I WANT TO BE ALONE!

So I was in Playa del Carmen. I hated it.  It was so touristy and built up; full of the kind of people I hate; and strangely the drains smelt really bad too,  Hendrik wanted to go to some music festival called BPM, while we were there and dragged me down to the beach to one of the events beach parties, only for me to find loads of drugged up, pissed people all over the place.  I freaked out and went home early.   I found myself looking down my nose at all these messed up people, thinking what the hell, which was funny when only two nights earlier I had been cavorting drunkenly around a pole in a nightclub flashing my ass (What a hypocrite)!I was feeling down and anti social and then I told Hendrik it was time.
'I need to be on my own" I said.
"What schatzi! You are leaving me on my own' he replied shocked!  I told him I was and that he would be alright and that I would be back to join him once again when I had found social Carly.

 I booked myself a bus ticket to Merida which is an old colonial town. After being a bit over ambitious by deciding to walk all the way from the bus station to the hostel, in the midday sun, I finally arrived hot and sweaty and threw my bag down.
"Do you have a bed free in a dorm?"
"No, we are all full!"
I look round in panic.  The thought of dragging my back pack all over town trying to find a bed scares me just thinking about it!
"But we do have a hammock, you can have in the girls dorm." I think about it for a second and then think sod it! "I'll take it!" I reply.  It doesn't bother me sleeping in a hammock, I did for a couple of nights in the jungle in Colombia.  You just have to find a comfortable position and not move from that for the rest of the night (easy right)?  What does bother me though is, that they had forgot to mention that its a dorm with 22 other girls!  I think its the biggest dorm I've ever slept in! So much for peace and quiet time.  The hostel seems quite a social place and everyone seems to be mixing and socialising but as I'm not in the mood for this I take myself off to the centre and go and see the sights.

As I'm walking round the main square minding my own business,  I keep getting approached by local guys.  They ask me my name, where I'm from, and am I here on my own.  I tell that all politely that I just want to be left a lone.  Its seems funny that they are trying to chat me up as most of them are so small they only come up to my chest.  The Mexicans are small.  Alex who is five foot nothing, is classed as a tall person over here.  The women usually just about reach my waist, so I'm a total freak out here being 5'10.  That said the men seem to be strangely fascinated by tall women.  There is one guy in particular that won't leave me a lone.  He follows me around everywhere, even though I have told him a 100 times I just want to be left alone. He insists that I meet him that night for a music festival that is going on in the town.  I say yes in the end, but only to get rid of him.  I have no intention of meeting him again.

Everyone is talking about the festival, so I decide to go anyway, and hide myself away in a corner to watch and where no one can find me.  Wrong!  I had seen most of the nights proceedings and was having a great time on my OWN, when the guy found me again.  He wondered why I had not met him.  I lied and said I couldn't find him.  He then insisted on buying me a beer.  I said no.  He came back with one for me anyway, already opened.  My brain told me not to trust this guy and I was scared he had put something in the drink.
"Why don't you drink my drink.  I brought it for you!" he started saying.  I told him I didn't want it, and wouldn't drink it.  He became angry at me, and just kept telling me to drink the beer.  I became quite scared by him, so I seized my moment and ran off into the crowd.  I ran as fast as my legs could carry me all the way back to the hostel, (good job I have long legs), looking behind me all the way.

