i leave tomorrow!!!

so yes.... valladolid...

we went to the cenote which was amazing, it was all underground in a cave with cool clear water and bats flying above and one hole in the roof that went through to the outside world. We met some random Mexicans, one of whom insisted that we come visit him and stay with his family in Merida (we smiled politely, took his number and didn't call.... does that make us bad people??)

The next day we got up early and got a colectivo out to Chichen Itza which was pretty amazing. There's a huge temple which represents the mayan calender, with all the different walls and steps (of which there are exactly 365) representing different cycles of years and months etc. There are also lots of amazing carvings, including jaguars, eagles, snakes and several walls with nothing but carvings of human sculls. There was also the largest of the Mayan ball courts, along with more carvings along the sides of ball games and som rather gruesome decapitations.

The hostel in Valladolid was really nice, clean, well organised, with kitchen facilities, hammocks, a TV room and some incredibly cute kittens that lived in the garden. The next day we were going to go to Isla Holbox, but we realised that it was hard to get to and with the little time we had left we wanted to go somewhere a little more chilled out. So we went to Isla Mujeres, an island just off the coast from Cancun.

The hostel was nice, but a little crazy, and full of english people which we hadn't had for a while! The dorms were priced in terms of the width of the matress, so we decided to go for the smallest one thinking that it would make no difference.... but the combination of that and no aircon didnt make for good nights sleep! However we did go out the first night to the beach bar that was part of the hostel with 4 english girls we met which was fun. The next day (yesterday) we went to a turtle farm which was great. They had tanks with turtles of alll sizes from little tiny baby ones inside to big ones in enclosures in the actual sea outside. There wasn't really that much to see but we spent ages just watching them.

When we got back to our hostel i read my emails only to find out that one of my flights (they didnt say which one) on the 5th was cancelled. They also gave me a number which could have been mexican, english, brazilian or panamanian as they didn't give me a country code. It turned out to be mexican, but it didn't work anyway. So i finally found a number that did work for the airline and after lots of pressing buttons to get through to an actual person, they told me that there was no problem.

Thismorning i call trailfinders and they say that it is cancelled, they don't know which of the 2 flights it is, the only number they had was the one that i already knew didnt work, they couldnt tell me what to do about the other (internal) flight in brazil which is with a different airline and which i would miss if i went a day later. They just told me to call the airline who had already told me that everything was fine.

Useful.

But i call the airline again anyway, and they now at least acnowledge that the flight is cancelled, and give me the option of flying a day earlier or a day later. So to avoid missing my Brazil flight i go for a day earlier, which meant running back to the hostel to check out, getting a boat back to Cancun, booking into a hostel here, booking a taxi for 5am tomorrow, putting all the holiday pics onto disk so Ro could have a copy of them, booking a hotel in Sao Paulo as i'm now stuck there tomorrow night. And on top of all that, in the middle of running between payphones and call centres and internet cafes i managed to lost my wallet. So i had to cancel my card too and i cant get moneys out of ATMs any more!!

So yes... today has been most stressful. As will the next few days be. So much for having today to relax on the beach and tomorrow to do last minute things like photos and souvenirs!

Next time i write i shall be in Brazil!!! ARGH!!! I don't think i remember a single word of Portuguese.