Another Walkabout, Cancun, Quintana Roo, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

The Zona Hotelera is a 22-kilometer stretch of four lanes of divided road with few stoplights along its length. Traffic moves at high speed and don't even consider for a moment thinking that a pedestrian will be treated with deference when trying to cross.  Regardless, they have these very nice road markers every kilometer along the distance and most locations are defined in those terms.  It's very easy to get around and the bus drivers are actually helpful!

I like that the walking path is not arrow straight but dodges around trees or benches or utility vaults or sometimes just randomly for no apparent reason.

Oddly, the Zone is crowded with frequent phone booths. I don't know who uses them.  I seldom observed anyone at the phone. Most locals are like most U.S. folks - they have a cellphone in front of their noses most of the time. Perhaps these pay phones are holdovers from the old days.

One thing that becomes quickly obvious is that the Mexican tourist department has perfected the art of frequent and in-your-face advertising about the tourist destinations. Seems each hotel has a desk hawking tours, there are booths along the street hawking tours, people wave signs in your face at the airport hawking tours - it is big business selling tours.  I notice on my early morning walks the buses lining up in front of the hotels to pick up the daily load - nice, new, plush, air-conditioned buses.

There is an area of the Zone for which Cancun is renown - where all the dance and party clubs are located. Perhaps a bit tacky in places but, that is relative to the eye of the beholder.

Coco Bongo is one of the places the MTV has hosted "Spring Break"  for all the young adults who find their way here for that annual rite of passage.

Public bus transportation is  frequent, fast, inexpensive, and efficient throughout the Zona Hotelera.  Buses seem to come by every three or four minutes, sometimes back-to-back as seen in the above photo.  Employees use them from downtown Cancun to get to and from work,  tourist food shoppers use them to get to and from the Zone to downtown where the supermarkets are located to buy regular food. A big Chedraui market and a Walmart are the prime large shopping choices in town.  Bus fare is 8.5 pesos each way (about $0.65 USD).  And the best part is the driver will make change!!  I did see some gringos even just hand the driver a US one dollar bill and get change in pesos - that works also. These buses, however, are not for the faint of heart, nor is any driving in Cancun - drivers are aggressive, lane markings are few, and the pace is fast.  They make Boston drivers look like a bunch of lightweight wimps. (By the way, in the photo above one would think that is the back of the bus with all that writing on the window obscuring the view - it's not - you can see the driver's head silhouette peeking above the lettering.