In the morning I awoke in my hammock, thinking I wasn't going to find the peace and quiet I wanted in Merida.  Besides I didn't want to spend another night in the hammock, with 22 girls in a room!  I had heard a few travellers mention a town called Campeche on the coast 2 hours from Merida.  I thought why not and packed my bag. After another bus journey of being nearly frozen to death with air-con, I arrived in Campeche, and met an old English couple called Richard and Angela, who I shared a taxi with into the centre.  They then asked me if I would like to explore the town with them.  Oh God!  I thought, is this is what it has come to; hanging out with old people, but actually as we walked around I realised that they were really sweet, interesting and we had a lot in common.  They had sold their home 3 years ago and now worked running camp sites in the summer and traveled around the world in the winter.  I found them quite inspiring and a refreshing change from the normal backpackers talking the same old shit.  I think I would like to be like them when I'm older.  We decided to go for something to eat and I made them have a beer, well actually two and a Margarita (I am now a corrupter of the old now too), which went straight to their heads due to the fact, as Angela told me, they don't really drink and never during the day.  They had to go and have a siesta after that, and off they wandered into the sunset and I never saw them again.  I finally had what I wanted, I was alone! I walked around Campeche on my own, and it was perfect.  It was the little Mecca I had been looking for; no local men pestering me; hardly any gringo's; nothing set up for tourists; just peace and quiet.  I was finally alone. Even my hostel was nearly empty and the guy that ran it was so laid back, he barely functioned.

As I walked around in the evening I realised that everything in the town was shut by 8pm and as there were hardly any places to eat in the first place I found myself back in the restaurant that I had eaten in with Angela and Richard earlier in the day, as it seemed to be the only place open! I was sat quite happily eating and reading my book when a Mariachi band decided to come and serenade me in front of the whole restaurant.  I wanted to curl up and die, and I tried to hide my embarrassment by hiding behind my book.  After they had finished a young guy walked up to me:
"I could see you were looking a bit distressed there.  Would you like to come and join us at our table?"
"Yes please!" I replied desperately.
The young guy turns out to me called Elliot and he is sat with his father Jeff.  They both hail from the windy city,  Chicago.  They turn out to be pleasant company, especially Jeff who is a sweet natured man.  They also stop me being molested by the Mariachi band, and neck a drink as well, as me.  What more could a girl ask for?  The night proceeds with more Margarita's than we should of; debates on the Euro and the war in Iraq; getting into an argument with some weird Flemish guy about the Euro (I don't quite know how he came to be sat with us)?; and finally we ended in the only bar in town for one last night cap.  The bar, lets say, is not the best.  In fact I'm the only woman in there, and its full of drunken locals, who faces light up when they see me walk in (Well the ones who weren't face down on a table passed out drunk)!  I think I'm going to get raped!  Some guys walk over and start pestering me.  Jeff tells, them I'm his daughter, Elliot tells them I'm his girlfriend, so to leave me alone, and I'm sat there thinking we look like some sort of weird incest family!  I sit drinking a Sol, not trying to look around too much because every time I do there is this fat seedy Mexican guy, with a big moustache winking and waving at me.  I was quite glad to leave in one piece and Jeff and Elliot escorted me back to my hostel, just to make sure.

After finding my solitude, I realised it was time to become sociable Carly again.  For my last couple of days I ventured to Isla Mujeres, where I had promised to rejoin  Hendrik.  I arrived late, exhausted and hungover.  A early night, I think to myself, well that is until I bump into Hendrik.  He is walking around bare foot.
Me: "Why don't you have any shoes on?'
Hendrik: "I had my flip flops stolen when I got here.  I also had my towel and my credit card stolen too.  Look what happens to me when you leave me on my own schatzi!"
Me: "Its not my fault! Why don't you buy some new flip flops?"
Hendrik: "Because I only have 3 days left, so it's not worth it."
Me: "So you are just going to walk round bare foot till then."
Hendrik: "Yes."
Me: "What the hell!"
Hendrik also informs me that the hostel is a party hostel and is impossible to get an early night, so I may as well as he likes to put it "Make party!"  Well I do have a free new arrival drink, it would be rude not to use it! I think it was 4am when I dragged my sorry ass to bed. So much for an early night, but at least there was no pole dancing involved.

