Mexico
Facts:-
Off we go. How HEAVY our our bags?!? - but at least not actually overflowing! A little luxury to start with - a bus with comfy seats from Reading to Heathrow, but at £11 each, hopefully the most expensive bus journey for several months. A few last minute items picked up in the departure lounge (incuding a diary..!). An uneventful flight to Miami, during which we even caught up on some of the sleep missed trying to pack and vacate our flat for our new tenants. Even immigration and changing terminals at Miami were a breeze. So much so that we headed straight through to passport control for our Cancun connection. First mistake - the only ATM airside (and our last
option to get those all important $$$) charged us over $10 "fees"!! Anyway we didn't realise this until after a couple of thoughouly unsatisfying Coronas (at over $5 each), thoughtfully poured into plastic cups - presumably so that we wouldn't be tempted to hold up a plane with a broken beer bottle.... Needless to say, we were delighted to be leaving the US with a sense of starting our trip for real. Surprise, surprise - Cancun is hot! Even at 8pm! Our air-conditioned airport transfer bus was certainly well appreciated. It even took us to within a 5-minute walk of our first hotel (Hotel Punta Allen). For $42 per night we had hoped for more (like air-conditiing that worked), but we hurried out to sample the delights of downtown Cancun and found a local fiesta in one of the public plazas. We used our woeful Spanish to negotiate ourselves some dinner from a roadside stall - Quesadillas (we suspected, not for the last time.) Eager to start our first morning of the trip, we polished off a quick breakfast in our hotel and headed out (actually it took us ages to fit everything back into our backpacks, but we will spare you details of this daily event...). After a couple of false starts, stopping buses heading somewhere else entirely, a small minivan with "Puerto Juarez" scrawled on the windscreen came along. 15 minutes and a miserly 9 Mexican Pesos (less than $1 for both of us) later we were buying first class ferry tickets to Isla Mujeres - itself only about half an hour away. Keen to put our bags down, we headed straight to (and past) our desired hotel for the next couple of nights. But, having reached the east side of the island we retraced our steps and found the Hotel Caribe Maya, which proved to be an excellent place with air-conditioned rooms for only $8 extra a night - we will have to be careful not to get used to such luxuries... Nikki was keen to repeat some of her visit to the island some 9 years previously, so we started a long walk to the south of the island. Almost immediately we were soaked by a quick downpour - not what we had expected in the sunny Carribean. The island seemed longer than its reputed 7km, but after 5km or so we stopped at a little "zoo" (Hacienda Mundaca), where we saw some spider monkeys and a jaguar (in separate enclosures - although if they had not been, the jaguar may have looked a little more interested in life!). Unfortunately we mostly remember the swarms of mosquitoes, who obviously had not had much fresh European blood to suck on for quite a while and we were forced to make a hasty exit. Fortunately just around
the corner was a beach - which was so inviting we were soon in the water, with only a passing concern for our valuables abandoned on the sand. After some lunch and Ian's first Mexican beer in Mexico, we headed to the southern point of the island and our first - not so impressive - Mayan ruin. Unfortunately here, we dropped and broke our digital camera, so headed north again in poor spirits. Now we started to feel the distance we had walked (everyone else seemed to be in taxis, or self-drive golf carts, either which would have been a sensible option, but not for us...) A short way back past the beach area was a turtle sanctuary, Nikki had previously visited and was keen to see again. We only just made it before closing, but saw a number of turtles ready for release, as well as other older ones... and even better, a bit of brute force from Ian seemed to fix the camera - hooray! We finally returned to our hotel, with Nikki's suffering somewhat: blistered feet, sun burn and loads and loads of mosquito bites :-( So Nikki hobbled to breakfast and managed to pour an ant into her coffee (it was hiding in the sugar shaker). Not a great start to the day. The day improved as we set off for a snorkelling trip (following our first bartering opportunity). However, "setting off" involved sitting at the dock for abot half an hour, before our boat "captain" aimlessley took us to several other piers for another half an hour or so, before picking up some fellow tourists (2 dutch girls and 2 Swiss guys) who had obviously been sold a trip starting later than ours. Our trip included a couple of different areas to view fish, the first had such a strong current we were advised not to swim, but simply float along the reef, to where our boat would pick us up later... Second up was a stop close offshore in rough water, so that after a few minutes we all were feeling seasick and glad to be heading back to land. However we did get to see (and photograph) a variety of fishes... The highlight of the trip, however, was a lunch stop where we were served fantastic freshly cooked fish, with the obligatory rice and beans. After a short time resting up back at the hotel, we headed off for Playa Norte, to make the most of our last beach for at least 2 or 3 days! It was extremely pleasant, but the shore dropped away so slowly that we were unable to actually swim in the sea, but paddling took us 200-300 metres out anyway. Being a Tuesday, we headed out for some beers, with a couple of cheeky Caipirinhas after that. Moving on today. Another fine breakfast, packed and off to the ferry for the return trip to the mainland. Almost immediately we caught a minibus to the bus terminal with a driver who did not seem to understand the concept of providing change to Gringos. After another fine (if rushed) Mexican lunch we caught a bus (with air conditioning! - now that's someting we won't see much more of for a few months) to Piste (near Chichen Itza). Having arrived, we couldn't tell where we were exactly, our guidebook had various directions from the bus station, but we had been dropped somewhere else. With almost no one around we wandered around for a bit - not what you want with 20kgs on your back! After being offered very nice, but too expensive a room and asking a couple of other people for directions (in our marginlly improving