be bothered, blah blah.

0940 Jesus, Mason just turned up!

1212 Voice dictating in the otherwise empty super pizza, bite me. I had a bit of a chat with Mason. Lewis might be around. Anyway, I think I can probably do something with him tonight, so that would be nice. He did also invite me to go to some cenotes with him and his friend today, but I was genuinely tempted, but apart from the fact I had things I wanted to do, I thought it was best, as I said to him, not to go to these kind of unofficial or really low-key cenotes with no life jacket and my current swimming abilities. Best do it in future, you know, something to look forward to, remind me why I'm actually learning to swim.

So, I trogged off over to Santander Cash Machine, I double checked on Google Maps, this one was in a Willys supermarket and with both First Direct and Chase cards it wanted 74 pesos fee, I played around with the amount and receipts and no receipts didn't make any difference, so I thought fuck it and I don't really have that much to do do I, so I trogged over to another one that was also on Google Maps, I'd checked before I left but on Organic and I got there in a sort of mini shopping mall and they didn't seem to have a Santander machine, I looked around and there was a Benorte one which would do a fee of 54 with either of those cards, so I withdrew 3500 there, there was also a Chinese Express buffet type place in there and I was a bit tempted but it was a bit early and I thought I'd leave it.

So I came back into town and I spoke to a couple of slightly fancy looking souvenir shops and I explained about these little tortoise things with the wobbly head that I'm looking to buy and the guy was quite nice actually and he said they're called Semillas I don't know if that's true but like seeds anyway and he said oh four blocks down that way so I went four blocks down that way and wasn't really sure what I was looking for and there was a sort of little market around the square but nothing really promising but there was a kind of slightly brick-a-bracky shop and I I went in there and I thought I'll chat to the staff after I had a quick look round. And they didn't have them, and they looked at me a little bit funny, but I think they understood what I meant, and they suggested I try the mercado minicipal and that's on the opposite side of this super pizza place that I had had half a mind to come to anyway, so I've stopped in here, and now I'm going to trogg over to the macado un monicipao, see how it goes. It's something to do, it's an experience, maybe do some Spanish, didn't have anything else I desperately wanted to do, so, and then I'll go back to the hostel and hopefully swim.

Oh I did get myself an ice cream (masapan) from that shop I like on the way over to the first cash machine by the way.

I did see a couple of like little cafe food places. I could have maybe got a quesadilla or something But I kind of figured that especially if I might be out tonight with Mason and his friend and Lewis or something like that That if I get a pizza now, I've indulged my craving for that and I've had something to eat You know, it's a solid base even if not super healthy and then either with them later on I can have a little snack of some kind depending on where they might go or I can maybe treat myself to a quesadilla Or another ice cream or something this afternoon as I'm wandering around being careful with regards to the swimming that sort of thing.

To some extent, obviously this tortoise souvenir thing doesn't matter, but like I think I read years ago, it's sometimes nice to have a kind of goal that gives you a reason for moving around the place and talking to people and doing stuff and just seeing stuff as you go around. You know, I think the example they gave was find the best cup of coffee in the city. So, my little quest for wobbly-head tortoises, you know, it's forcing me to talk to people, you know, it's getting me around. It's something to do and it doesn't almost matter what the thing is, right?

I don't know if I could in theory make an effort to avoid these kind of vocal tics like saying right and you know if I thought maybe I could dictate more in the classic businessman recording on the dictaphone style but you know I'm just trying to bash stuff out and I'm in a noisy pizza place so whatever.

Sun 1235 At the ADO terminal I'm going to voice dictate this because there's probably some English speaking people around but it's reasonably noisy and I'm speaking right next to the mic and I can bash something out so what the hell I think the bus goes at 1310

So after the super pizza, I went over to the Mercado municipal and I did find some of those little tortoise things. Someone even called them alabrijes so you know that's interesting. The first ones I saw, my god, they were really shoddy looking and they were like 25 or even 30 but I wandered around a bit more and there was like an adjacent block and I went in there and there were some people sending them at 20 that were, if anything, slightly nicer quality. I don't think as good as the ones I've got at home but anyway, so I bought like four tortoises and two fish things from three different places each at 20 pesos. I got them to wrap them. When I got back to the hostel I wrapped them inside my beanie hat and some waterproof trousers and caught them towards the bottom of my bag. I have no idea if the heads are gonna stay or the spring wobbly bits are gonna stay intact during the trip from here to home but we can only hope.

