The boat ride from Caye Caulker in Belize to Chetumal in Mexico is advertised as a 90min trip – absolute rubbish! It took about 20mins to reach San Pedro where we went through a long, tedious immigration process to exit Belize. It wasn’t a cheap either; BZ$80 each for the boat and BZ$47.50 a head in various departure taxes. In the end the journey took us 4hrs and we wished we’d taken the quicker, cheaper route back via Belize City. Arrival in Mexico was less than welcoming as on disembarking we were asked to place our bags on the dock in a line and step back away from them. Fair enough they needed things to be arranged so it was easier for the sniffer dog but the armed soldiers made us feel like we lined up for the firing squad. The dog got excited about one bag and the person who owned it had to stand forward in the line – not at all degrading or humiliating. There wasn’t anything untoward in there we reckon the dog just wanted to play.
We finally completed another round of queuing and form filling without having to part with any more cash. From the dock it was P50 (we’re back to Pesos but obviously Mexican this time!) to the bus terminal and from there the Mayab line bus cost P150 to Tumul. Annoyingly the exchange rate was US$1 = P12 – it’s much easier to work in multiples of 5 or 10! Anyway about 4hrs after boarding the bus we pulled into Tumul and it was just getting dark. Luckily Steve had found some directions via Twit Advisor on how to find the Posada we’d booked. Our Lonely Planet only includes a tiny amount of information for the Yucatan peninsular and our gaff wasn’t in.
We knew that the budget would be severely tested once reaching Mexico as everything is more expensive. In fact Posada Dos Amigos went straight to the top of the charts for the most expensive place we stayed in since landing in Buenos Aires 6 months ago. However, it was excellent and a real treat at the end (almost) of our travels. We had a huge swanky room with plush bathroom, balcony and all the mod cons including cable TV and wi-fi. Plus the place is set in beautiful gardens and they even had a pool. Oh look! It’s the weekend and it just happens to be Super Sunday with the Liverpool and City games being shown back-to-back. By that first evening my cold had really kicked in so following a quick bite to eat in town I crawled into bed. Steve took advantage of the wi-fi and started ordering some things for us to pick up on our return to England. Six months continuous use has taken its toll on many of our belongings.
Tulum
The following morning we lazed around while I sneezed lots! That afternoon we went to explore Tulum which surprised us, as even though it’s spread out along the main road we liked it. It attracts many tourists but the bulk of them stay in big hotels spread out along the coast with the town offering plenty of shops, restaurants etc. On the outskirts of town Tulum’s Mayan ruins are to be found so we walked down to them. On entering the car park we counted 18 tour coaches in amongst numerous minibuses, vans, cars – hmm. To reach the ruins we had to walk through a vast area of shops and cafes – double hmm. We finally tracked down the ticket office for the ruins to be faced with and immense queue – you know what’s coming don’t you? Yep, we skipped the ruins and carried on walking down to the beach. We knew the ancient site wasn’t extensive and they hadn’t been the reason we were attracted to stay in Tulum. We were happy to miss sharing the experience with thousands of over-the-top yanks!
Fortunately the path branches at this point so we continued walking towards the beach. In theory all Mexican beaches are open to the public but in practice the big hotels make accessing them difficult. At the ruins end of Tulum’s beach there aren’t any hotels and in fact this area of the sand is quite quiet. I have to say that other than The Galapagos this was by far and away the best beach we’d seen in half a year. The wide strip of pristine white sand stretches for miles and merges with perfect turquoise waters.
Coba
We knew we’d only have time to get a taster of Mexico and the main point of interest for us was to take in some of their Mayan ruins. Coba takes less than an hour to reach by bus from Tulum and the site is much more extensive than those in Tulum. As luck would have it the bulk of the tour groups were leaving as we arrived and with more space in general it looked like a better option. We weren’t disappointed – busy but manageable. Many people choose to cycle round the site but we thought we’d be done and dusted too quickly that way. Plus we weren’t lazy enough to employ the services of a cycle rickshaw but believe me, plenty were. At just under $5 to enter we’d found something that was actually cheaper than many countries we’d been in. Food, transport and accommodation may cost more here but not ancient sites, with locals and tourists being charged the same.
