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Published: January 18th 2012
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Even though I have traveled to over 70 countries, I have hardly gotten to know our next door neighbor, Mexico. I have only made a few brief visits to the northern part of Baja California, within 100 miles of the US border – Tijuana, Rosarito, Ensenada, etc. So for some time I have been thinking I want to see another part of Mexico. The news over the past few years of drug wars and killings in parts of Mexico have been scary, but I knew that there are some safer areas.
I’ve been hearing about the Yucatan Peninsula for years. I’ve been hearing about beautiful beaches, Mayan ruins, colonial towns. So after doing some research, I’ve decided that’s where I’m going to go.
So I booked a flight to Cancun, and the first two nights in a hotel there. Cancun has a reputation, mostly as a place where Americans go to party. True to its reputation, Cancun was nothing but fancy resort hotels on beautiful beaches. And the beaches really are magnificent - soft, white sand; clear, warm water; sunny skies; great weather. But as you walk or drive down the street, you see nothing but one highrise luxury
hotel after another. There is no real town. In fact, Cancun was invented as a tourist town in the 70’s. Still, it was a nice place to rest and relax for a couple days and swim in the lovely swimming pool and beach and enjoy the hotel facilities and restaurants. It was very comfortable.
Walking down the street in Cancun for a few miles, we (I was traveling in Mexico with my friend Thierry) saw nothing but hotels for the first couple miles, then a modern shopping center, then more hotels, and then an area with American restaurant chains – Bubba Gump’s, Hard Rock Café, Ruth’s Chris, etc. - and many nightclubs with crowds of (mostly) young European and American tourists standing outside. The clubs were selling “Open bar” (all you can drink) tickets for $45 US. We decided to skip it. I don't know if it was the low season or something (we were there right after New Year), but the place seemed overbuilt for the number of people. There were so many hotels and each had hundreds or thousands of rooms, and most hotels seemed to be mostly vacant. So was the shopping mall. Many hotels seemed
unfinished. I wondered if the tourism here was affected by the economic downturn. Nevertheless, there were tourists from all over the world, including many Russians and other Europeans.
After two days in Cancun, we were ready to move on. We then went to a town called Playa del Carmen. It was also very touristy, but in a different way from Cancun. You actually got to feel like you’re in a town, and not just resorts. There’s a law that buildings can’t be more than three stories high, giving a very different feel from Cancun with its highrise hotels. There is also a pedestrian only main street, called Fifth Avenue, which is very nice. Although very touristy, it is close to the lovely beach, there is good food, accommodations for various budgets.
From Playa del Carmen, we rented a car and drove south to Tulum, a beach with Mayan ruins and some resorts, campgrounds, etc. Walking around a light jungle area with iguanas and Mayan ruins overlooking the ocean. We took a boat and went to see the ruins from the water and did a bit of swimming/snorkeling.
After a couple relaxed days in Playa del Carmen and
Tulum, we decided to go to the colonial town of Merida. Merida is the largest city in the Yucatan peninsula. It has about a million people, and relatively few tourists. So unlike the beach towns, you really feel like you’re in a real Mexican town. It has a very nice colonial center, with many grand old buildings, cobblestone streets, horse drawn carriage, and a main square, called a “zocalo” in Mexico, where people gather. It has a bit of a European feel. We stayed in a hotel that was over 100 years old, filled with antique furniture and art. At night the zocalo comes alive with festivals, performance artists, and food vendors.
From Merida, we went to Chichen Itza, where they have some of the biggest Mayan ruins, including one big pyramid. My friend Thierry was disappointed that you can no longer climb the pyramid, like he did when he was there a few years before. I wasn’t as impressed as I expected to be with Chichen Itza, because I had been to Tikal in Guatemala, which also has Mayan pyramids, and I remember as being as impressive and possibly bigger.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go
to some of the other places in Yucatan that I had heard about and would have liked to go, such as Uxmal, another Mayan site, the islands of Cozumel, Holbox, and Isla Mujeres, all of which I heard good things about, the underground “cenotes”, which are caves with stalactites and stalagmites throughout the Yucatan, or Celestun, west of Merida, where there are thousands of flamingoes and other birds.
It was a whirlwind tour of the Yucatan. More time would have been nice, but I got to see quite a bit in a week – beaches, ruins, and colonial towns. I got to see a part of Mexico I had never seen before, and which I highly recommend. The weather was great, and so were the people and the food. It is a beautiful, fascinating, and safe destination. I definitely plan to go back.
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Kailey
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Great article. Thanks for sharing! It sure sounds like you got to see a lot in a short time. And you definitely should come back to see and do more! One of the neatest things about the Yucatan Peninsula are the cenotes, or natural sinkholes, as you mentioned briefly. There is no better way to connect with the nature and the history of the Yucatan Peninsula than to go on a tour! In fact, there is a new "Xenotes" tour, where you can swim, kayak, zipline and rappel in four different types of cenotes! It sounds incredible. A recommendation for when you come back! http://bit.ly/12IZtEy