Mason and I think apparently a couple of Chichen Itz tour guides and maybe the owner and some other people were having a bit of a party in the enclosed area by the pool. I popped back out and having another ice cream with coconut this time at that place. I came back, Mason invited me to join them but I said I was going to swim and I'd join them afterwards so I did have a swim so that's something probably in the water about 32 minutes. Better than nothing I think. Anyway I then went and had a shower and got changed and I rinsed a couple of tops in water and I think I ended up, I can't exactly what happened, I didn't join them outside because they'd sort of stopped by then but I ended up having some water and I made an effort to chat with that Brazilian woman who is like staff volunteer as well as a guest and we chatted a bit in English and then I ended up chatting to Mason and subsequently to Mason and that woman the Brazilian woman and then later to with Mason and the oldish Asian looking woman who turns out to be from London and is called Tina. She is actually going to be in Cancun on Monday night but I decided in the end to jump ahead that I wouldn't stay in the hostel I had been toying with which is the one she was going to stay in.

There was some idea that me and Mason and Alex, who was the friend of the Canadian-Mexican guy, would go out but I think Mason had a lot to drink, no judgement, I'm not blaming him, and he went and sort of collapsed on his bed about quarter past nine. I could probably have gone out to see some kind of light show with two Swiss women and Tina but I decided I wouldn't, I wasn't sure if Mason was going to be out at that point. I wandered through Plaza La Candidaire about nine and just to jump ahead subsequently about 11, 1130 and it was really dead both times so maybe there was something special happening when Mark went there, maybe I was way too early but I doubt it, I suspect it was just some strange unusual event when Mark was there rather than it being routinely lively on a Saturday night.

I did briefly toy with going to St Patrick's for the live music again, but I thought it might be a bit repetitive and I'd been talking earlier with Mason and sort of also with the Brazilian woman and like they were like oh you know you could have gone in that cantina it would have been fine if you're not the arsehole tourist people really like to see you and make an effort and you know and they'll be talking to you and stuff I mean I don't think it's guaranteed and maybe else you can sit at the bar which I didn't do but anyway since I wasn't going out with Mason I thought fuck it I toyed with going to la officina but I didn't

So I went in the bar I hadn't gone in that had had the two waiters outside near just off the square yesterday and it wasn't or it wasn't too big a deal it was I felt oddly drunk despite only having had one can of beer like two hours earlier maybe I was just nervous anyway I went upstairs they sort of seemed to want me to and I sat at a table on my own and I had a couple of draft beers it was quite nice and then I thought and it was about 11 by this point so I thought okay well I'll go out I'll walk through Candelaria in cases anything there or I can get a taco or something in the street I couldn't either of those and then I went to Tres mentiras or Mil heridas it seems to be called both nearer the hostel and there was a guy in there singing the waiter seemed a bit funny about letting me in it's like the door was locked and I said are you open he said yes I said can I come in and he said yes but it was a bit weird anyway I got in the end I got some quesadillas there it was a bit pricey but I figured what the hell and in the end I had three beers and there was a guy doing sort of singing and karaoke ish with some of the audience but it was it was all right I didn't feel super welcome I didn't understand everything the mic wasn't great but you know it was quite a nice experience and of course I didn't chat with anyone but I don't think you can rely on it happening every time and it's not like I was sitting at the bar and at least I made a bit of an effort

I think I got back about one half past and at that point I ate the very very sugary biscuity thing which I took a photo of earlier that I'd bought for 25 at the market after I got the alabrihares. Went to bed, woke up wanting to go for a dump about four or five in the morning. Not too bad, didn't sleep brilliantly, but not too bad. I think I woke up about eight and drifted and then maybe about nine half past I was looking at accommodation on the phone in bed and I probably actually got up about ten and had a couple of coffees and a bit of a chat with Mason and was looking at the hostels on booking. Com bit more.

