Viva Cancun! This place is pretty unique. It's out on the tippy tippy tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Hotel zone is out on a little peninsula out on the peninsula. I suspect that the entire Hotel Zone is a man made strip of land that's been built up like Miami Beach or Vegas to employ the greatest amount of benefit for the hotels and their guests. The city seemed rather safe, despite recent news events that have been alarming. We saw a healthy number of troops moved in to the area, and police checkpoints regularly outside of the Hotel Zone and outside of town. The prices were on par with what you see in American resorts, or even more expensive sometimes. Locals obviously don't hang out in the Hotel Area, instead they're in the city-city. Everyone takes the dollar, and there's a good portion of people that speak some English if you need help with it. Cancun sports a good public transit system with red speedy buses that swiftly and cheaply take anyone anywhere along the city. read more

The City of Cancun hotels and resorts are beautiful tourist attractions. But we had the pleasure of taking a bus from our hotel resort into downtown Cancun. There is stores in the older part of Cancun that is great to see and well lit up at night for safety. Travel in pairs or at least groups of people. The souvenirs are a little cheaper in this area, but hunt around for low prices. The stores are nicely designed with people that are knowledgable in both english and spanish and they do take U.S. currency at most places. I would venture in the older area during the daytime, because it is much safer. They have old streets, with really old businesse. Some places, you can bargain them down on certain items. Occassionally, you see the police pickups cruz by with the 50 caliber in the bed of the truck that tends to peak and sharpen your surroundings and bring your mind to focus on safety. Just saying! It was fun riding on the bus with the locals into the old part of Cancun. Gave us a closer sense of how they live. The windows are down on the bus and you get the nice fresh aroma of diesel coming in the window from the exhaust of the other buses. We did stop on a recommendation of one of the people on the bus of a place to stop and eat. The area was rough, but then again I've found rougher areas in Los Angeles and survived. It was fun looking at the old buildings, the culture, and just the beautiful surroundings of the nearby beach. As night began to fall, we decided to take a taxi back. We bargained the price and off we went back to our hotel. read more

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