Mexico, the Mayans and Me

We picked Mexico for our holiday as it has so many UNESCO World Heritage sites. We found we could plan a route around the Yucatan state that would include Mayan ruins, Mexican towns, beautiful beaches and the odd tequilla shot or two.

The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape is also a UNESCO listed site, but two weeks at my parent's bungalow in Plymouth didn't seem as adventurous as travelling across Mexico.

It was an amazing jam-packed two weeks, although at times I wished I had a Spanish setting button like Buzz Lightyear does.

The Plan

Arriving in Valladolid

The flight to Cancun was crowded with chavs and their screaming children. The bloke next to me drank a whole bottle of vodka, and the aisle to my other side was full of toddlers constantly running into each other and the air stewardesses. The only thing that got us through the hideous flight was the hope that these people had no intention of seeing Mexico, and we would soon be leaving them in their all inclusive hotels in Cancun. We plugged in our headphones, turned them up as loud as they would go and looked forward to touching down in sunny Mexico.

We landed in rainy Mexico eleven hours later. We shrugged off the weather thinking a little bit of wind and rain couldn't possibly ruin our plans. The lady reaching for her hand luggage, which was clearly a wedding dress in a box, didn't look so optimistic. The two hour drive to Valladolid was a bit hazardous in the pouring rain. Having read reports on the terrible condition of Mexican roads, our eyes were trained on Highway 180 looking for any sign of potholes disguised as puddles.

It was my brilliant navigation skills that secured our arrival to Vallodolid at six in the evening. The streets in the town were numbered, and although I don't always know my left from right, luckily I can count quite well. We didn't stay long in our room in the Ecotel Quinta Regina as we wanted to head into town while it was still light to get our bearings. The pavements were really narrow, so we walked single file towards the centre and soon arrived at the main plaza.

Valladolid church

We didn't even manage a full lap of the square before we were sitting outside at a bar. Richard enjoyed his first Cerveza of the holiday and I drained the first of many glasses of wine. Suddenly we were surrounded by police who were closing off the roads around the plaza. At first we thought we were being kettled, but we soon realised there was nothing to worry about as a band sparked up and people started dancing in the car-free roads. It appears Sunday night is for dancing in Valladolid! We watched them for hours and took a liking to a couple of ladies in traditional Mayan dress who danced like no one was watching - except I was actually filming them.

MexiGo bike tour

Richard and Gilberto

After an exhausting flight and long drive, we eased into the first day with a relaxing 36km bike ride tour. Our tour guide Gilberto's love for his home town was undeniable, and he gave us a great introduction to life in Mexico.

Our first stop was at the market where his aunt's sold home grown produce,and we were treated to a snack tube of Mayan honey for an energy boost before the long bike ride.



Cenote Samula

We cycled for about 40 minutes and stopped at a 'cenote' for a swim. Cenotes are like caves full of water and are dotted all across the region. Most are open to the public, but we were fortunate as it was just us and the catfish swimming in Cenote Samula that morning.

Making tortillas

We continued further north where we stopped for some lunch with a Mayan family who literally lived in a wooden hut. They had about eight young children and could only ever afford to eat tortillas for breakfast, lunch and dinner made out of the corn their father harvested in the fields. But still had a telly so they could feed their addiction to spanish soap operas. We were invited to have a go at making our own tortillas to cook for our lunch. Noticing suddenly that this wasn't the cleanest mud hut I'd ever been in, I began to fear that Montezuma might get his revenge quite swiftly with us. Still, they were the best tortillas I've ever eaten and put Old El Paso to shame. We cycled on through the Mayan village, stopping off to meet other families on the way, taking them gifts of lentils and cookies.

We made our way back to Vallodolid town, stopping off at another cenote on the way, chatting to Gilberto and learning about Mayan traditions along the way. Gilberto told us he dreamed one day to see snow. Considering he was wearing a jumper while cycling in thirty degree heat, we told him to wrap up warm.

We got back to our hotel in time for a well deserved dip in the pool with a cerveza and wine.




Ek Balam and Rio Lagortas

We woke up early excited our about out trip to the first ruin site - Ek Balam. The weather was still a bit wet, but again we agreed a bit of wind and rain never hurt anyone. It was only a 20 minute drive from Valladolid, and we arrived to an almost empty car park and what looked like a pack of dingos. A small boy approached us as we got out of the car and muttered something about looking after our car, but we waved him off and headed to the entrance of the ruin site.

