Numa Numa ¿Que? (And other tales from Cancun Part 1)

It’s almost been a month since I went to Cancun, Quintanilla Roo, Mexicao. I meant to blog about it, but at first I was busy getting my married life and my room back into order. While in Cancun I decided not to rent a car in case the drivers were as crazy as the ones I’d heard about in South America. They actually ended up driving just as good (or bad) as people do in Tampa and arguably a lot better than how they drive in Miami. Since I wasn’t actually in Cancun, but in Puerto Aventuras (Adventure Port) we had to take a taxi to get anywhere Interesting.

It was in one such taxi ride on the way to the ruins at Tulum where my driver was listening to the radio that the Numa Numa song came on. My wife and I just stared at each other. So I asked the cab driver if he had seen the Internet video and he affirmed that he had. He asked me if I happened to know where this music came from. It has just appeared on the radio about a month ago. I told him it was from Rumania in Eastern Europe. He nodded approvingly as if one of the larger mysteries in his life had finally been clarified. I informed him that this song wasn’t on the radio in the US and he appeared a little shocked. I leaned back in my chair and my wife and I half-heartedly acted out the Internet video in the the backseat and laughed to ourselves. I thought when I said farewell to Numa Numa that it would fade out of my life. Who knows where it’ll appear next…some rapper remix?

While I was in Mexico there was a bit of what I’d like to call reverse-culture shock. One example was hearing Numa Numa on the radio. What I mean by reverse-culture shock is going to a foreign country expecting to see local traditions and customs, but finding non-local customs instead. For example, going to Playa del Carmen was an especially disturbing even for my wife and I. When we first walked in we saw:

A Sushi restaurant! I’m not saying that the Mexicans can’t eat sushi, don’t get me wrong. But this was a famous tourist location. Maybe I’m just not with the times, but I like to go to other countries to experience what their customs and traditions have resulted in. In this same area was a Subway and a Johnny Rocket. Then, to my horror, we came across:

That’s right, those $@^& golden arches are everywhere! Can’t they leave a place alone? It was right next to:

and just ruined the view. I’m just glad they didn’t have a McDonald’s at the Tulum ruins or I think I would have really disliked my trip. More about my trip to Mexico in a future post.

• Numa-Numa
• Viral-Video