Mexico & Belize: back to backpacks and buses

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After some amazing weeks jetting around, driving and being fed home dinners (a huge thanks again to the generous hospitality and home cooking of Brett, Clair & Devon, Steve, Renate & Joseph) in Australia, it was time to get back to the real business of "travelling" as we headed for Mexico with the prospect of speaking Spanish for the next four months. This we prepared for extensively by listening to an introductory Spanish audiobook almost twice, while driving down the East coast of Australia concentrating on spotting Koalas.

Something like 28 hours after leaving Sydney, we arrived in Cancun only six hours after we had left, or something strange like that, thanks to crossing the international dateline. I spent a very blurry jetlagged 20 minutes sitting in Starbucks in LAX next to Jon Voight without having any idea why people kept wanting their picture taken with this old man until after he´d left and I realised who he was. Come to think of it, I still don´t know why they wanted their picture taken with him.

We finally arrived in Cancun to our first luggage mishap when Sam´s rucksack didn´t make it off the plane. It could have been worse though as all we had planned for the next 24 hours was sleeping, which was enough time for the essential strappy tops and pretty dresses to catch up with us. Luckily and by complete coincidence all the essential shared toiletries and other bulky accessories have always been in my bag, which arrived safely.

We didn´t see much of Cancun due to the aforementioned sleeping, and set off after a day of recharging to the island of Cozumel. That was via Playa Del Carmen where we made one of the worst mistakes of our trip by stopping for lunch in the nearest cafe, which turned out to be a Senor Frogs - the scourge of Mexico, catering for under age and/or overweight Americans. It was probably after the second waiter straddled a nearby customer and started lapdancing for her that we realised we´d made a terrible mistake, but by that point our over-priced food was already on its way and we had to sit through the next 30 mins trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

Cozumel was a great contrast though. A little touristy thanks to the huge cruise ships that stopped there everyday, but you didn´t have to go far to get away from that and we spent a nice day on a rented moped zipping round the rest of the island´s coastline. We also managed to squeeze in scuba dive numbers 18 & 19 including a couple of small cavern swim throughs at close to 25m underwater.

Next was a trip to Tulum back on the mainland, for a visit to the ruins there, situated on more great coastline. We went late in the day to avoid the biggest crowds, but were still faced with hundreds of tourists. However, to the annoyance of the nearby security guard we waited by the exit until the last person had left and managed to get a great picture of the sun setting on the main structure completely unobscured, which was well worth the wait.

We spent the next day snorkeling in some of the famous nearby cenotes - huge cavern systems and sink holes, filled will bats and not a lot else, but incredibly eery to swim around in virtual darkness with only a handheld torch.

The following day was a day trip to Coba, another set of ruins though this time set within the jungle. It was all very nice, though the most memorable part of the day was watching two four year old kids by the riverside, happily playing around with the tail of a three metre long crocodile!? We assumed they knew what they were doing though when they demanded payment if we wanted to take a picture of them, hence the lack of photographic evidence as we have become that tight with our cash.

We set off that evening for Chetumal close to the border with Belize, to get ready for the next two weeks. After entering the country we decided to head straight for the island of Caye Caulker and bypass Belize City as we´d heard a lot of scary things about the place and decided it wasn´t somewhere to linger. Caye Caulker was very small and chilled though quite a bit more expensive than we´d been used to. Still, we managed to get an ocean front en-suite cabin for about 20 pounds a night with only one resident insect, so we thought we had done okay. We spent a very relaxing day snorkeling and sun-bathing while booking up a Scuba dive for the next day, but there was quite a strong wind about and we were warned the boat might not be going out if things didn´t improve.

That was the news we were given when we got up at 8:00am the next morning, so made the swift decision to leave the island and come back to dive when the weather had improved. So we headed inland to the town of San Ignacio to do some cave and jungle exploring, which turned out to be a great decision.

