After landing at the Cancun International Airport, taking a bus downtown & spending several hours at a hostel (just minutes from the ADO bus station), I hopped into a taxi and headed to the Grand Mall to meet my Couchsurfing (CS) host Paco. Though short in time, the ride itself to meet him was quite an adventure. I soaked up the hustle and bustle of downtown Cancun, lucky enough to have an extremely friendly driver who was super stoked to practice his English.
Keep in mind that I am still lugging around enough baggage for three people, so I was a bit embarrassed as I climbed out of the cab to wait on the sidewalk, dropped in front of what seemed to be a very upscale boutique. Luckily, Paco had gotten off work early and was there to greet me within minutes of my arrival. Although the walk to his home was only ten minutes or so, we decided to hail another cab rather than drag my luggage through town. Whew.
Naturally, considering this is my very first CS experience, and I am being hosted by a guy, and this guy happens to have *contacted ME about staying with him (rather than me having sent him a host request), I was a bit nervous.
However, Paco was amazing. He immediately made me feel at ease with his warmth, solid grasp of the English language, and all-around likability. He explained that there were to be three other CS’s also staying with him; two guys from Argentina, already camped out, and a girl from Brussels, who would be arriving the next morning. So it seems, that for my first night away from home, and my first experience CS-ing, we were to have a house-full of surfers.
Believe it or not, this actually made me feel even more comfortable. I was looking forward to meeting people from different parts of the world and was excited to be right where I was, right in that moment. It was like an immediate reward for having the courage to make this leap of faith and follow my dreams of seeing the world and meeting new people from all of Her different lands; and equally rewarded for having the guts to try the CS experience on my first leg of the journey. Both decisions, to tell the truth, many people back home felt was just plain “loco”.
We arrived quickly, and as Paco and I entered the atrium of his abode the two Argentineans were heading out for dinner. Three kisses on alternating cheeks from both of them in greeting, and then Paco showed me into his home. I must say this was my first “wow” moment. The atrium assumes (from a Western standpoint) a grander inside than outside. Not so in Mexico, per my experience thus far.
The sparse but clean living area was about the size of a master bedroom. There was a small cot loaded with blankets & pillows against the far wall, one full-size air and one twin mattress up against the east wall,
a small refrigerator, some shelves with a hot stove and other kitchen-y stuff on the west wall,
a tiny bathroom with a toilet that didn’t really work unless you filled a large bucket with water in the even smaller stand-up shower to flush it, to the west,
and two normal sized bedrooms, both of which Paco had arranged for easy share with guests.
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