The beginning of the trip of a life time... And why you should just leave Cancun out.

This Jan I'm traveling with family and alone a little around NYC, Mexico, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands. The trip starts with a quick night in NYC, a night in Cancun, four nights in Tulum, five nights on Grand Cayman, five nights in Cuba, three nights in Mexico City, and finally alone in NYC again for two days. 

My family owns a Mexican restaurant called Picassos Mexican Taqueria in White River, South Africa http://www.picassoismexican.co.za/ so a lot of the inspiration for this trip began with the desire to explore Mexican food more and find inspiration for the restaurant which has a sister/brother restaurant on Naxos Island in Greece. 

After a very long three days, three flights, one night in -2 degree NYC and a completely confused sleep pattern- we finally arrived in Cancun. I was lucky enough to be upgraded by Emirates though for the long haul flight because I was traveling solo, so I have absolutely no reason to complain. 

(I want to write an NYC post on my way back and combine all restaurant and hotel info- so keep an eye out for that.)

Cancun. Where to start. How about just skip it all together? That's what I'll be doing if I ever return to Mexico. It's like a spring break, all inclusive packages, lumo lighting, overpriced, drunken stripper frenzy. It's pretty much a Mexican version of Ibiza, so if you have money to blow and that's your scene- you'll be in paradise. 

To be fair, we ate an awesome dinner at a place we found on Tripadvisor. It's a little local hole in the wall bar called The Surfin Burrito. Our meal started with a watermelon cooler and frozen mojito. The mojito had a slight artificial flavor but the watermelon vodka cooler was golden. We ordered a chicken fajita nachos and a deep fried coconut shrimp dish to share. The coconut shrimp was probably the best deep fried shrimp I've ever had. The batter it was fried in clearly had coconut in it, and the three sauces that accompanied it complimented it perfectly. After dinner I had a sangria; infused with mango, strawberry, and star fruit. It was delish! 

We stayed in the Aloft hotel. Unless you are coming to Cancun to party- give it a skip. 

This morning we headed out to find breakfast before driving down to Tulum for a more authentic Mexican experience, and found the real gem of Cancun- the supermarket. It was called Selecto.

I'm not joking, it was the best supermarket I've ever seen, it had everything including a pizzeria, bar, churro station, live clams & oysters and freshly caught fish. I had a torta ( a roll ), which was fresh warm, crusty and mustardy. Yum. I also tried the local coconut water- not as good as CocoV in my opinion, too sweet. 

And now, finally, we are heading to the beach and out of this brightly colored, stinky town towards Tulum.