I roll my eyes – about 100 meters ahead of me, I only spot the rear lights of the bus I was supposed to take to get back to the center of Isla Mujeres. Instead of waiting at the curb, I decided to start walking. I don’t expect another one of the local busses within the next hour or so.
After three days, I leave the cocoon of my hotel for good. I booked a small apartment on Isla Mujeres. Only after having booked, I read that this island is one of the party spots for Spring Break. Fortunately, there is no break in the US colleges right now.
After having spent a long day in front of my laptop with work in the air-conned room, I need to stretch my legs a little. Being pretty paranoid after I got robbed in Chile two years ago, I put all my valuables in to the hotel safe in my room.
Hesitantly I step outside the hotel. I almost forgot my face mask. Even though it has gotten essential over the last year, I sometimes forget about it. In the place where I spent the previous year, not many people meet anyway, and whether there is a lockdown or not doesn’t matter as there is not a lot happening.
Bye bye Mendoza, bye bye Argentina. I am leaving South America by hopping from country to country, airport to airport, slowly making my way north – can’t think of ever having had such long and circuitous journey to a destination: Mendoza, Santiago de Chile, Lima, Mexico City, Los Cabos, and eventually Los Angeles on the way back to the East Coast where I’ll fly out to two days later.
After having had this rough start with getting robbed in Santiago, I got on a bus over the Andes to Mendoza in Argentina. The bus ride takes about 8 hours and crosses the pass ‚Paco Internacional Los Libertadores‘ at 3200 m above sea level.
I had a pretty rough start in South America: while waiting for the bus to Argentina I got robbed! I always thought that something like that will not happen to me as I got some decent travel experience. Meh, I was totally wrong. Maybe I started being reckless. So thiefs operate in teams – one or two persons distract you and the other one gets your bag. I told myself several times not to let me distract by strangers.