Ek Balam Acropolis

The main pyramid (the Acropolis) is 32 meters high and the lack of health and safety in Mexico allows you to climb to the top, if your not crippled by the fear of falling off it. I watched from the bottom step and Richard made his way up to the top with the camera so I could see what I was missing. He did later confess that he was a bit dubious when it started to pour down as he was making his way down and had to negiotate the tiny slippery steps. The acquired technique for a safe decent is to walk diagonally across the steps, and not a crab like crawl on your backside as I later tried out.

Ek Balam

Pleased to have ticked off our first ruin, we headed back to the car with the plan to drive an hour up the road to the coastal town of Rio Lagortas. It was only when the car wouldn't start that we remembered the little boy on the way in and were convinced we were caught in the middle of a Mexican tourist scam, the situation not aided by being surrounded by wild dogs. Our preconceived notion that everyone in Mexico was out to scam us was soon corrected when a couple of taxi drivers helped us to get the car started.

The weather had improved remarkably and it was now a lovely sunny afternoon. Concerned that the car might conk out at any time we hurried off to Rio Lagortas. Being warned by the guidebooks that we would be bombarded by men offering us flamingo boat tours as soon as we arrived in the town, we agreed that we should be firm and just politely say 'no gracias'. It therefore came as a surprise when Richard stopped at the first man that waved at us and ten minutes later we were in a speed boat heading towards a crocodile filled lagoon.

Thumbs up from the boat trip driver

Flamingoes at Rio Lagortas

The trip was actually well worth while. It lasted about two hours and we saw hundreds of flamingoes, all different shades of pink. On the way back, our driver pulled over to a little clay shore and assuring us there were no 'crocodilios', helped us out of the boat and started digging in the clay for our 'spa'. We received a few confused looks from the passing fishermen arriving back to the port covered head to toe in dried white clay.

Clay 'spa'

The drive back to Valladolid was interrupted by a loud pop. On discovering the source of the pop we were pleased it wasn't a problem with the car but very upset that we had inadvertantly run over a turtle crossing the road.

Chichen Itza and Izamal



Chichen Itza



We were some of the first tourists to arrive at the Chichen Itza ruins, which is one of the big ones, and were surprised to see hundreds of men setting up stalls full of souveniers along every path at the site. Unless you are Jennifer Lopez, you are no longer allowed to climb the pyramid here, so my newly discovered veritigo was kept under wraps for the day.

After seeing the massive cenote, which was a little walk away from the main site, we were met by a mob of tourists on return to the main site, so were pleased to have taken a few pictures without them all in.
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Chichen Itza



Chichen Itza

Richard soon bored of me singing 'Chichen Itza tell me what's wrong' to Abba's Chiquitita, so told me to read from the guide book instead, eager to hear stories of human sacrifice. The sacrificing of losing football teams particularly caught his imagination, and he decided this would have been a much better way to celebrate beating Arsenal rather than just getting hammered in Finsbury Park.

After ticking off another ruin site we headed to up to the town of Izamal for some lunch and to see the Kinich-Kakmo ruins. Nicknamed the Yellow City, sunglasses are a must in Izamal as every building is painted this colour. A policeman came over to us as we parked the car on the plaza square. Immediately we thought we'd need to pay off the policeman thinking we had parked illegally, but he simply wanted to tell us a bit about the town and offer us a map to buy confirming that we watch far too many films.

Izamal - the yellow city

Mexicans can eat a lot. We ordered some panuchos for lunch, which are fried tortillas, filled with refried beans and topped with mountains of shredded chicken. Having eaten all of the free Doritos and dips before hand, we were absolutely stuffed. Mexican waiters just keep on bringing you food, it was like being at your mums.



The rubbled way up



Me struggling up the rubbles

To walk off our massive lunch we decided to climb up the ruins. The steps were really worn and looked like a pile of rubble. I got stuck half way up and was having small panic attack, Richard used the age old Dad trick of saying 'there are little kids that have made it up here'. Not wanting to look totally weak, I struggled up the rest of the way and was pleased I did as the views of Izamal were great.

It was only after we had walked around the top of the pyramid that we came across a clear path that led to a perfect set of newly built steps that we were meant to have walked up. I made my feelings about this quite clear.