I spent my last day on the beach trying to top up my non existent tan.  I started to think.  I had loved my time in Mexico; had met some great people, and seen some great places, but it was then I realised something!  I was homesick! Homesick!  I never get homesick!  I was 5 months in South America and never had it once.  Once I was 8 months travelling around the world and I never got it even then! Why then now?  It was because I wanted to go back and make the most of my normal life, this life that I had hardly experienced in the last year because of being away; this normal life that I had taken for granted; this normal life that I actually loved. Because this normal life was going to be taken away from me very soon and I wanted to make the most of the time, I had left with it.  It was time to go home, but I wasn't sad.  I know this will not be the last time I see Mexico. It's just another journey for me to have

A LESSON IN HISTORY!

"Everything that has happened since the marvellous discovery of the Americas.... has been so extraordinary that the whole story remains quite incredible to anyone who has not experienced it at first hand."

A Very Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies
Bartolomé de las casas (1552)

Don't tell anyone, but I'm a history geek! I know, it doesn't go with the image I try to portray of myself, but I guess you should never judge a book by its cover! It has been an affliction that had effected me from childhood. From loving every National Trust home I went to as a child, to asking my boyfriend of the time for the latest book on the history of London for my birthday present (He looked mortified, but brought it me anyway: That's love for you). I can tell you everything from the history of the French monarchy, to Victorian London Slums, from the crusaders in the holy land to the fall of the Roman Empire. It all fascinates me. I'm a little obsessed in fact.

While traveling South America last year, I realised I knew nothing about the history of Latin America, apart from that guy called called Columbus. Since then I have emersed myself in it, and it has probably become my favourite part of history, because I believe that the discovery of the Americas is the most important event that has happened in history. It was the meeting of two worlds that had no idea of the existence of each other and it changed the world forever and shaped the world we live in today. I thought the British had done some bad things in history, but from what I now know, I believe the Spanish Conquistadors were the most brutal colonisers of all time. They came, conquered and destroyed the natives who were quite happy with their simple lives and enforced their rules, their religion and their way of life upon them. The Europeans exploited the indigenous people of the Americas, and it still goes on today. It is glaringly obvious that a mainly European-descended Latino elite rules a mainly Indian population. Politicians, doctors, businessman, journalists, landowners, TV personalities are all Latino. The more Indian a person, the poorer they are. The more Latino, the richer. I have seen this all through out my time in Latin America, this because is because the main population is still indigenous, not like in North America. In fact I have never seen a native North American Indian in my life (maybe this is a worse fact)?
I was determined while I was in Mexico, that I had to go and see Chichén Itzá ( or chicken Pizza as my sister calls it, but what the hell does she know)! Now one of the new Seven wonders of the world, it is probably one of the best left monuments of pre conquest civilisation. It was built by the Mayans, who ancestors still populate this area of Mexico today. Me and Hendrik decided to take a day trip from playa del Carmen to see it. I hate these tourist day trips (you get herded around like cattle) but due to the lack of time left to us on our trip, we decided it was the best option. It was as bad as we thought it would be. They picked us up late and we were all packed into a mini bus that didn't have enough room for us all. What was worse, as me and Hendrik were the last to be picked up, we got shoved into the back which was the smallest and as Hendrik is quite well built and not small at 6'2 it was squashed! To make things worse I was wedged between Hendrik and a Brazilian guy of the same build. There was no room. For three hours we sat like that in the heat, with no head rest. I was very uncomfortable, the Brazilian guy huffed and sulked a lot (I'd forgotten what diva's Latin men can be!) and Hendrik just sat there happily and ate lots of bananas! Oh and I forgot there was another Mexican girl shoved in there with us. We stopped off for a toilet break but our driver decided to go AWOL for about half an hour. The Brazilian guys were going mental, the rest of our group sulked in the bus and I asked around and through my bad Spanish discovered that the driver has just pop back to his house for a bit! What the hell!
The driver eventually returned and we made it to Chichén Itzá. It became apparent when we arrived that me and Hendrik were the real only non Spanish speakers in our group. When anyone speaks Spanish to Hendrik he just looks shocked and shouts "English"?
I tell him you should at least say "Can you speak English?" it's more polite. He just looks at me as if to say your so English. As he speaks no Spanish it was left to me to sort it out. What then ensued was an argument with the driver in the car park about how we were promised a English guide and a German guide. The driver laughs at me. The rest of the group look on as if to say:
1. God she is brave and amazing.
2. This girl is crazy. She makes no sense as her Spanish is so bad.
I think they were thinking option 2, but something must of got across because before we know, Hendrik is shoved with a German group and I'm put in an English group full of fat Americans and Chav Russians.

