Isla Mujeres for the day

Tuesday December 30…11:30pm

We got up early and took Whiskey for a quick walk before leaving her at Carmen’s house for the day.

By 8:30am, we were in a taxi heading for the Puerto Juarez terminal to catch the ferry to Isla Mujere. Taxi’s are pretty cheap here…this ride cost 30 pesos ($2.85 CAN, $2.30 US).

Our tickets for the ferry cost 70 pesos each ($6.65 CAN, $5.35 US) for a return trip. It was a 20 minute boat ride to the island. We were rushing to get on the ferry because it was about to leave and a guy approached us asking if we were planning on getting a golf cart when we get to the island. We had read that many people rent a golf cart to get around the island for about 350 pesos for the day. This guy said he could get us one for 200 pesos for the day. To make a long story short, this was a time share presentation he was trying to set us up for. We ended up making an agreement. We would do the 90 minute presentation, but they would give us a golf cart for the day for free, give breakfast to the 4 of us at the resort, and pay the ferry ride back and forth.

Taken from Isla Mujeres looking across to Cancun

We got to the island, and they paid the 5 minute taxi ride to the resort. We had a nice buffet breakfast with our presentation lady, and then she showed us around the resort. This was actually a “vacation club”, not a time share. Still, it sure doesn’t suit our way of vacationing. Nice enough place, but still way too expensive. Then, she sat us in another room to try and sell us. I think she knew that this wasn’t our thing, and there was no high pressure stuff.

When it came time to collect on our deal, they had a shortage of golf carts. The going rate though, was 500 pesos for the day, not 350 as we had read somewhere. Once again, info that we research here in Mexico is rarely accurate. Anyhow, they agreed to give us 500 pesos in cash instead of the cart, and we were quite happy with that. So we walked away with 780 pesos ($74.10 CAN, $60.00 US) in cash to split among the 4 of us. Not bad, for an hour and a half!

We spent some time on their beach and did some snorkelling. Then we walked into town, and went to a restaurant that was advertising 5 (yes, five) Corona beers in a bucket of ice, for 60 pesos ($5.70 CAN, $4.60 US). We didn’t need any food because of our large free brunch earlier.

Where we went snorkelling

Jacques Cousteau's old house on Isla Mujeres

Instead of renting a golf cart, we hopped on the local bus and did a round trip of the island for 4 ($0.38 CAN, $0.30 US) pesos each.

Typical Mexican electrical wiring! I get a kick out of this stuff. Safety first!

Having cheap beers!

By the time we took the ferry back, and paid another taxi to Carmen’s house, it was almost 4:30pm. We had the entire day, with all activities mentioned above, totally paid for, and we each had about 80 pesos left over. Not bad!

Us on the ride back to Cancun on the ferry

Carmen has 2 other couchsurfers visiting just now, a 27 year old girl originally from France, and a 24 year old guy from Mexico City. It’s fun meeting all of these different travellers. The girl from France made us all crepes for supper.

For anybody who doesn't know, www.couchsurfing.com is a fantastic resource for a frugal traveller.

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…433

December Fuel $ 418.00 CAN

December Grocery $ 286.06 CAN

December Overnight costs $ 118.20 CAN