Hi there,
In case you haven’t read it, here is the first part of this post:
Cabin full of rat droppings
In Cambodia we went to Koh Rong Samloem, which seemed like a paradisiac island. We arrived at the reception, and they told us that we could not leave any food inside the cabin because it would attract wild animals.
In the reception area there were lockers to leave the food.
It should be noted that the cabin was the least idyllic thing you can imagine. In addition to being ugly, it was neglected, and the bathroom was terrifying.
The first night we left everything in the reception locker and went to town for dinner. When we got back, we noticed that all surfaces (bed, tables) were covered in rat droppings.
The problem was not that you left food inside, but that the cabin was so poorly made that it had holes everywhere and logically, any animal could get inside.
We spent several days there having to clean up rat droppings every day. On top of that, I had a small wound and was terrified that a rat would come and bite it while I was sleeping.
“Keep boring”
Since my first trip to Mexico, I loved Mexicans, but in Playa del Carmen, I hated them.
During the two trips I made to Mexico in 2018 and 2019, I generally felt cared for. In Playa del Carmen and in the Caribbean area in general, the Mexicans are very interested and treat the tourists as if they were a dollars with legs.
We spent a month and a half in Playa del Carmen and during the week we had the same routine, and we always went through the downtown pedestrian street to go to the beach to swim or walk. Said street was full of tour businesses and the commercials harassed you.
Every day it was the same even though they must already have clear that we were not going to hire tours with them.
The most absurd thing is that one day they told us “Keep Boring” as if with stupidity and rudeness they were going to convince us to do tours with them.
The taxi driver who took drugs
The day we were leaving Costa Rica, we took a taxi to go to the San José airport.
At first the man seemed nice, but then he began to tell us that he used to take drugs before.
He told us that drugs were very good for helping to speak with the universe; that he went to the beach to communicate with the sea.
At one point Diego and I were already scared that the guy was a psychopath and would kill us halfway.
“Lack of ability to solve problems by yourself.”
In a previous post I told you about the horror we experienced in the accommodation in Playa del Carmen.
The internet always failed, the apartment was dirty, several light bulbs burned out, a pipe broke and many other problems that the property had.
After weeks of complaining to the hostess, the response was that “I did not have the ability to solve problems myself.”
The hostess wanted me to fix all the problems in the apartment after paying $1,800 a month.
Underwear man
In front of the balcony of our accommodation in Playa del Carmen there was a fat man who lived sitting on the balcony of his apartment in underwear.
It didn’t matter what time we looked out; the man was always sitting on the balcony with the same black boxer. Because he was fat, the boxer fit him like a bikini and sometimes it rolled up so much that it looked like he was wearing a thong.
The funniest thing is that he seemed unperturbed by the inclement sun, the noise and the smell of sewage that was always on that street. We couldn’t even open the windows because the smell was nauseating, but this man was always on the balcony as if he smelled of flowers.
The human buoy
Every time we went swimming in Playa del Carmen, we would see a head in the distance that was always in the same place.
At first, we didn’t know what it was, one day Diego swam further and saw that it was a person.
In the month and a half that we were in Playa del Carmen, that person was always floating in the same place in the sea.
The one who ordered hot chocolate on the plane
On the flight to Mexico City from Europe we were in a row of 3 seats with a lady sitting in the window seat.
I told you about this flight in another post because of how mediocre and poor it was. We ordered vegan food and the woman next to us ordered gluten-free food.
The flight had all the possible deficiencies: the screens did not work for many people, the food was bad, there was not even space to walk.
Even so, it occurred to the lady to ask for a hot chocolate. Diego and I were dying of laughter.
It is well known to all that hot chocolate does not exist in the tourist class of an airplane and it is that after seeing the general situation of that flight, I did not understand how it had occurred to her to ask for that.
The empty kitchen of the Tequendama Suites
Initially we planned to spend a month at the Hotel Tequendama Suites in Bogotá.
We had booked a suite with a kitchen. Since we are digital nomads, we were going to use the kitchen every day.
The kitchen only had a few plates, two glasses, a frying pan, a pot, and few cutleries. I asked the hotel staff for everything we needed to be able to make normal use of the kitchen.
They brought few things and we had to buy others.
The absurd thing is that there were no knives, and the excuse is that “they didn’t put knives in the kitchen for safety”.
Be escorted by the police in Cartagena
I have never felt so insecure in any destination as in Colombia. It was constantly being afraid that they were going to kill us.
In Cartagena, we decided to walk to the Convento de la Popa. When we were getting to the beginning of the ascent, the motorists began to approach us to tell us that it was not safe to walk up and that they would take us (for a charge, of course).
We thought that they wanted to take the money from us, as is common in Colombia, and we continued walking.
At one point, a man came on a motorcycle, who was the fourth to approach us, and he stood in the middle of the road. He told us that we couldn’t go up alone because they were going to rob us, that he wasn’t kidding. That we turn back and ask the police to accompany us to the convent.
We returned terrified and told the police what the man had told us. The patrol escorted us to the door of the convent. We couldn’t believe that to climb a mountain that was 25 minutes walking, we had to do it with police accompaniment.
To go down, they also escorted us.