The proper way up







 



 

Merida, Progresso and Uxmal

Hotel Marionettas

Merida was a much bigger town than Valladolid, and again the streets here were numbered so my navigational skills were becoming something to boast about. Hotel Marionettas was our home for the next three nights and was a little oasis behind the bustling streets. Our room was right next to the courtyard pool and we wasted no time and jumped straight in, drinking cerveza and wine while we dried off.



Yard of cerveza

Walking into Merida past endless shops blaring out Mexican music, we hopped into the first bar we found to escape the crowds of shoppers. When Richard ordered a large cerveza and a yard of beer appeared, it seemed that we had stumbled into some kind of a tourist fun pub. We looked at the group of Germans on the table behind us and saw the barmen putting huge someros on them and giving them a pretend shotgun to pose for a photo with. Even I was surprised at how quickly Richard drank that yard of beer.



Chillis in Merida market

The next morning we strolled through Merida market. There were lane after lane of clustered stalls, some with mountains of chillis. A friend had recently given us a bag of home grown chillis, so we took plenty of pictures to illustate what we expected the size of our next delivery to be. We probably only covered a third of the market, the crammed lanes seemed to go on for miles, but it was definitely ' hold-onto-my-hangbag-like-my-mum-does' territory.



In the afternoon we drove to the Dzibitchaltun ruins. We were the only people there making them a tranquil but eerie place to visit. At Equinox the sun is perfectly aligned with the doorway on top of the main structure. Hippies love it.



Dzibitchaltun

Another hour up the road, and we arrived in Progresso. This was the first beach we'd seen of the holiday, so I set about singing the 'I see the sea' song of circa 1989 family trips to Bantham beach. We spent the afternoon sunbathing on the beach, unable to move much after another lunch of far too many tortillas.

Progresso beach



Temple of Turtles





Uxmal

The next day we travelled to Uxmal - another biggie. With a jungle setting and huge pyramid, these were our favourite so far. There was also a Temple of Turtles, so I made Richard go over and offer his apologies for the unfortunate turtle we'd popped. We made our way across a rubbled path and came to Indiana Jones land where everything was covered in skull and cross boned carvings. The Doctor never appeared, so we walked along to see the stone phalluses which unfortunately looked like an enlarged version of the clay toadstool village I'd made in primary school.

Stone phalluses/toadstool village

Happy hour margaritas



Happy hour margaritas

By now it was clear that we were both allergic to bug repellent, so the evening started with the usual bout of sneezing. We found a bar/restaurant that had a happy hour with two for one drinks. To take advantage of the drinks offer we decided to stay for food as well. What we failed to notice was the number of westerners and Americans in the restaurant too, and so, the evening ended with the waiter bringing over a sombero and gun for us to pose with while he took our pictures.

Typical tourist in Mexico

Dog sitting in Celestun

Celestun sunset

My navigation skills were put to the test on the way to Celestun when, through no fault of my own, we found ourselves travelling in the wrong direction to Chochola. A week without Cadburys was blamed and a quick 'retourno' got us back on track towards two days of relaxation on the beach at Casa Celeste da Vida.

We were greeted by Wanda who immediately made us feel at home, and reading Richard's mind, brought us a couple of cold beers. The huge beach house was built from scratch about five years ago and sits on a stretch of beautiful white sand. We had a self catering apartment, but it had a massive office type water cooler bottle for us - so thoughtful.





Richard and Baby



Breakfast with the spaniels

Wanda explained that they breed Spaniels and had eight living with them, so apologised if we heard a lot of barking. We said it was no worry as we both loved dogs, and soon hoped to have a miniature schnauzer of our own. As well as the spaniels, there was another dog called Baby. She was a stray who turned up one day and just never left. It only took Baby a few minutes to see that we had arrived and she came to welcome us. She was adorable and so gentle, but had some scars of her time as a stray.

We were immediately attached and Baby came everywhere with us. She sunbathed on the beach with us, digging a hole in the sand to cool herself off when she got too hot. She walked into the town with us when we went to get some food for dinner, and even stopped off in a beach bar for a quick drink with us. We did catch her up to her old stray ways and told her off for looking in a bin for scraps. She looked pretty embarrassed.

Walk along the beach with Baby and Scooter





Baby on the beach

We started the next day with a lovely walk along the beach with Baby and the youngest spaniel, Scooter. I was in my element, and my mind drifted to morning beach walks with Colin the miniature schnauzer in the future post lottery-win bit of our lives.



