Cancun

A good night's sleep. Airconditioned room (though I didn't have it on), two double beds, so one to dump my gear on, ensuite bathroom and kitchenette. Breakfast in the little open-sided  restaurant in a leafy tropical garden near the pool.

I HAVE BEEN TRYING FOR AN HOUR TO FIND A WAY OF POSTING PHOTOS TO THIS BLOG BUT BLOGSPOT NOW DENIES ACCESS TO PHOTOS ON THE COMPUTER OR A SD CARD! THEY WANT TO FORCE ME TO USE PICASA AND TO OPEN A GOOGLE ACCOUNT. SO SORRY FOLKS THIS BLOG HAS COME TO A SUDDEN END BEFORE IT EVEN STARTED.

A slow start

House-sitters Robyne and Ralf gave me a lift to Merimbula airport, for my connecting flight to Sydney with Regional Express, where we found that the flight was delayed by one and a half hours because of technical problems with the incoming aircraft, so they said goodbye and I killed time by reading my kindle and eating some lunch at the little airport cafe.

The delay turned out to be 2 hours and I eventually arrived at Sydney, where, after retrieving my bag and catching a bus to the international terminal, I was just in time to board my United Airlines flight to San Francisco.

I've never flown with United before and I am not impressed. I paid about $380 extra for seats throughout the trip with extra legroom. What that means is that I get the legroom that other airlines regard as the norm. The plane is an almost new Boeing 747 but with the specification that Qantas, BA, JAL, Emirates and others were using 20 years ago - with narrow basic design seats with no individual entertainment screens and no leg or foot rests. The meals are very small. Pasta with a tomato sauce, lettuce with 6 strings of carrot for colour, a cube of cheap chocolate cake, and that was it. Despite it being a 12 and a half hour flight, there are no amenity packs with toothbrush, eye mask etc. that the other airlines provide for flights of half the duration.

Tired, hungry, uncomfortable, bored, and another 9 hours of this leg to go!

Much later

Two flights later (San Francisco to Houston and then Houston to Cancun), after a total of about 30 hours of travelling, I am at my hotel in Cancun, Mexico.  It’s about 10.30 pm local time and still the same day that I left home. I should be tired having in effect missed a night’s sleep but I am wide awake.

The second two flights with United weren’t much different to the first one, so I won’t say any more about them other than that I’ll be seeking a refund of most of the money I paid out for extra legroom. Two out of the three planes simply weren’t configured for what they call “economy plus” though they had been happy to take my money.

I can’t comment on the hotel yet as I arrived in the dark, but my room is quite nice. There is free Wi-Fi.

The Plan

In ten days time I head off for Cancun in Mexico for the start of a "Mayan Discovery" tour with Intrepid Travel. I've been on Intrepid tours before, to India, Indonesia and Iran, but always with my wife. She died tragically last year, so this is the first time on my own. There will of course be other people on the tour, but I have paid a "single supplement" so I don't have to share a twin room with someone who might snore or have other attributes I'd rather not experience. It is classified as a "comfort" tour, which apparently means a higher standard of hotel and transport - but I guess we'll find out.

The itinerary takes in Mexico, Guatamala and Belize, visiting volcanoes, Mayan ruins, beaches and old colonial towns, over a period of 18 days, after which I'll spend a couple of days in San Francisco, a city I last visited 30 years ago.

In preparation I am learning a few words of Spanish, at least enough to order some food and a bottle of wine - the essentials!