Today was designated as a “beach day”. A beach day refers to a day where you don’t
have the mental or physical energy to pursue a life enhancing and changing
experience by visiting some amazing ancient ruins in the nearby jungle or by going
snorkelling in the fertile tropical waters surrounding the fantastic country
you spend so much money to get to. In
short, you can’t be bothered to do anything other than make the simple journey
down to the local beach. Although taking
a day off from discovering the ten million wonders of the world isn’t always a
bad thing. Cancun beaches are supposed
to be somewhat legendary in their own right with their albino sands and pale
blue waters. I am always sceptical about
beaches though as I have yet to visit a beach that genuinely looks like the one
in the photos.
We took one of the many local buses down to the beach. During the journey a skinny heavily tattooed
man got onto the bus. Equipped with guitar
he proceeded to sing a few acoustic songs, all of them in inaudible
Spanish. However the last song he sang
was a Christmas song which contained a mixture of Spanish and English and he
finished each verse with “ho ho ho”. It
was pretty amusing though it would have been better if he had been wearing a
Santa hat. Apparently these bus buskers
are common in Cancun.
The beach, yes the famous beach of Cancun was very nice. I would say it was almost comparable to the
photos I had seen before. The beach was relevantly empty as well with only a
gentle sprinkling of fat American tourists, their bellies desperate to burst
open like that scene from Alien. I can
imagine the beaches here being very busy during the high season.
Everything about the beach was great but there was one
issue. A nearby hotel was pumping out
loud dance music from its poolside area that backs onto the beach. Nobody in my group appreciated the music,
especially me. I just wanted to relax
and forget the world for a few hours not have a midday sober beach rave in 30
degree heat.
Cancun is a popular holiday destination because of its low
prices and fantastic beaches but it also tries desperately to be a nonstop party
town. This bipolar personality occasionally
causes issues and this was one of them.
The City
Speaking of the party side of Cancun, the hostel we were
staying in organises various all inclusive nights out in several of Cancun’s large
nightclubs. Included in the all
inclusive package is transportation to the venue, queue jump entry and a free
bar all night including table service; all for the price of 660 Mexican Peso
which is about £30 of English money. Although
we would have to make our own way back. Myles
and I decided we would go on one of these nights out. After all the super nightclubs are now an
important part of modern Cancun, the party side of Cancun anyway.
Tonight’s venue was a club called “The City” and was
apparently the biggest nightclub in Central America with a capacity of
6,000. The night started off like most
nights in hostels; several games of good old beer pong. At around 10:30 we were all rounded up and herded
into a minibus and driven to The City.
Downtown Cancun is just as busy at night as it is during the day only there
are more blue flashing lights at night.
Police motorbikes swerve in and out of traffic and disappear off into
the distance, no doubt heading to some alcohol related crime scene.
The Sportless arena
Arriving at The City we were equipped with a wristband each and
lead past the sizeable entry queue and lead straight inside. The inside of The City was quite an
impressive sight (as nightclubs go).
This place was more comparable with a medium sized indoor arena than a
nightclub. The central dance floor was a
raised platform in the centre of the vast building and was off limits for
now. Around the dance floor were rows of
stairs leading to various other small platforms overlooking the dance
floor.
At the far end was the bar and above the bar was a large
balcony. This balcony was a good spot to
people watch if you are more into your wall flowering than raving. Above the balcony hung a massive plasma
screen showing various dance and music videos.
Underneath the people watching balcony and in front of the bar was our
table. The table was already stocked
with various bottles of spirits, soft drinks and plastic cups. Throughout the night a waiter would monitor
the table from a distance and replace any bottles as soon as they even became
close to being empty. It was a very efficient
system of making sure we had as much alcohol as possible.
Drunken birds of the feather
Of course the impressive cubic capacity, the free drinks and
the seizure inducing plasma screen simply wouldn’t be enough for a nightclub in
Cancun. The dance floor was off limits
so various performers could enter throughout the early part of the night and
entertain the drunken mass. From what I
can remember there were acrobats, a fire-eater dressed as the devil and girls
in skimpy clothes pouring tequila into the mouth of parched club patrons. The latter seemed to cause the most stir as
people crowded around the edge of the dance floor, their heads tilted back and
mouths wide open like baby chicks in a nest begging to receive food from mother
bird. These girls had terrible aim as I
discovered through firsthand experience.
Overall the night out was very good. It was well organised by the hostel and the
atmosphere in the nightclub was great. I
have been too many similar nightclubs were you could cut the tension in the
room as gangs of posy buffed up jocks stare down at each other and bitchy girls
look for the first excuse to rip the hair extensions off the equally bitchy
girl next to them. I was a bit worried
The City might be like that but in reality the night was very enjoyable. The only issue now was; the hostel took us to
the club but didn’t provide return transportation, how was I going to get back
to the hostel?
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