Each day we asked, “What’s the weather going to be today?” “Hot and shiny!” would be the reply. The year was 1987, and we were on our first adventure to Cancun. Back in those days the local transportation was by little green taxi…a tiny little bug of a car that held just four: two guests, the driver, and often one of the driver’s little ones. Cab drivers supplemented their incomes by bringing along their small children to charm additional funds out of the tourists. The weather was always to be ‘hot and shiny’, regardless of reality. Then again, if it was raining you probably wouldn’t venture far from the hotel, on the tourist strip at the far end of the Yucatan peninsula…easier to stay put with a pitcher of margaritas! We decided to forego the two hour bus ride to visit the Incan ruins inland, to take care of Montezuma’s revenge courtesy of partaking of the local cuisine.

Shortly after that first vacation trip to the land of “hot & shiny”, the tourist area was decimated by a hurricane, and the “four-stars” forced to rebuild to maintain their profit margin. We wondered how the little green cab drivers and their little ones made out. We returned to the peninsula to visit friends who were vacationing there in 2011. The cabs were gone, along with the promises of “hot and shiny” weather, replaced by NY style cabbies who didn’t care about the weather or bringing their children to work. You could still get the margaritas, and miraculously the Incan ruins had conveniently relocated to the tourist beach!

I prefer the days of the little green cabbies and the weather outlook of “hot and shiny”.

High – 86
Low – 50