We enjoyed Coba even though it’s not as impressive and extensive as other sites we’ve visited recently. It doesn’t have a lost in the jungle feel or animals bounding about but the forest setting was very nice and the structures as splendid as usual. Most of the buildings and temples are off-limits (as they should be, we feel) but the tallest and steepest structure is still climbable. We couldn’t resist going up but Steve almost regretted it as he felt a bit queasy on looking down from the top. He got up and down looking decidedly more comfortable and confident than many, who were crawling up on hands and knees and shuffling down on their backsides. Some had started up full of determination but their resolve soon crumbled and they had to admit defeat. It made Steve feel better!
That evening we chose enjoy our hotel, so ordered the set dinner that they served up in the pool area. The food was more than plentiful, very tasty and a good deal with a beer chucked in too. As we reach the end of this section of the year out we seem to have reverted into holiday mode.
Valladolid
With it only taking a couple of hours to reach our next port of call we didn’t have to rush away from our lovely hotel. Anyway those all-important football matches were on the telly! The journey itself was uninspiring as we seem to be in an area of long, long, perfectly straight roads through a never-changing landscape. Valladolid is another of those unassuming, attractive towns with squares, churches and colourful houses. Once again it wasn’t the town itself we were here to see but the nearby ruins – this time a real wonder. We checked into Hotel Oriso which was quite good at P350 and just sneaked into budget.
Chichen Itza
In true SHED fashion we brought this wonder down a peg or two by referring to it as chicken pizza – not very imaginative but irresistible. We jumped in the 7am collective (P25) from town and were in the queue before the 8am opening time. In fact Steve organised ourselves into an orderly queue of two – fancy being the first and only people to arrive at a wonder. Getting in was a tad annoying as we had to queue up twice; once to pay the entrance fee P57 and again to pay the tax P125.
The first site you come across is the biggest and subsequently the most impressive pyramid structure we’d seen all trip. They have virtually fully restored it although on the back they’ve left sections so you can see how it was constructed. It was fantastic having the whole thing to ourselves – we never thought we’d get loads of good photos devoid of other tourists. Once more people started trickling in we carried on and pretty much stayed ahead of the crowds all morning. In fact we were so early the vendors were only just unpacking their wares and painstakingly displaying everything with precision neatness. To us it seemed there were far more sellers than tourists and they couldn’t all be making a decent living. However, as we were leaving the coaches were starting to arrive so presumably enough people do their souvenir shopping whilst taking in a wonder.
Many of the buildings still had their huge columns intact giving us something different to look at compared to other sites. Plus we found that a large proportion of the buildings were squarer in shape. Again the whole thing is set in lovely forested grounds and we had squirrels running around to keep us entertained. However, the creature highlight for this trip was the abundance of black iguanas basking in the early morning sun. Again we found the site very impressive and felt we’d satisfied our curiosity about Mayan ruins. Machu Picchu still wins the prize for the most spectacular setting and Tikal gets our vote for chucking in the added bonus of lots of jungle animals pottering around.
Cancun
That afternoon saw us boarding the 1.30pm bus to Cancun where we were over 6800kms away from Buenos Aires. Again we weren’t interested in the town itself but, after six months the time had arisen where we’d have to employ the use of airports. We stayed in the town side of Cancun in Hostel Haine which proved to be good value at $40 a night including breakfast. I’ve got nothing
good to report from Cancun other than there were loads of souvenir shops where we bought knick-knacks for our families. We’d have preferred to have bought stuff as we were going along but the rucksacks were full to the brim.
Before leaving we decided to go and have a look at the beach area – oh my god, it’s horrendous! Basically it consists of a narrow spit of land that stretches for about 20kms and the entire area is seriously over-developed. Each and every hotel is massive with many of them hosting 1000+ rooms. Forget wooden beach shacks for a meal and sunset cocktail with sand trickling between your toes. If holiday makers choose to leave their hotel then the alternative options are located in huge shopping centres, where all the usual American brands and fast food outlets are to be found. Not the kind of place you’d find us choosing to spend our annual fortnight’s holiday!
On a positive note we did eventual track down an area of public beach where the sand and sea were as pristine and stunning as those in Tulum. We only got to see a tiny portion of this huge nation but we enjoyed it enough to make us want to explore more in the future. Oh how many times have we said that? Will we ever find the time and the money to fit it all in? Not only is there plenty to do and see here; we’ve found the people very friendly and with being firmly on the gringo trail everyone has perfect English. Plus the food took a dramatic turn for the better with some super-spicy salsas.
Adios Mexico!
