Adios Amigos (And The Rest Of You)

Today is the last day. Hooray! This trip was so stressful for me going into it pretty much blind. After about half way I was pretty much done. Maybe had I been with a different group of people it would have been more of a success, but with this group it didn’t flow. Oh well, I guess that is how the business goes, you really nail some trips and others just flop. At least now I have the experience and if I am ever sent to Belize or Guatemala again I’ll know what I am doing.

In the morning we had breakfast and then Lee, the owner of Genesis Eco-Lodge took us on a tour around the block. The tour of the village of Ek Balam is really neat, a dive into modern Mayan culture and Mexican village life. Lee takes us to the homes of several of her neighbors. They all still live in palapas build of sticks and covered with palm fronds. Most of the homes are one room and everyone eats plays, works and sleeps (in hammocks) in that space. At one of the homes the mother (who speaks a native Mayan dialect, not Spanish) shows us how to make tortillas and lets us slap together our own and cook it on her fire. At another home a woman shows us how she weaves her own hammocks. It is a very fun and intimate tour. After the tour we said goodbye, packed up the van and headed to the ruins of Ek Balam which are only 5 minutes down the road. The pax spent about one hour there and then it was off to Cancun (Hooray!)

We stopped for gas and then we jumped on the highway, a straight shot to Cancun with virtually no exits. Right when we jumped on the highway I got shouts from the back seat about eating lunch. If you were hungry, why didn’t you ask about lunch when we were chilling at the ruins or at the gas station? Why do you ask right when we start our journey? These are the things I am thinking… but this is what I say “Well, we could stop at the next exit about ½ up the road or we can just shoot the extra hour into Cancun and you can eat there.” Immediate whines from Frank. I was starting to loose my patience… what I really wanted to loose was the group. Thankfully the majority opted for heading into Cancun (much to the dismay of Frank) and we headed straight to the hotel.

I dropped off the pax, but still no tip, so I made plans to meet them for dinner. When Jo came while I was sorting out things at the front desk and told me that he was having trouble collecting my tip from people, I realized that I wasn’t going to be getting a fat wad from them.

We met later at a restaurant across the street and had a final dinner. When a couple of people handed me their tip separate from that which Jo was collecting, I realized that they probably wanted to give it to me individually so I could see that they weren’t cheap. Sure enough, that was the case. The 4 people that gave me separate tips gave me a total of $200 US, the other 9 gave me a total of $200 US. I figured as much coming from some of them. It kind of makes you feel unappreciated, makes you dislike some people and also makes you resent working so hard when in the end they don’t even give you the amount that the company suggests.
Although I liked the trip and the majority of the people, I would call this trip a failure. Due to a lack of information and just general inexperience with the areas we were visiting things were destined to go wrong. Fortunately it wasn’t a disaster… just a trip the didn’t flow with a bunch of people that didn’t totally mesh well. I am glad that it is over and I am looking forward to my vacation and my next trip, an El Grande… something I am totally familiar with.