Thoughts on Mexico

On the housesit in Tepoztlan, one hours drive south of Mexico City and at an altitude of 1700m, we loved the ‘Goldilocks weather’ as Louise called it: not too hot, not too cold, not too wet, just right!

Enjoyed being in a place that the locals visit, without many white faces, but we still became regulars at the market, the supermarket, and chatted with ‘chicken man’ and ‘dog man’

Got charged the same prices in the market as everyone else, and there was no haggling, it was really easy. Loved being able to buy celery by the stick, and cheap avocados…..

San Miguel de Allende had similar weather, but many more white faces, so prices went up!

Mexico City only saw a small part but enjoyed that and felt safe, where we went.

Hated Cancun, but can see its place in the world and for an expensive family holiday it would be great, loads to keep the kids amused, but it was hot!

Enjoyed going west to Valladolid and Merida, felt it was all quite ‘real’ and once we’d visited Chichen Itza we could much more enjoy, particularly Uxmal, without the ridiculous crowds. The concession stands and ancillary stuff at the ruins in Tulum were horrendous which was a shame as the ruins were really quite cheap, and pretty.

Easy to get ‘ruined out’

Would have been nice to have our own mask and snorkels for use in all the cenotes.

ADO buses make traveling easy, comfortable and affordable.

A huge country, but we didn’t feel safe to travel in all of it. Copper Canyon, up in the North-West near the border with the USA sounded lovely, but….. Acapulco on the Pacific coast sounded lovely but drug gangs make it very dangerous and we’d heard of people in campervans and big cars being ambushed and their vehicles stolen, even heard of a couple who resisted having their campervan stolen being killed and burnt inside their vehicle.

The border town (between Mexico and Belize) of Chetumal felt like an entirely different, and third world, country.

Although apparently the basic daily wage is 80 peso (£3.20) there is a lot of money floating around and it did not feel like a poor or third world country, particularly out in the east.

Tulum – Days 159 to 162

We were slightly shocked when we got to 'The Weary Traveler Hostal' as we had obviously blanked the cost from our mind. $40 US being more than we want to pay, but this is still an extension of Cancun and Playa del Carmen prices and restaurants, but with people's convincing themselves they are seeing real Mexico! They are not. 

A temple built on top of a cenote

Our room wasn't ready so we dumped the bags and headed off to the Tulum ruins (yes more ruins, though I shall shortly be reaching ruin saturation) hottest part of the day, but a good sea breeze made it just about bearable. What was not bearable was the concession stands and the whole money grabbing feel. Just under £4.00 for one scoop of Hagan Daaz, or even the regular artisan icecream, as opposed to £1.50 in town, there was also a Starbucks, and other proper restaurants. 

Our trip from Cancun into Belize

We were invited to breakfast by the Dreams resort lady, taxi each way, breakfast and $100 for our time.....but how much time? Life's too short! Oh and the tourist information trying to sell us a joint ticket for the ruins and Los Ojos cenote, normally $50 to get in, we can get you in for $35, real cost..... $10!

Here's the cenote underneath

Guarded by this fella!

The taxi back had miraculously gone from 70 peso to 100 peso, so we walked away, crossed the road and hopped into a collectivo for half the price. With Brian fit to burst something to eat and drink was called for and the collectivo dropped us just by a sandwich bar, great sandwich, sensible price and when he couldn't fit all the drink out of the blender into the cup he brought them both over, and said drink, so he could top up rather than waste it. Went a long way to restore our faith in human nature.

Back to the cool of our room and expensive AC only to find it was the worlds oldest and noisiest AC. Well it will drown out the noise of partying kids, except I just couldn't leave it on, it was just too loud!

Tullum ruins is a pleasant Maya port site with great views out to sea. This beach is closed at the moment as turtles use it for nesting

The temple with most engravings still showing

Just round the corner we'd seen a small restaurant, great advertising, exquisite ribs and fabulous burgers, cooked on the BBQ sounded great. Should perhaps have had a suspicion when they had no beer, but he explained that the old m.anager had run the place into the ground and they'd only been reopened a short while. No worries though, if you want to bring your own beer in, so I popped to the shop. The couple behind us finally got served after B had nearly been smoked out, by the chef frantically wafting at the BBQ with a menu. 

This is how iguanas do it! Bit of a porno photo!

They sent it back to try to get it cooked through! Ours finally arrived. I sent it back to be cooked through. A family of four arrived, I managed to catch the fathers eye as he walked past and give him a subtle shake of the head, they left. 2/3 of our meal came back the last few ribs just cooking for a little longer! They were tasty, but the side dishes were stone cold by now. The last of the meat came out, still very pink, so I hacked it about a bit, hoping we weren't going to get Montezumas revenge. The very sweet guy came back and I said we are just not paying for all of this. We decided 3/4 he came back and explained he was only helping his friend out, who he had spoken to, and he would take 1/2. What a disaster, but no ill effects and he was very apologetic. We walked past the following night to see the chef, waiter and a third man, sitting at our table eating take out pizza!