It doesn't matter though, I'm so happy learning about the history and the buildings, which even though they are covered in tourists are still amazing. Most of my own group, though seem to be more preoccupied with taking shit tourist photos of themselves than listening to the history (This annoys history geeks like me)! Speaking of annoying, I feel I might of annoyed my guide a bit. I'm like one of those over eager students that puts their hands up and wants to answer every question and then asks too many in return. He's a good guide and he knows his stuff, but then he's says something:
Guide: "Well lots of people ask me how true, Mel Gibson's apolcalypto is and I say it's rubbish. The height of the empire had finished by the time the conquistadors arrived in Mexico and their were no human sacrifices then."
Wait a second! I don't agree. It's burning inside of me. I can't help myself.
Me: "Well actually, yes that is right for the Mayan's, but when Cortes and the Conquistadors arrived they first encounter the Aztec's who were at the height of their power with Montezuma and still did human sacrifice!
Guide: I only deal with Mayan history, I don't do Aztec's!
The guide looks blankly at me for a second, then decides to move a long to the next site and ignores me. I think he hates me. I don't care. I know I'm right.
We finish the day swimming in cendotes and have another horrible squashed bus journey back, but I don't care. I had another lesson in history that day.

HISTORICAL FACTS ABOUT LATIN AMERICA

* Hernán Cortés conquered Mexico with just 500 men, 13 horses and a couple of cannons against a estimated population of 25.5 million.

* The conquest of the Americas was the biggest holocaust in history. The Europeans did not kill most of the Indians with the sword but with disease i.e Small pox. The estimated population of the Americas before the conquistadors in 1518 was 100 million. By 1570 it was 10 million. They had killed off one fifth of the whole human population on earth in 50 years.

* Hardly any of the names of the Americas, represent their indigenous origins.
Colombia: named after a Italian who never set foot on its soil.
Bolivia: after Simón Bolivár, a Latino Venezuelan that spent 2 weeks there.
Amazon: named after a Greek legend of women warriors from Turkey.
Indians: named after a country on the other side of the planet.
The America's: named after another Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed to the coastline a few times.
Latin America: named after the conquerors!

* Don't even get me started on North America.

* Finally I leave you with a quote from a book I was reading in Mexico called the Gringo Trail by Mark Mann. It summed everything up:
"The Indian, was in a state of being content simply to be in his natural environment, because he thought it was perfect. The white man, on the other hand was in a state of becoming, always striving to change himself and his environment. He didn't know what it was to be at peace with the world around him".
It is this problem that poisons the world today.
I hope you enjoyed your history lesson.

THE SHIT HENDRIK SAYS!

