Life's a Beach

After Palenque, we boarded another bus to Merida (the worst thing about traveling is the actual traveling- have packing and unpacked my bag to death at this point). Merida is the capital of the Yuactan state and we had read that it is famous for its street parties at the weekend. We were arriving on a Friday so we thought that this would be great. Unfortunately the Mexican elections were happening on the Sunday, so there wasn't much happening at all at all in the place. It was a nice enough town but after an afternoon strolling around and getting our bearings, we decided there was nothing else for it than to head back to our lovely hostel (with the grumpiest night staff ever!!! The man never cracked a smile!!) and hang out in the sunshine by the great pool!! Two very lazing days of sunbathing followed (which was much needed as we all were still so white we were almost blue!! and it was v annoying as everyone else was brown as a button) before we headed off to Playa del Carmen for even more sunbathing!
Playa del Carmen is lovely, it's were you really feel you're on a sun holiday as it's a resort really but really cute, with great shops and restaurants, it's a lot more expensive than the rest of Mexico, but we didn't mind as it was only for a few days. Fab beaches with crystal clear turquoise coloured waters, so I was in and out of the sea lots, I hadn't been swimming in absolutely ages, so really enjoyed that bit of it. We jumped on the bus up to Cancun one of the days to see what all the fuss was about, but none of us liked it, the town itself wasn't nice at all and the beachy bit is just resort hotel after resort hotel as far as the eye can see - horrible! We also went to the ruins at Tulum. These were the least impressive of all the ruins we have seen so far, they are totally crumbling, but their location is brilliant, right on the edge of cliffs overlooking the amazing sea. You can go down to a small beach and swim in fab waves, really amazing.
As last night was our last one in Mexico, we decided to do some pressie shopping and had a nice dinner, all feeling good and looking quite tanned. So all in all a good couple of days relaxing.
This morning we got the bus across the border to Corozal in Belize. We were hoping to make the 3pm boat out to San Pedro island, but just missed it, so staying here tonight and getting the 7am boat tomorrow instead. First impressions of Belize are that it's totally different to Mexico. It's really Carribean and is what I'd imagine Jamaica to be like. Totally different people and culture. Everyone seems really friendly and nice so far (particularly the very funny man at immigration who asked us about pots of gold and leprechauns as he stamped our passports) and we had our first taste of Belizean food this afternoon, Dara having a wonderful smelling shrimp coconut curry and rice and beans and fried plantain for me and Aoife - I have a feeling I'll be eating a lot of that here.

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