Last night we landed and tried to figure out the colectivo shuttles from the Cancún airport to the centro. It only took 1 convo with a woman in a tourist office shirt trying to sell us ‘beneficios’ for visiting a certain hotel and 1 Super Shuttle woman confiding in us not to use our credit card because of the extra commission fees but charging us more than the listed price anyway when we paid cash. It took me a minute to do the exchange rate on my phone and it was only $4 extra so I let it go but regardless, we made it onto the very full collective shuttle through the very trafficky street snaking through every single resort, Kukulcan Blvd.
After an hour of resorts passing by us, we finally got to the Centro, where our last stop was Haina Hostal, a little place tucked away on a street next to a small park, where couples strolled through adorably holding hands.
We opted for shared bunk beds for this first night, with clean sheets and quiet bunk neighbors we felt like we were back on the Camino de Santiago in Spain! After checking into our little room we walked just a few blocks through a sweet street fair to Restaurant Labná, serving Yucatecan dishes. We ordered the sopa de lima, crema poblana and pavo en relleno negro. The sopa de lima that came with an amazing citrusy chicken broth, tender chicken and tortilla strips. The crema poblana was an incredibly flavorful thick creamy soup made with poblano peppers and came with cheese and tortilla strips. The pavo en relleno negro was a plate of shredded turkey (and maybe pork?) smothered in a sauce made from a blackened Yucatecan chili that starts out red but becomes black with the cooking, served with piping hot tortillas. It was INCREDIBLE. Each dish was amazing, and for 2 people the soups and sharing the plate of turkey was fine for us. With a couple beers of course!
Afterward, we walked through a sweet street fair with an ice skating rink for the kids (desperately pumping the generator to keep the creeping humidity out) and a small circle of adults and elders reading from their favorite poetry books, hosted by Cafe Cardoni every Wednesday night in Parque de las Palapas from 8-10pm. It was so sweet, an amazing hello from this land to these two queer travelers.
This morning we barely made it to the ADO bus taking us to Valladolid, the small city near the excavated ruins of Chicken Itzá and Ek Balam where we’ll spend a couple nights. We are happy to have our tortas de chorizo and children playing games in the seats next to us. Grateful for these travels into the New Year!