So everyone this is Hendrik aka Monster. Hendrik is the loveliest guy ever and hasn't got a bad bone in his body. He also happens to be the funniest German I have ever met! Hendrik got the nickname Monster from Sean, the Canadian guy he was traveling with, due to the fact that Hendrik over heard two girls on the beach one day saying:
"Look at those clouds. It looks like a monsoon is coming!"
Hendrik misheard what they were saying and said in dismay:
"What! A monster is coming! Where?"
Hence he got stuck with the nick name Monster there after.
Germans are known for their directness, but Hendrik has the ability to be as direct as hell but make it the funniest thing ever.
Me, him and Flo were sat eating waiting for a bus to Playa del Carmen. We were discussing relationships. Flo was saying how he was single for the longest he had been in ages and that it was a good thing. I then said I'd been single for 3 years and that I felt it was good for all people to be able to be on their own at some point in their life. Hendrik's eyes lit up in shock.
"What?" I asked
"No, Carly it's not! I can't do it!"
"But why?" I asked.
"Because I like to f**k!" he replied really loudly. Me and Flo looked at each other and I felt like the whole restaurant had heard.
"Just because I've been single for 3 years, it doesn't necessarily mean I haven't had sex in 3 years" I tell him
"Oh! Well that's OK then!" and he carries on eating his second plate of Tacos.
Hendrik becomes my most constant travel partner on this trip and I grew very fond of him. He takes the piss out of me all the time by calling the British "Island Monkeys"; I tell him to shut up a lot; we spend most the time getting him food as he is always hungry (I've never seen anyone each so much); I tell him to stop making loud weird sex like noises when he wakes up as everyone in the other dorms are going to think we are doing some weird shit; and we jokingly call each other "Mein Schatzi" which means my darling in German.
I became quite protective over Hendrik, I felt like I wanted to look after him, but I think he was the same with me. There were some days when I travelled with him and my head was in another place and I was sad.
"I don't like seeing you sad Carly" he would say. Then he would say some shit and make me laugh again. So this post is dedicated to Hendrik aka Monster, the funniest man in Germany, who always had the ability to make me laugh, when nothing else could. I thank you and it was a pleasure to meet you. You are truly one of life's characters.

LOCO

Now on my travels, I have been to some crazy places in my time. There was Bolivia were everyone just seems to like having a good old riot and throwing dynamite at each other in the street. Then there is Morocco where everyone just seems to be having an argument all the time. Panama, where they go round dressed as devils whipping each other and where a ex pat American told me that it was proven that it was the second most stupid place on earth. And then there is India! Actually don't get me started on India, it will be longer than War and Peace if I do! Of all these crazy places I do believe that Caye Caulker in Belize might just top all of them.

The plan was to get the bus from Tulum to Chetumal, then from there get the boat to Caye Caulker. Unfortunately in my carefree manner, I had told Olex that we didn't need to book the bus the day before, but I had forgotten that it was the holidays (I'm meant to be an experienced traveller!), so all the early buses were sold out and we had to wait 2 and a half hours in the bus station (Oophs)! By the time we got to Chetumal we had missed the last boat (Double Oophs)! The next boat wasn't till 3.00pm the next day! We heard that you could get another boat at 7.00am in the morning across the border in Corazal. We grabbed a local bus and met some fellow gringo's on it: Sean a Canadian director; Fol a French Canadian; Henrik from Germany; and Gerad another Canadian. After crossing the border, and being tried to be ripped off $200 pesos for trying to leave Mexico (I don't think so!) our now big group found ourselves in Corazal. The book described it as a quaint town by the sea which didn't have the sleaze of other border towns. What are they going on about? It was a shithole! From the moment we got there, we were accosted by crack heads and drunks! Even the dogs looked like they were on crack! We ended up in a guest house run by a Twainese guy called Bryon. Let's just say I'm surprised I didn't get bed bugs from my bed! Strangely the town only seem to have Chinese restaurants, so guess what? We ate Chinese in a crack head town in Belize (because that's what everyone does it Belize; isn't it)? Actually it was pretty darn good. We finished the night tasting the local beer and drinking rum, a great end to a strange but enjoyable day.

The next morning we a rose early to catch the boat. The boat would take 2 hours to get there. That normally won't bother me, but when the sea is that ruff and even the locals say it's the worse they have seen it, it's not great. We are all getting thrown around left right and centre. I was sat at the front of the boat with Sean, which was the worst, but I was feeling quite pleased with myself as I hadn't managed to get a wet ass like Sean who was sat there in misery complaining about it. My smugness didn't last long, as the next thing a big bag landed on me. At first I didn't think it was a bad thing until I could see something running from it straight on to me, all over my legs. What the hell is it? I thought? Then I freaked! Oh my God! It was a big bag of eggs and they had smashed and the yolk was running all over my trousers! I started to scream, because for those of you that don't know, as well as have a phobia of sandwiches, I also hate eggs too! Olex laughed hard as they knew this. Everyone else looked at me like I was some sort of freak. I spent the rest of the journey trying not to think about the fact that I had egg all over my trousers, which was very hard for me.