Don't know what it is, but its very pretty

The beach accessible from the ruins was a bit crowded, so we didn't bother

Sunday, after a great breakfast, omelette or pancakes you cook yourself toast, cereal, coffee, and all sitting at one long table, we decided to leave the attractions knowing it would be busy, so we drifted around booking a snorkelling trip for Monday, and printing out bits and pieces to hopefully facilitate our border crossing, keep everything crossed. In theory there is no exit fee for Mexico, because we flew in the tourism tax was included in the flight tickets, this however often seems irrelevant to the border guard who once they have your passport in hand won't let you pass without a payment straight into their pocket! We also have heard about problems getting into Belize, Louise the house owner never made it, they want you to have an accommodation booking and proof of leaving. The first we have, the second we don't, can't buy the bus ticket in advance, but hopefully the accommodation booking for Guatemala and the cruise prove we are moving on!

Its only a squirrel, but he was so photogenic!

The Weary Traveler Hostel

We met a great girl, a German, Steph who has traveled extensively on her own, with her favourite trip being Iran where she hitch hiked around, never seemed to pay for food or lodging as people just wanted to provide for her and had an amazing time. She has been diving and is actually on our bus south, though she is not doing the same border crossing as us, she has taken the expensive boat option, but she only has two weeks before she's back at work. We will hopefully catch up with her on Caye Caulker though and will compare notes.

Arriving at the first of the Dos Ojos cenotes

The snorkelling trip worked out really well for us, it was just us and the guide, we were collected from the hostal and negotiated the price from 950 peso to 650, we worked out it would cost us the best part of 500 peso to do it on our own, which wouldn't then have included the wetsuit, guide or tuna sandwich! Without the guide we also wouldn't have been able to do the tunnel between the second eye (dos Ojos being two eyes) and the bat cave. We really enjoyed it, the clarity of the water, being able to see fish, the divers below us and the now submerged rock formations was a great experience.

A map showing the Dos Ojos cenotes layout

The first cenote

Back to the hostal to move out of our room, into one with only one double bed, well we only need one and we were being joined by Roxanne and Darrel, who due to Darrels shoulder problems really appreciate two! They made good time and turned up as I was frantically trying to finish my book, to take advantage of the book exchange, and B was sorting through lots of blurry underwater photographs. 

Jackie goes for a snorkel

I was hoping to go to the beach, but apparently it was too windy, so we went for a little drive, up to the ruins where they couldn't believe the commercialisation since they were here a few years ago, and then down the road to the beach which turned out to have lots of very expensive hotels and restaurants down it. How the other half live! The small bit of actual beach we saw was indeed very windy, but it was interesting. It also enabled us to take advantage of the last free bank withdrawal, no more Santander branches in Central America. What do we want lots of Pesos for? Actually we don't but, amazingly both in Cancun and in Tulum we managed to get better than the published exchange rate for Peso to dollars which I've read are widely taken in Belize. Not often we feel we've made a profit from money exchange!

Arriving at the second cenote

We had a lovely dinner with R&D before all heading off to pack, they fly home today from Cancun. So we are now carrying a few extras, three tins of tuna, crisps, Apple's, shampoo, a sharp knife, a small towel, kitchen towel and we had sandwiches for the bus!

Was hoping to sleep on the bus after writing this as I was awake a lot in the night fretting about the border crossing but sadly the screaming baby is right behind me!

A bit blurry as I couldn't use flash, but the lights below are from divers. Ahead you can see stalactites sticking down into the water

 

An underwater stalactite formed before the area was flooded. Lights below from divers

 

A shallow bit before entering the connecting tunnel to the bat cave. Will Bruce Wayne be in there?

 

Entering the tunnel. Lots of stalactites

 

I think thats Jackie in amongst the stalactites

 

Bats in the bat cave. The light is the only opening to the sky

 

From where we came and where we go back

 

Arriving back to daylight, very large stalactite ahead!

 

Fish and light as we approach the landing stage

Breakfast this morning with Roxanne and Darrel

This is the communal outdoor eating area and kitchen at the bottom at the Weary Traveler Hostel

And the swimming pool that we didn't use

Saying goodbye to Darrel and Roxanne with their slightly dented (under the front valance) rental car

Cancun - Days 155 to 158

Cancun today, its beaches and lagoon

After our second visit of 3 nights our views of Cancun have not changed that much. The good news first, we had a much nicer room in the hotel, it didn't smell of damp and had a window, however being on the third floor the wifi didn't work!

It's a very tidy, safe city and apparently generates a significant wealth for Mexico generally and the majority of GDP for the Quintana Roo state in which it is situated, but it is not a city for us and we are both glad to be leaving. 

Cancun 1975

It caters for rich, mainly US tourists who have money to spend and like days on the white sand beaches looking out at the beautiful turquoise sea of the Gulf of Mexico, cruising around in their luxury yacht, jet skis and numerous other beach activities, taking the odd fully organised tour and being pandered to in luxury hotels. The beaches are indeed very beautiful, but they are often all but impossible to get to being commandeered by hotels, so the backdrop to these beautiful beaches are concrete high rise blocks with lots of little windows looking out.

