“You made me think…………….”, Cancun, August 13th, 2011

It is a long time ago that I actually not sleep at all through a night but I just had to use that winning streak at the poker table till the last minute. Fortunately Frontier Airways is a positive example of American flight service. So I can nap away to Denver, fill up with Panda Express and actually sleep heading towards Cancun. Yep, it’s a whole other world again but also yep, as expected its more touristy than other places in Mexico I suppose. The good part of this is safety. No issues walking around here. I even follow a gay in the street to his commission paying hostel. “I take the cheaper one” comes out of my mouth when I am being offered a dorm bed for 7€ and an air-conditioned private room for 17€. Either I am back in the back packing feeling or I am just to tired to think right in this exhausting heat. Soon later I fall unconscious for 12 hours. If it had not been for the heat I would have slept for 20 hours I think. Anyway, I feel fit again, ready to do something and so I head for the ferry to Isla Mujeres.

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Here I meet 2 Dutch guys and Jose Sanchez in the very hip hostel named “Pocna”. Latest when he asks “Can we play chess again?” I know he is like me. I only luckily won the first chess match and he did not like loosing. Then I again won partly luckily all table tennis matches against the Dutch and him and he couldn’t believe it. So after dinner just like I would have done, he requests a rematch but the pressure to win was too big………. . Being alike we connect very well and despite me having paid already for the night I do leave the hostel again with him to take the last ferry back to Cancun. He wants to hit Chichén Itzá before the tourist crowds early in the morning.

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It turns out to be a good idea also because it gives us the time to visit the greatest cave I have ever seen. In fact, one of the world diving contest was held here and its easy to see why, check out the video (copy / paste link in a seperate window):

http://www.spiegel.de/video/suche/index.html?suchbegriff=diving

It actually amazes me more than my 6^th world wonder which I saw this morning. Guess what, the one new world wonder I am missing is the Colosseum in Rom, closest to Germany.

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We even visit another cave and find the time for dinner before Jose and I go different directions. “You made me think” he says as I quit my job doing this trip and as he is at a deciding point in his life having to take important decision on what to do. Later he would write me an email that he indeed woke up one day knowing what to do. Great and I really hope he sticks to his dreams, he is the perfect traveler.

I take a detour via Tulum, where I stay in another hip hostel, walk the fantastic beach, visit another Maja site as well as another cave for swimming.

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Back in Cancun I hit 2 more surprises. A couple of days ago the little boy serving in a restaurant was so energetic about learning languages he kept coming with questions like what is my favorite German singer and so on. Now, 2 days later he recognizes me and says “Alles Neu” which is the first song of the Peter Fox album I recommended. He actually downloaded it and works on the translation. Wow, with this kind of motivation he won’t be serving food in restaurant for long.

The other surprise is my bubbling stomach. I can’t imagine that it is the food but I can imagine it is the excitement of flying to Cuba, tomorrow…………………………   .