After another boat journey in which Sean got proposition by a local prostitute and asked if him, and the other boys would like to have a fun weekend with her and her other friends who consisted of names like Shaniqa and Little Kim, we finally made it to Caye Caulker and I found myself shacked up in a room with two young French Candian girls called Emile and Natascha. I felt it was time to leave my little threesome with Olex and give them some love land time. As we were all as hungry as hell, we decided it was time to get some food. Before we knew it we were hustled in to a bar with promises of free rum and cheap food by a local guy called Benidict. It soon turns out that Benidict is full of shit. This also proves to be a recurring theme on this island as most of the locals seem to talk shit, or as they like to call it: "Talk the talk baby!" I say this not in a horrible way. In fact it turns out to be most amusing, if not loco! Benidict has basically told us anything to get us to come and eat at his bar, and when we ask for it this the waiter looks shocked!
"Who told you, you could could have this offer?" he demands.
"Benidict" we reply
There then ensues a 10 minute argument between the waiter and Benidict on how he can't just say any old shit to get customers in. The waiter then goes to talk to the boss who is some fat guy sat in some sort of box with a window and a curtain which he just peers his head out of looking very pissed off and shakes his head a lot. In the end we get no dessert, but we get the free rum punch, which is shit anyway. Benidict tries to smooth things over through lunch by calling everyone "Baby" (even the guys) a lot and then saying I can get you smoke if you want it. This is just the taster of things to come on the island.

We all then head down to the Lazy Lizard which is a bar at the end of the island on the split. It's happy hour and we all know what that means: Party! The group has extended even more, as Olex have bumped into Tom and Elle and their friend Howard who they met at the airport in Cancun and Sean has befriended a Aussie girl called Sommer. Before we know it we are drunk on Panty Rippers ( Thats a drink if you must know!) and are acting outrageously at the bar. As it seems only to be the English left out of our group apart from Sommer we call ourselves team England ( bloody Brits abroad, hey)! We head back to the rest of the guys apartment for a party, with some some crazy Danes in toe who look like Gandalf with their beards (Can't remember how the hell we picked them up)? We end the night in I think the only nightclub on the island (If you can call it that?) which shows hardcore porn on the TV (very off putting when you are trying to order a rum and coke); consists of mainly pissed up locals, including the big fat boss from the restaurant earlier in the day; and has a pole in the middle of the dance floor that only the tourists embarrass themselves on by swinging round it thinking their strippers (What idiots I think, id never do that)? The night is finished off in style with Hendrik being nearly raped on the dance floor by a local girl who is dancing with him by rubbing her ass up and down his private area. Hendrik doesn't quite no what to do and after standing there for a minute or two, he decides to give her a thrust back. Just the one thrust though. He walks back to us all 5 minutes later looking a bit shell shocked and says, in the broadest German accent,
"Oh! I have a big dick now!", Which I believe was Hendrik's version of a hard on! It was time to leave.

The next day I awake to find blisters all over my hands and chest, and my fingers are red, swollen and very painful. I go and get some breakfast and find Sommer, at some shack with the locals. We get talking to the locals especially one guy called big Steve. As we are talking Alex and Oli rock up too.
"Oh! It's that little one with the big mouth from last night!" says big Steve. I automatically know who he means. Alex has only been on the island one day and she has make her mark with the locals! As we all sit there talking, I show big Steve my hands.
"Baby you need some aloe on them or maybe I could help you work them out. You come back to mine and I'll make them better!"
Olex are just laughing and I'm left open mouthed. You see, there is something wrong with the men on this island. They are like on heat or something. The night before I'd got asked for sex three times, especially by one guy that looked like Coolio, who asked me if I wanted
"A bit of bump and grind?"
"No" I lied, " I have a boyfriend!"
"It doesn't matter baby, he don't need a know bout bump and grind."
Seriously they are the most forward men in the world. Your walking down the street they ask you for sex; your buying something in a shop, they ask you for sex; they are driving down the street in a golf cart ( there are no cars on the island only bikes and golf carts, even the taxi's) they ask you for sex. Me and the rest of the girls even started to compare how many times we had been asked to have sex in a day. Basically the locals are loco. They sit and drink rum, argue with each other, even with dogs and even the police drive around in a golf cart, but with a siren on top!

