Before you read this story, yes this was all before covid. In fact, this trip happened a few years ago - March 2017 to be exact. I was having the time of my life in Cancun before things almost turned a full 180 degrees. Here's the story:
So my college best friend and I were on Spring Break in Cancun. We were staying at the end of the Hotel Zone, which was a perfect spot (or not so perfect depending on how you look at it). We took a ferry to Isla Mujeres, ate amazing tacos (see photo example), and spent a lot of time at the beach! Plus... tequila and tropical drinks 🍹 - the trip was going great.
On one of the nights, we decided to go out (which duhhh, it's spring break - that was the whole point)! After pre-gaming with some local tequila we picked up from Walmart and taking some photos, it was time for us to head out. Even though we had a rental car, we walked down to the part of the Hotel Zone with all the bars/clubs (it was no more than a 13 minute walk for us and we wanted to be smart and safe). We get to Senor Frogs (which was special to us because we had visited the one in the Bahamas during Spring Break 2016), and of course it's time for more drinks! We drink, bar-hop, and party until our little hearts are content, which ends up being around 2am. At this point, we decide it's time for us to walk back to our hotel.
As we are walking to the hotel, I get this urge... I try to suppress it since we are not too far from the hotel...but I just can't. I HAVE to use the restroom!!
For context, my body literally has a 0-100 monitor for my need to urinate. This means, when I feel like I have to go, there is probably about 5 minutes before I'm about to go on myself. (Yes, this is getting kind of embarrassing, but I'm already telling the story soooo.. I'll just keep going haha).
Still, I try to hold it. I tell myself we're so close to the room and we'll be there soon. But with the amount of liquids I had consumed throughout the night along with the fact that it was alcohol so I was lit... there was really nothing I could do. I really had to go! Because we were walking near the street, I quickly search for a bit of 'shelter'. Then I find a sign! Without looking at it, I immediately squat and release my bladder. I have a napkin in my wristlet, so I wipe and the two of us continue walking - thinking everything is good.
It is then when things take a sharp turn: the Cancun Policia pull up on the side of us and they demand we stop walking. My drunk, but bilingual, self proceeds to ask the officers what is wrong in Spanish. They yell "we're taking you to prison, let's go let's go". Apparently, the sign I released on was some kind of official sign... they wanted to arrest me for public nudity and defamation. I was so scared, like what the heck do I do in a situation like this??? It was my first real time out of the country and the first stamp on my passport (I went on a cruise to the Bahamas but this was different because we flew there lol). I had no idea how I would call my mother and tell her I was in Mexican jail for peeing on a sign. They literally were trying to take me to jail!!
Luckily (or unluckily for me) the cops were super shiesty. They said if I gave them all of the money in my wallet then they would let us go. I didn't want to give them all my money, and I knew that wasn't right - but I did want to get out of that situation ASAP! My friend said I should just give it to them, but I was like nahh. Eventually (and by eventually, I really mean about 1 minute later), I decided I would give them some money. My wallet had two pockets so I didn't have to give them all of it; I gave them about half of it (maybe $20-$30 USD) and they let us go. And that's the story of how I almost went to jail in Cancun.
In hindsight, I don't think they could have actually jailed me for that. Really, they should have just written me the ticket and went about their day. But I am convinced they only came over to us because we were tourists and they knew they could get over on us smh. Moral of the story: urinate before you leave a club/bar in Cancun, because you do not want to be caught lacking by shiesty cops trying to make money!
I actually have another story of how the cops in Cancun can be shiesty to tourists, so I might post that soon! Comment below if you'd want to read about that story too!
Ciao for now,
DejaTheExplorer✨