So I went back up to the dorm and started packing, it was about 11 and I did book the hostel, I'm going to ramble about that in a minute. And then I came down and checked out, no problem, and I had a little farewell chat with the Brazilian woman who was just about to head out to the cenote, her shift had just finished. And I thanked Oscar and gave him the key back and I had a little chat with Mason. He actually came out with me, we met in the street after I'd left about 5 metres, he was going to buy a hat. I walked over, we came to the bus and we went to oxxo and I got some rolls for the bus, the canella things. And then I went and watched him buy a hat and then we said goodbye and then I came into the terminal.

So I was blowing hot and cold on the accommodation. In the end, I waffled a bit to mason, but it was just, you know, just waffling, right? Anyway, I decided I would splurge on a private, and I picked somewhere that's not a million miles from the bus terminal in Plaza de Palapas, and I picked somewhere that's got, there wasn't much space in the dorm, so at least there should be some people there. I'm paying about 22-ish pounds a night, which isn't great. It's about double what a dorm would be, but a lot of the cheaper places, the reviews were mixed, and I did wonder if the dorms were going to be rammed, and there were people talking about theft, and I'm sure it'd be fine, and probably Cancun just attracts a lot of bad reviews, but I thought, fuck it, I'll feel a lot more comfortable in a private just before I go, and also, in a strange way, it's not like I could say, oh, well, if this place isn't good, the next place would be better as it is the end of the trip, so I, you know, wanted to have a semi-nice time, and having a private would be nice, that means I can repack my bag and stuff like that, so it's fine. In the long run, an extra 20-odd quid doesn't really matter. It's not like I've splurged enormously on accommodations throughout the trip.

1300 on bus, as other day it was not on the screen and I just went and asked the woman checking tickets when another 1310 bus showed up on screen and she waved me at this one and the guy at the bus checked my ticket and met me on with my bag no fuss. Who knows if it would have shown up.

Aircon is pleasantly cold right now. Trip is I think 2.5h but the time zone shift makes it look like 3.5h.

I suspect oppenheimer is showing (presumably from a previous part of the journey, not from start).

I actually seem to have slightly "burned" the tip of my right middle finger on the hotback of the p7 probably from the voice typing.

1310 film seems surprisingly interesting albeit I have never really fancied watching it. But I am doing my best to ignore it, if I want to watch it I can do it from the start sometime.

1313 we are off. Loads of empty seats and as is semi usual lately I have a a double to myself.

1406 bored tbh. FWIW I switched to my second bottle of sunblock today, I could maybe have squeezed a dribble more out of the first one but it was getting tight and no point faffing. The first bottle was a nominal 50ml which I had overfilled at home, I think. So it lasted me almost 8 weeks despite at least occasional beach stuff and short sleeves etc.

Toothpaste - which wasn't quite new for the trip - has borderline run out and I may be forced to buy some here, not sure.

Razor is shot but I think I can get by without buying another useless one here.

2212 So I'm in the hotel room doing this on voice typing. There is actually a table and a chair so in theory I could get the little Bluetooth keyboard and the reading glasses out but it feels too much effort. Make of that what you will.

So we got into Cancun on time, I walked over to the hostel, no big deal, maybe 15 to 20 minutes, bit hot but not too bad. The big problem with Cancun, well a big problem with Cancun, is they've got all these major fucking roads and although to be fair they're not as bad as they could be, crossing them isn't all that much fun and it feels very traffic oriented. Anyway I got here okay, I rang the bell and someone came and let me in, got checked in, slightly discombobulated at seeing the list of rules that they made me sign and there was something in there about the air conditioning only operates between certain hours and I thought well that's kind of what you're expecting in a dorm but it's not what I expect in a private.