I decided to go to the doctors, which of course was never going to be easy on this island. I turn up at 10.30 am to find a piece of paper on the door saying they will be back at 2.00pm. What! That's like the longest lunch hour ever! I return at 3.00pm to find much to my surprise it is actually open. A bored receptionist greets me with the same response she gives to everyone in a thick Caribbean accent!
"The doctors is free, the medicine is free. If you want, you give donation and put money in thee box. Sit down, wait your turn!"
She points to a box overflowing with notes. After an hour I go in a meet the smiling doctor. I show her my hands.
"Well it looks like you have had a bad reaction to something." No shit Sherlock I think. She then gives me a pile of tablets and cream; tells me to take one every 8 hours.
"Oh! And no drinking!" she says as I leave.
What! Sod that, I think. I later find myself that night with a rum and sprite in my hands and a few Panty Rippers. I'm on holiday I think.

I make the decision to leave the island and Olex and head back to Mexico with Flo and Hendrik. We spend our last day together with the group sunbathing on our own private pier and drinking beer while watching the sun go down. As I'm catching a boat at 7am in the morning and I'm on medication the sensible thing would have been to go and have an early night, but that would have been boring. So we once again found ourselves drinking way too much rum at the boys apartment again ( it was the party place). We ventured to the nightclub again after this. On my way there I bump into Coolio again as I seem to every night. It seems by now he has lost his charm of "Bump and Grind" and just walks up to me and says, "Let's f**k"! I tell him he's a very bad boy. As I walk away all I can hear is "Baby lets fuck, yeah!" I think he'd had one too many rums, but we all had by then. Alcohol does funny things to you, as you believe you can do anything once your on it. I believe it started with Jared, who as soon as we got into the club, turned into some sort of male pole dancing pro, by swinging round the pole. May I add I think he was the best of the night ( I think he has done this before)! Before I know it everyone is doing it and as I'm not one for missing out, I find myself swinging round the pole and posing in very strange positions. As I have a play suit on I feel I'm not baring anything, but in fact, the play suit doesn't cover me much normally, so when swinging round a pole with my legs in the air, I am actually exposing my ass to the entire club, which Oli proceeded to get photographic evidence of. 

The next day I wake early with a sore head and then meet Flo and Hendrik for the boat. As I'm sat on top of the boat with Hendrik being blown to death by the wind, Hendrik turns to me and says,
"Carly you drink so much. You crazy. You drink rum like its water. It's so ugly."
"Shut up Hendrik" I reply grumpily.
I was going to blame it on the island but I couldn't. Maybe that's why I liked it there, because it was Loco and that's the way I like things.

TEAM TULUM

Three is a crowd they say. Well not in our case; mine and my housemates; Olex, that is! Though from a outsiders prospective it did look like some strange ménage à trois was going on. One guy in a room with two blondes, who went everywhere together and ate together. In fact when we checked in, the manager asked where the other woman was as well, as my friend Hannah was originally going to stay with us. I think he thought Oli was some kind of pimp. Though I don't think Oli minded? Actually, it didn't help matters when Alex started touching my breasts on the beach, as if to say look at the size on those (I had my Victoria's secret bikini on) and some couple were watching us, looking bemused. Alex then insisted we rub sun oil on each others backs, which we did, just to stir things up more. The thing is we just get on so well. We are more than friends. We are more like family: Oli is like my brother and Alex, well she is like my sister or my mother depending on what mood she is in! Anyway we live together, so traveling together and sharing a room was no big deal. We know each other inside out; warts and all.