Spanish) we found our desired accommodation option (Posada Olalde), carefully hidden up a side "road" with the only sign visible from the main street about 20 years old and 50 metres up the side road itself. Anyway it seemed fine. We wanted to make an early start to Chichen Itza in the morning so ate at the nearest restaurant, fed the local mosquito population and were served Sol in a ludicrously large bottle. Headed of to Chichen Itza at about 7am (aiming to get to the entranced by 8am, to beat the rush of tourists on day trips from Cancun). After some breakfast, rather oddly served in the front of a small souvenir shop, we arrived at the Archeological site. The site itself was pleasantly shaded in many parts and wandering through the trees, we came to El Castillo (the main pyramid on site) and were able to climb up the 91 steps with almost no company. The view from the top of the jungle and the rest of the site was fabulous. The sun was really warming us up now as we wandered around the rest of the site. We had just about seen all the buildings / ruins (and a culture-vulture - see pic!) when the site started to be overrun with tourists - time to leave. Thanks very much to Pauline & Dave Grainger for "sponsoring" this part of our trip! We headed to the bus station (where earlier, at 7:45am, we had learned that the only bus daily to Coba - our desired destination - left at 7:30am) and caught a bus to Valladolid with the expectation of over-nighting there. However, at Valladolid we were lucky to catch a connection to Coba and will probably never know what delights we missed! Coba is a one street "town" and we were here to see some more Mayan ruins. We arrived at El Bocadito, the bus station / hotel / resturant / shop (yes - all the same place) and checked in - our cheapest room so far - only $11! - so our mosquito net saw its first action! Another early start as our guidebook told us the Coba ruins opened at 7am. Perhaps they did - a couple of officials were there, and they sold us tickets and a guidebook well before 8am - the "official" opening time (according to various offical looking signs). So we had the site to ourselves for a short while at least. The jungle was really thick here and gave the site a great feeling of still being hidden. Several buildings have been significantly excavated, including a pyramid - apparently the tallest in Yucatan - which we were able to climb and sit on for a few minutes before the next tourist arrived. Onwards again, this time on a bus to Tulum, apparently a legendary travellers' destination. However, the town (where the bus stopped) and the beach-side cabanas (where we wanted to stay) were separated by 3-4km. And given this was still our first week on the road, we wanted to avoid catching a taxi, so hiked it. It was HOT! And we didn't know where we were going to stay - our guidebooks had warnings about everywhere being full by early morning! Fortunately the first beach-side place we tried (Papaya Playa) had rooms and after checking out a few of them opted for a wooden thatched cabana with sea view. Given the remoteness of this place we had to eat here too, (very disapointing meals) and as the beach was also not much to write about (so we won't), we decided to leave the next day. Of course this decision may have been slightly influenced by the imminently approaching Hurricane "Emily" which had just been upgraded to Category 4! Unfortunately, however, we had paid upfront for 2 nights and no refund was forthcoming - but eventually we did get 50% back. Another early start, another Mayan ruin to visit (this makes three in three days). Nikki had been to the Tulum ruins before, and apparently they are now much more well presented - there certainly seemed to be a lot of landscaping going on around the twenty or so buildings. Unfortunately some of the "inner coutyard" was roped off - but we could enjoy views of the whole site (including numerous iguanas posing in the sun) and the view from the top of the cliffs to the Carribean Sea - not bad... Managed to pick up a taxi from our cabana to the town where we decided to wait for a later bus to enable us to use the internet and have lunch. The cafe owner seemed only slightly concerned that a hurricane was heading their way, even though he thought he may lose his roof! We sucessfully purchased tickets for the 2:15 second class bus to Chetumal (about 3-4 hours away) and went over to the bus staion to wait. As we arrived, at 1:45, so did a bus and people streamed onto it. Ian decided we should try to get on too - easier said than done! - the bag compartments were almost completely full and forcing ours on resulted in an American tourist's bag being dislodged and falling into the street - he was less than impressed, but Ian had to try and get on the bus... We ended up standing for about 30 minutes as people shuffled along the bus - and then we could leave - perhaps 3 hours ahead of us standing on a Mexican bus - great. After a little more than an hour Nikki was able to sit on one of the arms of a seat and later even got a whole seat to herself! Ian only got a seat after about 3 hours, and then only because the guy nearest to it seemingly wanted to endure standing the whole way - it was only another 20 minutes. Our guidebook had details of one hotel (Hotel Ucum, and no restaurants) in Chetumal - so that's where we headed. It seemed fine and was right around the corner from the Maya Museum - our main reason for staying here at all. Dinner was surprisingly good, given the choice (only one street-side cafe) - Once agian chicken and rice - but this time variety - no beans! A stop for a quick breakfast, took quite a while when we realised how much food we were being given, so we didn't make it to the Maya museum until 10am. It looked closed - but actually wasn't. The staff were spending their time taping up all the windows in anticipation of the imminent hurricane and, as we waited to buy tickets, decided they were not allowing anyone else in. So it was a bit of a wasted overnight stop. But at least we did have plenty of time to take a taxi to the bus station. There we found our bus to Belize: the "Green Limousine"!Day 1 - Sunday 10th July 2005 - off we go!
Day 2 - Monday 11th July 2005 - on to Isla Mujeres
Day 3 - Tuesday 12th July 2005 - Snorkelling on Isla Mujeres
Day 4 - Wednesday 13th July 2005 - on to Piste
Day 5 - Thursday 14th July 2005 - Chichen Itza
Day 6 - Friday 15th July 2005
Day 7 - Saturday 16th July 2005
Day 8 - Sunday 17th July 2005 (Hurricane Emily Day!)
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