Fun question for locals

[ELLABEAR424]

Originally Posted by Naoautorizada

RG c'mon - if you wanted to live in the US and be safe from a terrorist attack (or at least safe from non-US terrorists), you could live anywhere in Iowa or Tennesee or Indiana and be pretty unconcerned about it.

Clearly something more than that is keeping you there.

Take Tennessee off of your list. They have a nuclear plant somewhere right around Oak Ridge. Anytime there is a problem, they go into lock down. Sorry

[Naoautorizada]

OK - so no Tennessee.
Well, Iowa and Indiana are left.
Maybe we can add Wyoming.
(I mean, we have to have at least one place we can safely go on vacation without leaving the country!)
;-)

[RiverGirl]

I know far too much about Wyoming (being from Colorado) to want to live there. It's beautiful there though.

[Isla Zina]

This is from my blog of life on Isla Mujeres...at www.islatravelers.com
A lot of doing for little accomplishment!

"We closed the case on the bicyle confiscation yesterday! Two Tacos and I went to Villa Vera to get the lock that was also confiscated. The security guys who took the bike never logged it and it ceased to exist for a while! Persistent emails got the dock master to find it and email me back to come pick it up.
I also closed the case on El. He had come by after Larry and Beth left to say (!!!) Miguel had a new pool table and issued me an invitation. I dropped by Miguel's after a long day to tell him El does not work for me, hasn'f for a good while! Miguel was pleasantly surprised as El had been there the night before playing pool and drinking with money Two Tacos had given him but forgotten about. Hey Miguel, just so you know, I'm not stupid. I spent 20 years on the streets of Cleveland reporting on all kinds of scum and scams. Claro que si, he said! Lynn and Bob said hi and called me an assimilado! They said it was nice to see a fellow gringo living the local life!
Yesterday was also a day for closing plumbing cases. Yes, plumbing cases. My favorite Isla worker showed up to fix the rentals: downstairs bathroom cold faucet and upstairs hot. Both needed pulled and replaced.
I then took Mundo to my friend's house, where he fixed a leaky sink drain at the base. He treated me to a Coke and then we went on to my Ohio friends' house, where he replaced the shower faucet. But we had to go to Boxito first to get the fittings and handle. It was one with a bar that had rusted through before the guts were eaten out! By the way, he was not overpaid and still made 400 pesos for his three hours of work. Plus parts.
Two Tacos took me to the Cuban restaurant near Villa Vera after that stop. What a lovely lunch along the water! I had garlic fish with fried plantains, salad and rice and beans. Two Tacos had shrimp and calamari ceviche. I got the baby octopust they put in for decoration. We had mojitos and Two Tacos followed them up with a couple beers. Wonderful food and ambience, but the tab was 340 pesos. We did not overtip!
Started the day off by hitting the ATM and heading to COVI to restock for mojitos at the house. Saw Zak Tomas who donated an allen wrench set (not recovered from VIlla Vera) to the bicycle cause and got a couple baby bamboos at the flower shop. Came home and got rid of the grill though a passing scrap collector. In exchange for hauling its rusted out base and aluminum hood away, he offered to pay 50 pesos a kilo for scrap aluminum and copper next week. Then I got a wonderfull massage from MaryAnne. I guess you could call it a very busy day!"

[Naoautorizada]

It's funny about Isla...

There's very little about it that could be more different than Cancun, yet once you've visited there, a visit to Cancun without a stop at Isla would be very much like having cereal without milk - edible, but nowhere near as tasty.

Word to the wise though - if you go to Cancun during the holidays, schedule your visit to Isla in an off-peak time of the week, becuase guess what, it's a favorite holiday spot for the people that live in Cancun, and the lines for the ferry (going there, and then in particular, returning) can be 4 to 6 hours long, and the people running the ferry won't tell you that when you ask.

[cunspin]

4 to 6 hours is an exageration In 20 years here I have never heard of anyone having to wait that long. I went at Christmas and there were only 2 ferry's running and the wait was less than an hour, I have gone since on weekends and never had more than a 10 minute wait.

[RiverGirl]

The IM ferries run every half hour, I've heard of people having to wait til the next ferry, but never longer than that.

[CancunCanuck]

Jumping on the ferry bandwagon, I have never, ever heard of a wait that long, hour at the most.

Cool blog newbie, welcome aboard!

[Naoautorizada]

Originally Posted by cunspin

4 to 6 hours is an exageration In 20 years here I have never heard of anyone having to wait that long. I went at Christmas and there were only 2 ferry's running and the wait was less than an hour, I have gone since on weekends and never had more than a 10 minute wait.

No exageration going on here.
When I was there last New Years weekend, there were also only 2 of the 5 ferries operating and at midday the line of people waiting was all the way into the street. It took 2 full hours to get only half way through the line and we simply decided it wouldn't be worth the wait. We went very early next day and didn't have to wait for too long, but unlike every other day at Isla, when the line to return vanishes after dark, this night, at dusk, the line was enormous - it went all the way from the ferry to (and through) that little park down the road a ways. We decided to take the slower smaller ferry instead, which had a smaller line and it still took over 2 hours to get off the island.

Lesson learned - of you can see the end of the line from the bus stop, just keep going.

[MartinnVegas]

You could've cut in line. I mean, who's going to bitch about that little green ugly looking creature? Most people would have let you cut in just to look at your ears from behind.

[Naoautorizada]

I was actually surprised about how patient people in the line seemed to be and that there was very little of that sort of thing (cutting in line) going on, despite the heat (it was still quite sunny and warm during the week between Chrismas and New Years) and the long wait. The Oxxo out front (which is on the side of the parking lot where the line streched out to the street) did really good business that day - even ran low on a number of good drinks that they normally always have.

My only negative recollection from that day wasn't about the people in line, because they (mostly locals) were great as usual, but I have very different opinion about the way the ferry business was being managed. The ticket office was telling everyone that the wait was about 45 minutes (during which you wouldn't even move forward as far as the Oxxo, much less under the shade of the structure) and they refused to refund the tickets of people who discovered the truth after waiting in line for a while. It wasn't until I started offering my tickets for sale to folks that were coming to the ticket office to buy tickets that one of the attendants finally went to get authorization to give me a refund. That experience was one of the very few negative recollections I've ever had from Cancun, I'm happy to say.

Oh - and lastly about going to Isla - DO NOT take the ferry from the Embarcadero (on the western 1/3 of the top of the "seven", near BBG actually). It's way overpriced and takes FOREVER to get to the island. And if there's any chop at all to the water - it's not a fun trip.