That’s how serious crime is in Colombia.
Américo and the magic mushrooms
In Cusco we met Américo who came to offer us his services when we were leaving an Airbnb that was disgusting.
He told us the prices to take us to the places and we didn’t think it was expensive, so we decided to give it a try.
From the first day, Américo began to tell us about a mushroom tea that he drank that had saved his life. When he was in the hospital terminally ill due to kidney failure, a lady told him to drink that mushroom tea and he was cured. In fact, he had not even had covid thanks to the powders he took.
From there, he also started selling these miracle mushrooms to help people and make some extra money at the same time.
I mean, it was the same as Herbalife. This gentleman had already fallen in Herbalife, then in Omnilife and now in his third pyramid business.
The worst thing is that all the time in the car we had the motivational talks on, and it was annoying.
While he was with us, he never ate anything, just consumed his mushroom drinks.
Also, Américo had the craziest conspiracy theories imaginable.
“We welcomed the Venezuelans”
In a previous post I told you about the horrible experience we had at the Affinity Aparta Hotel in Medellín.
What caught my attention the most is that when the hotel manager called me to “apologize”, he asked me where I was from and from there, he spent an hour repeating that “they had welcomed the Venezuelans”.
I never understood what the fact that his hotel was crap had to do with the fact that he felt that he was welcoming Venezuelans to his country. The only thing he did was denote his xenophobia.
An apartment where you can’t even sleep
In general, I will never be able to understand how people live in Lima with such an excessive amount of noise.
But it is that the apartment we rented for the first two months encouraged suicide. I am not exaggerating.
We placed a mattress on the window of one of the rooms to try to isolate the noise from the street, even so, to sleep I put earplugs and headphones that isolate noise. With all this, the noise was still heard.
Now I remember it and I don’t know how I was able to endure all that time in that place.
Nowadays, every time we have a bad experience or some noise in my house bothers me, thinking about the stay in Lima makes me feel better because nothing is as bad as the noise in Lima.
“Many people have died here, but nothing is going to happen to us”
The stay in Quito was the best of the tour of Latin America, especially because we met Edward, who was our angel.
We went on many hiking trails with him, and the funny thing is that he always began by talking about the people who had died in the place, about the positions we had to take if lightning started to strike, etc.
At the Corazón volcano, after signing a sheet and leaving a security contact, he calmly told me: “Many people have died here, but nothing is going to happen to us.”
Day of the Dead in Mixquic
Mixquic is a famous place in Mexico City for the celebration of the Day of the Dead.
To get to Mixquic we took the subway, train and two buses.
Mixquic was full of people and the vibe was incredible.
Around 6 pm we decided to go back to our hotel because the way back was long, and we didn’t want to come back so late because the hotel area was a bit unsafe.
The return was crazy.
We joined a group of college locals who were also returning and went to the bus stop. After waiting half an hour and the bus did not leave, we opted for the buses that are not regular, what they call a truck.
The first one passed, and we saw that the driver had his face painted as a skull and one of the girls told us not to get on.
Since the line bus hadn’t left yet, I told them to get on the next truck.
Right there we got into a traffic jam, so we spent almost an hour without moving.
Some began to yell to have ticket money refunded.
I started whistling, the rest of the bus started whistling too.
The driver got out to argue with the traffic policeman and when he got back on, I started to applaud and the whole bus followed me with applause.
We were dying of laughter.
I don’t know how long after the bus finally started moving and I started to scream with happiness, everyone followed me in the screams.
We got to the metro station and since we had to buy the ticket, we lost the group of university students.
Since I had painted my face like catrina, everyone stared at me.
We ran to the subway, and we met the group again, you can’t imagine the laughter.
After I don’t know how many hours, we arrived safely at the hotel, with the feeling that it had been an incredible day.
This day in Mixquic will remain in our memory as one of the craziest and funniest days of all our trips.
“I just needed to ask for alms in Mexico”
The first trip to Mexico we were backpacking. Cheap hotels, public transport, a lot of walking.
You can’t imagine the places we’ve gotten ourselves into. One day when I was commenting that I couldn’t believe that there was no insecurity after we had gotten into the worst areas, Diego told me “It’s because we are the poorest in Mexico.”
On the first bus to go from Xochimilco to Mixquic, you could only pay with coins, and we only had bills. The driver told us to go through and ask someone to give us change.
A girl changed our bill and gave us coins.
Diego almost crying with laughter told me: “I just needed to ask for alms in Mexico.”
Another epic moment of our travels.
The traumatic arrival at the hotel in Bogotá
We arrived in Bogotá at 3 in the morning and since we didn’t have internet, we decided to hire an official taxi to go to the Tequendama Suites Hotel.
The taxi driver immediately began to say that the price we paid was very cheap, and he spent the whole time talking about the money and the tip.
When we were close to the hotel according to what Diego saw on the map, the driver began to get into very gloomy streets, and we began to get scared.
At one point a homeless person got in the middle of the street and the taxi driver stopped.
You can’t imagine all the things that went through my head. I was already thinking about how to even grab the personal documents and escape, I was thinking that they were going to kidnap us, that they were going to rape me.
We arrived at the hotel almost having a heart attack.