Calakmul and the jungle

We bid a tearful farewell to Baby and set off towards Calakmul. We knew this was going to be the longest road trip, with Google maps estimating it at six and a half hours, but nothing could have prepared us for the condition of the first road we turned onto. It was the worst road we'd ever seen. It wasn't a case of avoiding potholes, but a case of choosing which ones to go in. We needed to go down this road for six miles, and with an almost empty fuel tank we began to think we might be in for a long walk.  Fortunately the road got a bit better about half way along, and we just made it in time to the gas station and get ripped off by the pump attendant.

Campeche

Our jung-a-low

After stopping off in Campeche for a walk along the city walls and colourful streets, we arrived in the jungle of the Reserva de la Biosphere Calakmul. We were staying in a 'jung-a-low', which was a basic little hut in the woods. The only place to eat was in the large jung-a-low restaurant, so we had a lovely meal and some tequillas to give us some dutch courage to sleep in the jungle. The noises at night were deafening. The bugs, birds, monkeys and god knows what else, screamed and squawked all night until the sun rose, when there was sudden silence.

Inside the mosquito net, inside the jung-a-low 

Wild cat defence

The Calakmul ruins are a further hour long drive into the jungle. We drove along the windy road looking out for potholes, and suddenly noticed something in the middle of the road. We froze with fear when we saw it was a massive jaguar. He got up and slowly wandered off into the jungle. There are five types of wild cat in the area surrounding Calakmul, and we'd already come across one of them. It was another 1km walk through the jungle to reach the ruins and as soon as I left the safety of the car, I acquired a large stick to fight off any more wild cats that might jump out at us.

Although Calakmul is one of the highest pryamids, I was determined to try to get to the top and overcome my new found fear of heights. Luckily the steps up are cut into sections, so I took one bit at a time, knowing I would only fall a few metres if my clumsy feet let me down.

Clinging on at the top of Calakmul

At the top of Calakmul

Being at the top was breathtaking, not least because I'd actually made it up one, but you can see for miles and even into Guatamala. I didn't want to leave, but mainly because of the embarrassing crab like crawl method I'd have to adopt in order to get down again.

We went to dinner that night, passing a tarantula on the way, and decided on a plan to stop of at Laguana Bacalar for a few hours of sunbathing before continuing to Tulum for the last four days of our holiday at the beach.

Little did we know that Hurricane Rina had other ideas for us.

Tulum, Hurricane Rina and the beach

Hurricane Rina's path

There was no way that we could have travelled to Tulum when we found out that a category two hurricane was also heading there. But strangely we found ourselves on a direct course to it, hoping to hit before Rina did.

Boarded up windows at our 'safe' hotel

A phone call to our seaside beach house had confirmed that they had booked us a safe and comfortable room in a hotel in the town, three miles from the dangers of the coast during a hurricane. Unfortunately the safe hotel looked like a natural disaster had already hit it. As the smell of disinfectant was burning our throats, we headed out to find a pub. Our sanctuary only lasted a few hours, as the police enforced an alcohol ban after 6pm, and the bars and restaurants started to board up the windows. It was a miserable two nights in Hotel Addy, the lowest point being when we turned on the air con and live cockroaches fell out. But we got through it with a bottle of tequilla and the following films: Johnny English, Leon, Hollowman, Liar Liar, Wierd Science, and a strange Martin Clunes film about a band.



Tulum beach



Tulum ruins/golf course

Rina showed her sorry face at about 10pm on the Thursday night. It wasn't the scary foundation rocker I was expecting, although the sky did go a perculiar colour and I suppose the wind picked up a bit. Once she was out of the way, we were allowed to check into the beach side paradise we were meant to be enjoying. We looked out from our sea view balcony at the blue sea and beach mattress bed that had been made for us on the sand. We breathed in the sea air, finally clearing our noses of the stentch of hotel addy. Our beach mattress became like a second horsebed to us over the next two days, and we left it only briefly to visit the Coba and Tulum ruins (which was a bit like golf course).

Not many of the hotel restaurants were open at our end of the beach, but we decided to walk along it and see what we could find. We were pleased to come across somewhere soon with lots of people eating and having a good time. Embarrassment was avoided only at the last minute, when Richard spotted the wedding cake in the background.