The woman who checked me in was actually nice enough, but maybe one of the reviews on booking had put the idea in my head, but it felt like she was vaguely amused by me speaking Spanish, but wasn't going to speak English with me or something. Maybe that was in my head. Anyway, she offered me the choice of this room or the next room, which this room I'm actually in is the twin room that I did book. The other room had a double bed and it had a window to the outside, so I said, oh, I'll have that then. And then she said, all right, let me just get someone to change this stuff. And then she said, oh, can we go to the other room because this one's reserved? That was a little bit bait and switchy, probably didn't set my expectations up too well, but I'm not strictly speaking complaining about that because this is the room I booked. I don't know whether it said there was no window or it said city view or something because booking.com don't put that kind of thing in the email they send you, so you have no real way to check afterwards, but it in of itself is not a huge deal.

So, I got checked in, and I'm in the room, and I noticed that there's no control for the air conditioning, so I'm getting a bit pissed off, because I'm thinking, not only do I not get to turn it on when I want, despite paying quite a lot of money for a private, I also can't control it at all. I called Mum and Dad, and I was probably not rude, but a little bit, and, er, yes, yes, yes, not great, but, you know, I didn't really want to call, but obviously I had to call while the time zones were okay.

So I went out and I'm feeling a bit hacked off and I didn't really know what I wanted but I guess I wanted some food and I'm wandering around the local area and it's all it's obviously sort of touristy but it's more sort of like American-ish I mean that's not even fair but you know like really big restaurants and it all looks very chain-y and you know weird and I'm feeling pissed off and I don't know where I'm going or exactly what I even want to eat even if I forget it and I go over to Parque de las Palapas because I hadn't heard that there was events on there and stuff and there was some food stalls so I thought well I'll maybe go after dark but I'll check it out now.

So I went there and it was sort of nice-ish and quite a lot of families and like probably 90% plus locals and Anyway, I went and looked at the food Court type area and I found a place to in quesadillas and I paid 40 for a quesadilla and the woman said What do you want on it? And she waved some white slop at me and I said, ah no, no salsa and she looked at me like I'd asked her for a fish or Something and anyway, I said, oh is that the cheese in Spanish? I think and then she just did it and I got it and it had this white slop inside So I maybe could have eaten it but I had a little sniff at it I didn't I just left the thing on the counter. It's like I didn't throw it in the bin. Maybe someone ate it Maybe they didn't know obvious beggars around I could have given it to him if I'd been inclined. So I wandered down the other Stalls and I found another place to in quesadillas But they had a stupid sign on the wall saying they wanted to charge five pesos for a plastic tray or five pesos for a Plastic fork to cit down on plastic use (but not AFAICS offering an alternative at no charge) and it's like well, you're already charging the 40 to start with so fuck you And then I went down the row again, and there was another one which actually charged 40 pesos for a quesadilla And I asked the bloke can I have it without sauce or without dressing (sin salsa y sin aderezo) and  he was like he looked at me a bit funny and I had to repeat it and he's like no No, it doesn't have anything like that inside. (It is this variabikity in what sauces actually come with a particular food, even 20m apart in the same town, that is a big part of the problem for me.) Anyway, so I ordered that It took forever to be prepared and I wondered if they were going to give me anything at all But they did eventually give me something and well not super substantial of a 40 pesos to be honest Considering I bought at paying 140 150 ish for three in that bar last night. It wasn't too bad at all It was very hot to start with but I took it off and I managed to find a table in the kind of food court Area, they're all stony tables undercover and I ate it and it was quite nice.

And I think I'd sort of half wondered if I was hangry, really hate that word, you know, low blood sugar not eaten and that was affecting my mood earlier, but I had had, yes it's junky but even so, I had had that pankonella on the bus and a hundred grams of fruit and nuts finishing off the bag I'd brought from home. So it's not as if I hadn't eaten anything, but anyway I did feel better after eating that quesadilla as I kind of intellectually half expected I might, but I really didn't think I would have been that bad anyway, just to be honest and to tell this story in the right order.