We are happy in our own company and each others, well me and Oli are anyway. The thing is Alex has this problem of not being able to sit still for more than two seconds, (she also has a problem of not being able to cover up, which turned out to be a bit of a nightmare when they went on a trip to India a couple of years back)! To be fair to her, she did very well for the first two days, as me and Oli are quite happy to sit around reading our books, not saying a lot, but by New Years Eve we could see her chomping at the bit; she couldn't sit still and she was being erratic. She basically needed to socialise and go wild!

Luckily Team Tulum was in town. When Olex had got off the bus in Tulum they bumped into one of Oli's old work colleagues, Charlie and her boyfriend Hills. After a few Margarita's we formed a plan, to all meet up and celebrate new year together as, Charlie also had three friends in town as well. Now I wasn't to sure about this as her friends were called Pippa, Petra and Lucienne, so this made me think that the cast from Made in Chelsea were going to turn up. Charlie had booked us a posh restaurant a long the beach, which we turned up to late as the dam taxi driver didn't speak any English and I missed a letter out when I was trying to spell it to him in Spanish and he had dropped us in the wrong place, so we had to walk for twenty minutes. Though can I add, I do not think this was entirely my fault as the restaurant he dropped off at had done of the letters I spelt to him, which I did try to point out before we got out of the cab. Anyway moving on. We eventually got to the restaurant and my fears of Made in Chelsea are quickly lifted as Charlie's friends turn out to be cool. Alex gets very excited that she actually has other people to talk to other than me and Oli and goes into hyper over drive. Soon the wine and the Margarita's are flowing, and for people that have just met we all get on like a house on fire (not like Alcohol has anything to do with it)? Soon we become so loud, it seems like the whole restaurant is looking at us (which they are)! Not like we care at all by then. We make a toast:
"To Team Tulum. Cheers!"
After Alex has done a Russian dance with a Mariachi band; we have taken lots of stupid pictures of ourselves with stupid spectacles; and I have to have my picture taken with the Rico Sauve waiter, we stumble out of the restaurant and decide to head to Charlie's fancy Eco resort where she is staying, as they are having a big party.

Rather than pay top wack for drinks, we decide to sneak in a bottle of Tequila and some shot glasses (not sure where they came from?) and do crafty shots. It was a good job we did this due to the fact we get even more drunk, and so are just about able to cope with the rest of the people at this party, who all turn out to be rude, obnoxious, wankers! They included the international clubbers, an English actress talking shit who both me and Oli have worked with (Alex got very excited about this and wanted us to go and say hi and network. We refused as one: she wouldn't remember us and two: she was an idiot!); the boho, hippy types; and the gay mafia. The more drunk we got, the more opinionated about the resort and its clientele, with Charlie even have a drunken rant to the management about the place. After enduring enough, we found ourselves at a beachside bar in the early hours of the morning swigging beer and strangely watching people being thrown off a bucking bronco. By this stage after consuming enough alcohol between us to fill a brewery, we had lost the power of speech and all sat there in some half coma state. It was time to call it a night, and thus saw the end of another New Year seen in, in the only style we know how: Drunkenly!

The next morning with sore heads and me and Oli realising that you can get Margaritas downers, we dragged ourselves to the beach again, to sunbathe and see the last dregs of the hardcore revellers stagger home after the previous nights proceedings. That night we meet up with Team Tulum again, and again drank to many Margaritas (Don't we ever learn)? In no time we are all well on our way (No appears we don't learn at all)! We had gone for drinks way down the beach which is miles long. It being New Years day there was not a taxi in sight. It looked like we were going have to walk the whole way back which was going to take over 2 hours, when Alex managed to hitch hike us a lift on the back of a pick up truck. Good times.

The next day it was time to leave Tulum. I can't say I didn't enjoy it (we did have the best Ceviche here ever!), but it was far too big, spread out and full of idiots for me. We packed our bags. Our next stop: Belize!