At the top of the year, I put doing a trip to Central America in June as one of my main goals this year. I got back from said trip a week ago and I cannot emphasise enough how incredible it was. As always, the post holiday blues have truly cemented themselves, so as I try to ease myself back into my sad little life, I figured I’d reminisce.

I flew to into Cancun airport on the Saturday and had a taxi transfer to the hostel in Playa del Carmen. There I met the first of my trip bezzies, who told me that I had 10 minutes to sort my life out before heading out to dinner with the rest of the group. That marked the start of an almost non-stop 2 weeks in Central America…

That evening, we went to El Fogón for dinner for a fairly traditional cena mexicana. It was a great way meet everyone for the first time and get to know the others in my group. My dinner with a cocktail was 236pesos, (approx. £9.50), which included the tip. A tip, I found out, was pretty much always expected everywhere we went in Central America. We moved from dinner to the strip where there was music bumping from every corner, gorgeous girls and guys dancing and what seemed like loads of tourists milling around. There was also a lot of dick themed stuff along the strip, like ‘I Don’t Give a Dick’ waffle and ice cream shop. They even had waffle vulvas with extra icing where the clit is, so there is no excuse for your PDC man to not know exactly where he needs to be *ahem*. We had a drink in the places that would let us in for free, (which is pretty much all of them when you’re a girl), and decided on having a wiggle in Prana. We had a chill drink and a couple games of Jenga before heading back to the hostel, where I passed out after having been awake for an ungodly number of hours.

The next morning the rest of the group went to the archaeological site and cenote’s. I stayed back and tried to sort my life out before heading out for breakfast. I went to Karen’s, (lol), where my breakfast cost me a whole fiver. I ended up tipping the waiter £8 because he stood and had a whole conversation with me in Spanish. Big shout out to Alejandro for baring with me and my mad rusty Spanish! He recommended Playa Mamitas so I took a stroll down to the beach. The weather was honestly pretty grim, the beach honestly looked like a dutty English beach in Autumn, with hella sargasso seaweed. Eventually, the sun did make an appearance so I headed over to Cozumel, which is an island about 40 minutes away by ferry from PDC. I went to Mr Sancho’s Beach Club, layed under the sun, read my book and treated myself to a Tamarind margarita, (delicious!).

If you want to go to Cozumel from PDC, I would recommend googling what you want to do beforehand. Cozumel is right in the Mesoamerican barrier reef, so the snorkeling is apparently really good, so that’s a good reason to head over. If you just want to chill, the beach clubs have various offerings where you pay a fee to get in but then get all inclusive food and drinks. My plan was to do this at Mr. Sancho’s, but the weather was looking so sketchy, I wasn’t sure if I was even going to go at all. Another thing about Cozumel, is you need some method of transport, (the taxi’s are stupid expensive). They have little Vespa scooter/moped things which you can hire in order to take yourself around the island. Lastly, buy your tickets from the actual ferry company that is running at the time you want to go and DO NOT buy a return. There are 2 ferry companies that run between PDC and Cozumel, and they run on alternate hours. If you buy a return ticket from one company, you can only return with that company and if they’re not running the hour you want to return, you have to sit and wait… I made this error and missed dinner. (And no, it’s not cheaper to buy a return ticket. It’s a straight 200pesos each way if you buy from the ferry company directly and not a random kiosk up the road… Learn from my mistakes kids).

Anyways, I headed back to the hostel to get showered and dressed for a night out. We went to Clandestino, where girls got unlimited free drinks (!) and there I met my other trip bezzie. Eventually, we dipped out. My friends continued to party on the strip and I went on a cheeky date at Dick and Willy’s, (I told you there was a lot of peen themed stuff).

A crazy thing I noticed in Mexico were the pharmacies. Meds you can only get via prescription here, (like Tramadol and Ritalin), were basically advertised outside every pharmacy there and you can literally get that shit over the counter – wild.

I was only in Mexico for one full day so I defo don’t think I got the full authentic experience. Having said that, I don’t think I would really recommend Playa del Carmen. The beach isn’t great and it’s overrun with tourists, (says the tourist lol). It’s a good base to get to Cancun and Tulum but I definitely would like to do a full tour of Mexico.