So I wasn't sure what to do about food generally but I thought I'll go and have something else at one of these stalls so I went to a different stall and I got three tacos with arrachera for 80 pesos which isn't amazing value they weren't huge I mean considering I was paying seven at that stall in Oaxaca with Samuel the other day but you know at least that's the going rate it's not like they rip me off because I was a tourist and I asked the bloke could I have them without sauce and he's like yeah there's no sauce (because there isn't normally sauce  I think, but what do i know, and i think tqcos al pastor mqybe normally have sauce bjt again far from clear) there are sauce I don't know anyway so I got those and I put some onion and an actual chilli on one and some chili sauce on the other twk and I took them off I couldn't get a stone table I thought should I ask someone if I can sit here but I didn't really want to so I ate them standing up they were quite nice as well to be honest pretty spicy if my hands a bit greasy but you know pretty nice.

And I had been thinking I'd go back to the hostel and then come back out after dark but I was thinking well I probably ought to just stay and there were signs of an event and basically I sort of hung around and there was some some guys sort of renting out those electric cars that kids can ride around in and that was surprisingly cute entertaining and then later on as it was sunset ish some bloke came up on the stage and there was a sort of echoes of carnival performance and I I basically stayed watching that till it finished at about 2115.

I told myself I'd go back to the hostel about nine but you know since it was obviously sort of coming towards an end I stuck it out to the end, not really my bag but I didn't have anything else to do and it was quite a nice thing to see on the second to last night and you know it sort of helped rescue the evening a bit on top of having had the food and some of it was quite, I mean some of the little kids dancing were quite cute and the final spectacular thing was pretty good. It alao reminded me of my niece a bit. I mean some of the gaps were a bit tedious but you know it wasn't too bad and I was thinking I'll get some beers at the oxo and I'll go back to the hostel and I'll have a couple of beers and maybe there'll be someone there I can chat with. I was also vaguely tempted to buy a bottle of that pre-mixed margarita, which I've not had since that  second night in Cancun at the start of the trip, if memory serves. I have had a few margaritas, mostly with pox, but not the premixed.

So I went in three oxo's, they really are all over the place, the first one didn't have any alcohol at all, the second one had alcohol, but there were some bin bags sort of knotted through the handles of the cabinet, and I spoke to the guy in the till and asked him a leading question, and he said, no you can't buy alcohol on Sundays. And then I went to a third oxo in a petrol station as I carried on walking home, and I asked the guy without a leading question there (btw there was nothing blocking off the cabinets in the third oxxo, I guess he just wouldn't have let me buy it if I'd taken some) and he said, yeah all oxo's don't sell after 5pm on Sundays or something to that effect. I don't know why, is this some sort of decision on oxo's part, or is it somehow externally imposed. had a quick look on my phone, I couldn't see any Six branches, I didn't pass any other shop, so oxxo have got the convenience store market sewn up round here it looks like, so I didn't have the chance to try somewhere else for a beer. It was annoying but to give myself some credit, I didn't flip out too badly, it means I'd get a day off the alcohol, but you know it would have been nice to buy something, but not a huge deal. I bought some peanuts and a small bottle of Pepsi black at the third oxo just to have something for when I got back.

When I got back it was about 20 to 10 I rang the bell and it took a little bit time to get let in and some other guy came up who's presumably a guest and I said hi and then he pushed the door open and it opened but then the woman who'd checked me in was behind it so maybe she had literally just opened it. I don't think I tried pushing it but it was fairly clear it was locked and I tried turning it with my key from my room and it didn't work.

Anyway she completely unbidden gave me a remote control for the air conditioning and when I got into the room I turned it on with that and so maybe in fact the air conditioning does work whenever I want it in the private room and I got worked up over nothing. But I can't entirely blame myself because after all that's I saw what was written in the rules/advice for guests and I read it and I didn't have a remote control and you know anyway for what it's worth maybe I should have politely asked for one but then I was also keen to go out and maybe I didn't want to rock the boat and maybe I was low blood sugar not thinking straight.

