We officially came back to Mexico, and then finally decided two nights ago that we were going to stay in Progreso (the same city we stayed in last year). I like Progreso. I liked it the last time we came here too, but it’s changed since we last visited. There are a lot of things that I didn’t notice the last time we came here. For instance, the little walkway along the beach was under construction last year. Now it’s finished, some cars drive on the street, and there are little shower thingies along the road. It’s kind of cool to come back and see that kind of thing. As we drove into Merida yesterday, the place felt strangely familiar to me. It feels almost like I never left, really. It’s weird. I’m sure that if I went back to Beijing, I would have a similar feeling of comfort and familiarity as I do here even though China is a difficult and confusing place to visit.
We only officially decided on a rental today, and we’ve been in Mexico since Sunday (two days ago). But then again, we booked the tickets to Mexico on Thursday of last week. Then we stayed the night to Colorado on Saturday to get to the airport more easily on Sunday morning. We had to get there at six in the morning, by the way. But anyways, the place that where we’re staying here is a house that the owner of the Spanish school we go to owns. The house looked pretty nice, I mean, there were people cleaning it and stuff, but it still looked pretty nice overall. There are lots of placed to hang hammocks in the place. So far, on just about every trip we’ve been on, my mom has brought our hammock with us. Each time, there was nowhere to hang the hammock, so it was pretty much a waste of space. This time, we decided not to bring the hammock because the thing was dead weight all the other times, and of course, now we have a use for it. We instead decided to buy some hammocks. I don’t know how many we’re going to get yet, but we have one now at least.
Yesterday, we had quite an ordeal with some of the rental properties we had chosen to look at. The first two places were being rented out by the same person, so we followed her to them in our itsy bitsy car. The first one looked nice, it really did. I would have stayed there, but there was something about how she needed all the money right then and there in cash. My dad couldn’t do that because our debit card has a limit on it to prevent fraud and stuff. She was getting sort of pissy with us while we were trying to explain our situation, so we eventually decided to drop it. But before we did that, we went to see the other property. A condo.
We weren’t going to be able to get in. The only person who had a key wasn’t there, he was picking up his kids in Cancun (which was fine), and nobody had a key into his apartment (even though there was supposedly an extra key). There was a man named Carlos who offered to show us the condo that we were thinking of staying in, and we went with him. He didn’t have a key either. So then, for some reason I’m still confused about, he took us down this tranquil little pathway to some people who were sitting outside. Carlos attempted to explain our situation in his broken English. If I remember right, my dad was on the phone with the man with the key at this time. My dad’s phone was given the white man that Carlos had led us to. The man said cool before taking the phone and talking to the man with the key for a short moment. He came back with the same news. There was no way to get the key. In the end we decided to give up on our little adventure because it clearly wasn’t going to work out.
Besides, neither of these properties were within reasonable walking distance of the center of Progreso. This is kind of a negative thing in my opinion. I really like being able to walk everywhere I go if at all possible. I just like it. I don’t know why. If I could bike, I probably would, but both walking and biking are social in a way that driving just isn’t.
So in the end we went to our old language place and asked Iracema if she knew of any properties that would fit our criteria. Oddly, she did, and oddly so, I do believe that we’re going to stay there now. The house is really close to everything that we would want to walk to, like the language school and the dance school (both of which are right next to each other, convenient right?), and the Malecon. I like walking along the Malecon. It’s strangely calming. But anyways, we decided that we were going to stay in a hotel for the night, and asked Iracema if she knew of any hotels in the area. Her husband owns the one that we’re currently staying in, which, ironically, is right down the street from the same vacation rental we stayed in last year when we visited Progreso.
Originally we were going to stay in Merida so that we could take our rental car back easily. But, we changed our minds because it wouldn’t be that difficult to just take the car back that night and take the bus back, and it wasn’t. We were renting from Hertz, which is in the Fiesta Americana mall right next to the Hyatt in Merida. The bus stop is out almost behind the Oxxo gas station across the street. Look for a small group of impatient gathered people. That’s the bus stop. The bus ride is about 45 minutes to an hour long from Progreso to Merida. For the three of us it cost somewhere around four dollars (fifty pesos or so). Not a lot.
So yeah, there’s our ‘first’ day in Progreso, Mexico. Will continue updating.
(NOTE: This post was written when I was 12. I edited it in 2017 for grammatical errors and other technical stuff, but maintained the content to preserve my 12-year-old perspective)
Related Posts:
Day 3 in Progreso, Yucatan: Last Night We Moved into our House — By Lydian Shipp
The Progreso, Yucatan Vacation Rental Part I — By Jennifer Shipp
The Progreso, Yucatan Vacation Rental Part II — By Jennifer Shipp
The Progreso, Yucatan Vacation Rental Part III — By Jennifer Shipp
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