I had successfully avoided Cancún for 36 years. Until this summer.

Touching down in the Cancún International Airport, I saw them. Overpacked and underprepared, clad in velour suits emblazoned with Victoria's Secret PINK across the buttocks. Speaking loudly to people whose first language is Spanish to "help" them understand English. I just about pivoted on my heel. But I stayed the course.

I've studied in central Mexico, traveled from the western Baja Peninsula to eastern state of Yucatan, all with a self-congratulatory air of having never set foot in Quintana Roo--the state that houses Cancún. The home of the sticky flip-flopped, the sunburned, the slurring masses yearning to be hammered.

But maybe that was short-sighted.