The main beach area is a strip of land that juts out into the sea with a lagoon in the centre. Notices warn of crocodiles in the lagoon and it is surrounded by mangrove trees making it difficult to see and get to and an ideal hiding place for crocodiles!

We walked 11km out and round maybe a quarter of the rectangle of land into the centre of the hotel area and although the land is only a few hundred meters wide we barely saw the sea on one side or the lagoon on the other. High rise hotels stopped any view of the sea and mangrove trees any view of the lagoon. 

You have been warned!

As we neared a row of shops we were approached by numerous vendors who assumed we had money to burn and wanted us to book very expensive trips, buy souvenirs or clothes. For example, one lady told us she could organise a very good commission fee trip to the Isla Mujeres, an island just off the coast. She could do a special price just for us of US$100 each. The boat from the local dock is US$15 each return, so that is some profit margin! Jackie looked at a dress that they quoted at 1000 pesos, she had previously turned down a similar one in Merida at 300 pesos.

And they weren't joking. Obviously don't eat turtles though

So we then decided to stop for a drink at a bar on the beach. Yes, we knew it would be expensive, but 115 pesos for 2 pineapple juices that we knew only costs 18 pesos in a local Mexican bar by our hotel is just taking advantage of tourists. Lots of people however love the place and we could hear some Americans on the table behind us describing it as paradise. Well, it's lovely to look out over the sea, relax and be able to talk freely in English and eat familiar food from home so I suppose it depends on what you think of as paradise. We don't all like the same things and that's a good thing. Writing this on the bus we have passed signs for dolphin world, crocodile world, monkey world, the cirque du Soleil, celebrity chef restaurants, snorkelling, caving, underground rivers.......if money was no object!

Some of the remaining mangroves in the lagoon

Anyway, enough of my moaning, we did have a nice day at the local Eco park where we saw lots of very cute Coatis, turtles and even a couple of crocodiles taking in the sun. It's a quite large park used mainly by Mexicans for exercise and leisure and there is a small museum on site that is quite interesting if you can understand Spanish.

Fabulously white sandy beaches and turquoise sea...

Interestingly, Cancun is less than 50 years old. It was identified in 1967 as a good place for a beach resort and building started from zero in 1970, but really took off from about 1975 with the opening of the international airport. Prior to that date there were few people in this crocodile and mosquito infested swamp, but it has since been transformed into a city of 500,000 inhabitants and a world famous reputation. Almost everyone has heard of Cancun and with part of the second largest coral reef just off shore diving and snorkelling trips are very popular (and expensive). We decided to leave snorkelling until we get into Belize where the reef continues on south.

But here's the view looking inland!

What we did do was to walk to the Symbol of Cancun, which was the very first building put up in Cancun in 1970. It's a wooden airport control tower and stands in the city at  what used to be the temporary runway. It is now on a roundabout on a main road and the airport is now some distance away, but the building was left. Actually it's a replica using a few of the original timbers as the original was all but destroyed by hurricane Wilma which swept through here in 1988. It was only rebuilt in 2010 after funding was raised. Anyway, Jackie thoroughly enjoyed the walk there as you might imagine!

Cancun's oldest building, the wooden control tower built in 1970

So if you like the beach and a family friendly resort this is the place but if you want somewhere with a soul there are many other better choices. For us, we're glad to be on the bus heading for our next and last destination in Mexico, Tulum. It's another seaside resort but has lots of Mayan history, so hopefully its soul will not have been overwhelmed with large hotel developments.





 

No, we don't know either!

 

A Mayan house replica in the park

 

The crocodile and turtle water hole

 

Two coatis munching on food someone had left

 

One was a bit inquisitive and came over to say hello

 

They were having some sort of a meeting!

 

We think this one was feeling a bit left out

 

But this one really wanted to say hello!

 

I'm not sure what this was, but he was very pretty!

 

Again, no idea

 

More old and new photos. This was Avenida Uxmal in 1971...

Avenida Uxmal today

 

A outdoor music and dancing show in the city square

 

In the same square kids can rent cars to drive around in. Very small children get to ride in a remote controlled one with parents controlling forward and back movement, kids only controlling steering. I wanted to have a go, but unfortunately they said no!

 

A Kapok tree in town with its fruit opening out its cotton

 

This drink is called a Michelada and seems to be all the rage here. We decided to try one, it's a litre glass filled with beer, your choice of fruit juice, we chose Mango, chilli and some other stuff. The red round the rim are flakes of chilli. It was....very strange, not particularly spicy hot, just odd tasting! We thought we might get used to it as we drank, but no, we left about a quarter of it and were very pleased we only ordered one! We left and went to a fish restaurant had an excellent mixed seafood (king prawns, fish fillet, squid and octopus all fried in large quantities of garlic - fabulous!) All washed down with just beer - no more Micheladas for us!

 

So that's it from Cancun!