3 months in Mexico: Nearly lost my leg

The lads stayed in Cancun for a month with us, then flew back to the UK. We all did loads of stuff in Cancun like visit Chichen Itza, Isla Mujeres, Rio Lagartos, Tulum, Xcaret and even celebrated the day of the dead - well, those 3 did. I was in bed unable to walk, with a majorly infected left leg.

We were all watching the football in a bar in Cancun, and something kept biting the back of my leg, behind my knee. I assume I just kept scratching it, breaking the skin, allowing it to get infected. After a few days, we were all in Tulum and we noticed that I had a huge red area on that leg and it was hot. Tanya got really upset whilst us 3 lads just laughed it off. Turns out she was right. I always refuse to go to doctors or hospitals - I just let my body heal itself.

A few days passed and my leg was swelling up, it was obviously infected. In Mexico you can buy antibiotics without a prescription so I went to buy some amoxicillin, which I'd always been given by doctors for infections, so I assumed it'd work. It didn't, and got much, much worse until my whole leg was infected and had swollen up to twice the size, making it nearly impossible for me to walk. The back of my knee was green, full of puss. It really hurt, the pressure was phenomenal and I had a fever. I felt sick constantly and couldn't sleep.

We all went to the supermarket one day and when we got back to the apartment, I was too weak to lift the bags from the car to the kitchen. This should have been the sign to visit the doctor, but I once again said no.

I woke up in the morning at about 6am, facing the ceiling. I knew that as soon as I moved, I would throw up, but I also knew that when I put my leg down, I would be greeted with intense pain making it impossible to walk. I planned to jump up, take the pain and run to the bathroom. I made it one step before falling over and throwing up. Tanya was still sleeping heavily and noticed nothing.

I waited a few minutes, which is what it took before I was able to walk. I cleaned up the sick and went to the livingroom to wait for Tanya to wake up so we could go to the hospital.

The doctor confirmed it was infected and gave me a note to get some different antibiotics and some other stuff. I was taking I think 3 tablets multiple times a day for a while and Tanya had to squeeze puss out constantly - it was disgusting.

Anyway it healed, but on the Chichen Itza photo above you can see I'm bandaged. I was only able to walk for about 2 minutes without sitting down for a while. Cool place though.

We flew from Cancun to Guadalajara when the lads left Cancun. We stayed in a rough area - the Airbnb owner literally warned us as soon as we met him. At this point I was trying hard not to spend much money, which I realised later on in our travels that it's just not worth it to be that cheap all the time.

I feel like if we stayed in a different part of Guadalajara it would have been much better than it was.

We booked a taxi to take us to some natural hot springs, and to cut a long story short, it's in a bizarre location and the driver nearly drove off a cliff.

I really wanted to visit Acapulco as it's one of those places that has a stigma of being super dangerous. It wasn't - it's a tourist destination. Outside of that, yep, dangerous.

I had a great time in Acapulco. It was really hot, but not humid. This is where we met Kurt Caz and did the spicy snails video.

Possibly the most overrated city in Latin America. Although my view is probably hindered by the stupid covid restrictions that Mexico had, along with the shit cheap apartment I chose. Anyway we left early.

The best flight I could find out of CDMX was to Chetumal on the border of Belize. This is where I kayaked across the sea to get to another country - a video that I really like, but literally nobody watched.

Quiet, cool city where we spent Christmas.

We got a bus back to Cancun and had New Year's Eve in a completely deserted Cancun. It was bizarre, nobody was there.

I'd definitely return to Mexico - it's one of my favourite countries and has possibly the best cuisine in the world. I'd also say it has the best Spanish accent.