When we last left Wendell, he and his friend were beginning to realize their tropical vacation in Cancun could turn into a nightmare with the approach of Hurricane Milton. They’d just received a letter from their hotel warning about the approaching storm.
While I admit the letter scared the daylights out of us discount travelers, recalling our experiences with Ian, we didn’t panic. We ran possible solutions past one another, and she remembered that while wandering around the empty luxury mall, she had been given a flyer for a tour of the Mayan ruins and several towns a few hours south of our resort. Since Cancun was closed with a padlock on the front, we voted for the bus trip. In the wee hours of the morning, we reached out to Sergio, the person listed as the contact. We were told Sergio had registered us and we were good to go, just be out front at 6:30 a.m. to be picked up. We felt lucky we had at least one workable solution to focus on.
We popped up and were out front ready to go, except Sergio wasn’t. In a series of texts with delay after delay, we’d learn just how elusive Sergio was, as elusive as Big Foot. A lot of people claimed they had seen him, but no one could tell us where he was or what he looked like. Finally, the bus showed up closer to 9 a.m. and we were relieved to be on our way.
Or so we thought, as we rumbled down Cancun’s main drag, empty of any normal tourist activities, and came to a stop in a complex that reminded me of a set from a futuristic zombie apocalyptic movie. It was surreal to turn into what appeared to be a huge, abandoned mall butwas actually an open-air shopping center. There were tens of buses of different kinds, sizes, and colors. It turned out this old mall was now a hub or bus terminal, and we had just been rounded up. Being an American, it’s hard to understand this kind of commerce, but I could clearly see how this approach would work for human trafficking, moving immigrants, or products. There was a fever pitch of noise, but it was all in a language we didn’t understand. And the more we tried to explain what we needed in broken Spanish, the worse the miscommunication got.
They herded us into different lines to begin the process of paying for whatever service or reason someone would find themselves there. We kept asking for Sergio, but the man felt like an urban legend. At the front, we once again dropped the name Sergio, as if we were trying to get into an Upper East Side cocktail party disguised as a speakeasy. The affordable price Sergio had quoted turned into the gringo price from hell once the taxes, fees, and other donations we didn’t understand were figured in. Looking back, this was pretty much the extent of our bilingual tour experience. Over the next day and a half, we’d repeatedly ask the different guides when the English translation would be given and would get the same answer: “At the end of the Spanish version,” which seemed to go on for hours as the bus rambled throughout the countryside. And that only happened once, and then the guide summed up the hours-long excursion in less than two minutes in English.
As we traveled south, we had no idea what was happening with Hurricane Milton. No one seemed to be in panic mode on the fully loaded bus. Like an Old Testament miracle, we made a stop somewhere and a couple with kids got on. They were from Miami and for a short time they became our translators. The funny part was, they sat us all on the last two rows of the bus. The five of them, plus the two of us, were briefly Little America.
But it was over too soon. They only joined us for the short trip to the Mayan ruins at Tulum which, lucky for us, fit our need to fill in some time away from the effects of Hurricane Milton. We made a stop at a small town before the next ruins in Coba, that family got off, and just that quick, we were back to feeling not wanted or a part of the group.
I was beginning to understand what it’s like as an immigrant more than ever. A common language spoken and understood by all is so important to one’s emotional well-being. Some of what I felt on that bus, not understanding a word of what was said, played tricks on my psyche. I believed at times the jokes they were laughing at were about me. And I was just on a bus ride where nobody spoke English. Imagine how immigrants must feel in a strange foreign land. I felt it for just a few hours, and it hurt.
At the next stop, guides and drivers changed. At the entry to the Coba ruins, a half mile away, we stood dazed when our names were called. We didn’t understand why we were the only ones getting off and we’d be alone there, unable to speak a word of Spanish. And to add insult to injury, the driver said that we only, and he repeated only several times, had one hour at the ruins and we had to be at this spot then or we’d be left.
As the bus full of people minus two gringos roared off down the dirt road, we stood there looking at each other like, “WTF just happened?” Ever a democratic union, by unanimous vote, we determined we may be up the creek and needed answers if we wanted to at least have a paddle. So, facing our fears we started walking around BOLDLY like Americans DO not allowing a bus ride to wash away THE USA privilege and the DEMAND for customer service.
We found the only two words commonly spoken in English in that village were the infamous “tourist tax,” which seemed to be the key to any attempt at negotiations. We remembered you could rent a bike to get to the entrance of the ruins. When we tried to ask, the answer again was “tourist tax.” And on and on it went as we tried to make our way before the panic set in over trying to travel the distance and missing the bus.
Seeing an outside restaurant near the pick-up spot, we gave up on seeing Coba because of the overwhelming feeling of impending doom and just took the “L.” We said we’d demand Sergio refund a portion of our money. That seemed reasonable to us with what was going on. We were still tied to the privilege of American customer service, where the customer was always right. In a two-zero vote, we decided “Let’s eat,” so we went inside. But before we could finish, an empty bus pulled up, the horn blew, and we were off again down an unknown dirt road, grateful we didn’t attempt to walk to those ruins and back. Otherwise, you’d be reading this in the Spanish we’d learned.
This was the second or third bus we’d been on since early that day, traveling south in a panic, but the other Spanish-speaking riders seemed to take it as just another day on their route. They seemed so laid back. I guess that comes from knowing where you’re going. With us, it was just the opposite. We were constantly trying to look out the windows for landmarks to use breadcrumbs like Hansel and Gretel to find our way back “home,” but it felt like we were going in circles. Because we were. I found out later these seemingly different buses operate like those get-on get-off tourist buses in the U.S. except multiple operators run the circuits. Very confusing for someone used to looking for the colors of DASH or Metro.
So, we sped around this unnamed lake in the middle of nowhere and headed in who knows what direction until the road started to narrow. The bus slowed and made a right turn down what I call a dirt trail. It gave me chills, then add in you couldn’t ask the driver any questions, and you’re thinking we’re on the highway to hell. Or to heaven, it turns out.