I'd also, to be scrupulous and honest, been getting myself a bit worked up about whether there would actually be any breakfast, which is supposedly included, because she hadn't mentioned anything about that when she checked me in, and so when I came in tonight, she gave me the air conditioning control and this bloke got the blanket he wanted, I asked her, and she said, oh yeah, it's 9 to 10.30, so that's also probably okay. I don't think the breakfast is anything special, but the point is, when I'm told it's there, and it's included, and that factors into my decision to choose to stay here. I didn't really have any reason to expect there wouldn't be any breakfast except maybe the low blood sugary thing and the fact that she didn't tell me about breakfast when I was checking in and on top of the air conditioning misunderstanding I was generally starting to feel rather distrustful and pissed off with the hostel.

There was no one else on the lower terrace although I did see both of their rather nice cats One of them let me stroke it a tiny bit and I think some staff woman was saying to me about how it wanted feeding at that time and they were giving it some later so the cats are nice and there was no one on the lower terrace except I think that staff woman and I went up to the roof terrace (which I had a quick look at after I checked in and there was an old bloke sitting up there with a laptop then he had his headphones in and didn't even look round so I didn't say hi) and tonight there was no one up there either I sat there with my bottle of Pepsi Black and the guy who'd come up when I was waiting to be let in tonight came up just walked straight past me and sat down with his laptop at another table so I'm not complaining but I didn't make an effort to try and chat to him. I think he might have put headphones in as well so when I'd finished my Pepsi I just said goodnight and walked off not a big deal but doesn't look like it's super busy and I wonder what on earth was going on with that one bed free in the eight bed dorm maybe everyone else is out partying although if and I haven't checked and I can't remember reading it in the rules because in practice I don't care too much if there is an 11pm curfew maybe they're not out partying but who knows. Maybe all the people staying here are already asleep in their dorm because they have early flights or they just got in on a flight and they're tired anyway just saying it doesn't feel like it's remotely social tonight so not really my fault that nothing's happening that's just the luck of the draw I think.

So I had a shower and they had given me a towel when I checked in by the way which was nice and the water was actually hot so hot that I had to turn the cold on there was no soap but you know it's not a huge deal so that was nice and I'm back in the room now I've not cleaned my teeth yet but I might snack on the peanuts because there's a sign saying not to eat in the room so obviously I'm deliberately going to flout that and then I'll go and clean my teeth and go to to bed, I think. Got to do bloody Duolingo, of course.

I think the plan for tomorrow is to basically get up in time for breakfast at 9, go for a bit of a wander. I will check oit somewhere around the corner I could probably print out my boarding pass after I do the online check-in, I don't know if I need to print it but i probably have time to do on tue morning and that's fine, and then I want to go to the supermarket and maybe buy some local sweets to take home with me as a kind of pseudo gift and maybe get some drinking chocolate. Other than that it's just wandering around a bit and maybe looking for somewhere to eat and if I can find some pizza place or something I can lard out at on the final morning that will help sustain me through the airport and on the flight if I can't eat the flight food.

It's hard to say if this high parameter voice typing model is helping or not, it is pretty annoying waiting for it to transcribe when I want to write a long load of crap like this because I am sitting here for a minute or so between bouts and I can't do anything while it's transcribing. I won't switch down to the lower grade yet, I don't know if it's doing any better but you know it's just about ok and I've ground all this out now so I might as well see how it goes.

I also have semi-started to empty my bag for a repack. I'm pretty sure I have enough clean clothes to see me through the rest of the trip without doing any laundry which is good because most of the sinks here are out in public although there is one in private if I was really desperate but I don't think I'm going to need it. So I want to repack, throw any junk away to try and create space for things like the drinking chocolate and some airport air side cheap/novel spirits, so I want to do that tomorrow as well of course.

2338 just shaved - I found a half decent razor, tbh I have been bad at throwing old ones out in case ne wone's are worse and it gets confusing - and cleaned teeth. Will send this and go to bed. Don't feel too bad overall tbh.