First of all that SuperCarretera is about as super as Merida is white. Pebbly, rough, with markerless loose gravel sections halfway through, this highway will kill your Michelins dead. If a rollover from a flat tire don't kill ya, the boredom most certainly will - straight as a Mexican arrow, with not a sign of life anywhere around, you'll soon be wishing for orange and peanut selling Mayan kids at surprise topes along with local ganaderia and mangy poultry strolling around thatched roofed palapas. You actually miss a fresh bloody roadkill to swerve around and break the tedious monotony of this drive! But the toll bells clang, and 2-3 hours and $175 pesos later, you arrive at that popular tourist destination, Cancun. If you have a weak stomach, skip the disgusting Tijuana-style city entrance and drive in the Zona Hotelera way, where you will be spared the sight of the spectacular sign at Chilly Willy's and the miserable, crowded apartments that house Cancun's labour force.
Stay in the hotel zone, and don't leave it for the world, so as not to break the illusion that you are in a computer-planned first class resort, because any excursion into the centro will definitely dispel such a notion. Downtown Cancun was not planned by anyone, and it shows. There are some modern additions however, which make it a little more palatable, and one of these is the new Las Americas mall, a very attractive and pleasant and altogether non-Mexican feeling (like Cancun feels really Mexican!) shopping center. There you will find a supermarket, Sony Store, Liverpool (no this is not a Mayan name - it's an upscale department store that the huaches are crazy about) as well as Sears and the usual fast food joints. Many more shops abound (abound - that certainly sounds like a commercial doesn't it?) and it looks like Cancun's struggling-for-an-identity middle class finally has a place to shop. There is a coffee place, the Italian Coffee, which serves decent coffee but that suffers from a definite identity crisis - the service is pathetic, which for Cancun is not unusual, and the choice of rustic Mexican furniture haphazardly strewn about is about as appropriate as the decision to leave out toilet seats in the public bathrooms at Plaza Fiesta back in Merida.
The best coffee on the trip was had in the Independenzia coffee place in Kukulkan Plaza, another barn of a mall in the hotel zone. This mall is yet another silver and T-shirt exhibition with only one or two grace-saving businesses. If you can avoid it, by all means don't go.
Plaza Turquesa is still standing, although if you walk through the mall you will notice that the place is actually sinking. Yes, the marble floor has some rather disturbing and quite noticeable undulations that the arquitecto almost certainly didn't design. More silver and T-shirts here, and a smattering of other shops, some of which are interesting, especially the drug-store which sells imported items for your hotel frig-o-bar at prices that would make Donald Trump cringe.
Then there's that old stand-by, Plaza Caracol. Again, more T-shirts and silver - what an imaginative concept - and some other shops. Savio's is the only decent thing here, where you can try that lemon or chocolate mousse, die and go directly to heaven. Mayfair, now called Mayan Fair, is an abandoned, cesspool-smelling wreck, unswept and in the process of descomposition. It's so bad that the Hard Rock Cafe took it's pink Cadillac and parked it in their new location at the...
Forum by the Sea. What a spectacular mall! Absolutely gorgeous and the flavour of the month for shopping malls in Cancun. The Party Center, with it's pitiful Hooters and a funereal Burger King, is, like Mayan Fair, rotting away directly in front, it's 15 minutes of glory and fame having passed into oblivion. The Forum is a real wallet-eater though so look out. As you drive into the underground parking, a gang of white-clad 'valets' assault you and park your car (careful Luis!) - there's no option to self-park.
Hey, you say, I thought this was the Restaurant Critic! I'm coming to that now. In the Forum the Critic visited the pompous, pretentious and pseudo-exciting Rainforest Cafe, a super-hyped dining 'experience' that makes you feel like you're in the Tiki Room at Disney, surrounded by plastic that moves and lights that flash to simulate a tropical storm. Living in Merida, the last thing I need is a tropical storm - to make it more realistic, I suggest the Rainforest clowns arrange with the CFE for a convenient power outage to complete the 'experience'. Food is of the usual American it's-such-a-large-portion-it-must-be-good variety with what I suppose someone thought were witty menu descriptions to go along with that rainforesty feel. The menu, when translated into spanish, loses it's wit and becomes extremely dumb. And leave your arms and legs at home if you're going to dine here, because they'll rip 'em off for sure when the bill arrives.
Haagen Dazs, that gourmet ice cream venture is also presente in the Forum, and at six bucks for a double scoop, you're eating America's best. Don't mind the fact that the place smells like Pinol from their latest floor cleaning and that the service personnel is more interested in finding an interesting merengue hit on the CD player than pay much attention to you.
The Argentinian place looks nice as well (so nice the Critic forgot the name, duh), lots of wood and a meaty menu, but after losing his arms and legs in the Rainforest, the Critic was unable to pursue the matter any further.
Away from the humid Rainforest, the empty beer factory place, the churrascos and the Haagen Dazs, one of the consistently best places for dinner is La Dolce Vita, located now in the hotel zone across from some splashy hotel between the Mango Tango and Escape restaurants. La Dolce Vita has been in Cancun for years and years and it just keeps getting better. Excellent food and service, reasonable prices, a spectacular ambience and that live trumpet player made for a memorable meal. Highly recommended. Hey, even stodgy old Fodors agrees...
All in all, Cancun is worth a visit in spite of the outrageous prices, the We're Trying Real Hard to Be As American As Possible feel, the generally lousy service and because of the great Dolce Vita, and of course the beaches. Put another way: if you're an egocentric tourist with a smattering of masochism thrown in for a more rounded personality, then Cancun is for you. Stay and eat all the McBurgers you can. If, on the other hand, you are an adventurous allocentric type, visit Cancun for a day or two, take in Xel-ha or Xcaret, then get the hell out and back to Merida or someplace Mexican.