A nice, if a little dusty, town perfectly situated to provide tours to the nearby regions. We couldn´t resist the temptation to go a little nuts and opt for the most expensive trip to the caves of Achtun Tunichil Muknal, an ancient Mayan cave system that was only discovered in the early 90´s with lots of perfectly preserved human skeletal remains and Mayan artifacts. It was a great experience combining jungle trekking, river crossing and even swimming to reach the entrance to the cave. Loads of climbing was involved in some very small spaces and 4km deep inside the caves with only our headtorches and you couldn´t help wondering every now and again how the Belizean government let tourists into such a well preserved national treasure!

We topped the day off with a trip to the tiny local cinema, where we were joined by one other person to enjoy the illegal projection of Revolutionary Road. A Lamb curry at Hannah´s restaurant where we ate everyday finished off a pretty memorable day.

Next stop was the town of Hopkins, at least that was the plan until we reached the connecting town of Dangriga and decided the bus timetable was too awkward to make it worthwhile, so carried on south all the way to Placencia. Another great little beachside community, though we arrived at night and were gentled hussled to a fairly expensive, but not at all unpleasant cabin, in the middle of town. The next day , Valentine´s Day, we downgraded to the luxurious (see picture) and reasonably priced Omar´s, where we settled in for two nights to enjoy the atmosphere and laid back beachfront. Highlights were the amazing meal and wine Sam treated us to at a brilliant restaurant and bribing the security guard at a local private resort to allow us to use their pool and loungers for the morning. Sam executed the money sliding handshake like a complete pro as we sneaked off before Chris the guard´s boss got back.

Another reassessment of our plans on our journey back north took us to the tiny island of Tabacco Caye, which was another great decision and probably the highlight of our time in Belize. An absolutely tiny and tranquil place, so small you could stand in the middle of it and walk to any shore in seconds. We stayed at Lana´s guesthouse, virtually solely run by the warm and friendly 80 year old Lana herself. Included in the price were three home cooked meals a day and we ate everything from lobster, to red snapper fishcakes to home made rum cake. The rest of the time we spent snorkeling three times a day in the crystal clear water where huge Eagle Rays would appear out of nowhere and swoop in front of your face regularly.

After extending our stay there by a day to go manatee watching we had to leave and head back to Caye Caulker to do the dive we had promised we´d go back for. We completed dives 20 & 21 and although always a great thing to do, didn´t turn out to be the highlight of our time in Belize, mainly because everything else we´d done had been so great.

All that was left then before we headed back to Mexico again the next day was a delicious bbq meal of fresh fish, bought for us by the lovely Chris & Jim, who we´d spent a lot of time with on Tabacco Caye (thanks again guys, that was very generous of you), a couple of drinks and a crippling stomach bug we both contracted, which kept us holed up in our room for the next 24 hours unable to eat, drink or get out of bed.

That forced a slight change to our itinerary, but we´re here now back in Mexico only a day late, on the mend and looking forward to getting back on track with enjoying the country we were already loving before we left. There´s just the slight problem of trying to recall the bits of broken Spanish we´d both learned before retreating to an English speaking country, and going by my failed attempt yesterday to book a room for the night with a confused operator at Mexican Directory Enquiries (who I thought was the Hotel Casa Becil) we´ve still got a lot to learn.....

DIARY ENTRIES

Wednesday 4th February: 2 dives . Great to be back in the water. Visibility great, saw some nice fish and did some good swim throughs. Accessory disastr for Sam: lost sunnies and hair grip broke! SJ

Saturday 7th February: Up early to visit the ruins at Coba. God fun as you got to climb the tall temple. Then back to Tullum to change bus to Chetumal. Nearly left book on bus then get arrested for not paying phone cost in shop. D'Oh! SJ

Thursday 12th February: Visited the amazing Achtun Tunichill Mucknal cave today. Brilliant Indiana Jones style adventue of swiming through river caves, clambring up stalegmites and seeing perfectly preserved Mayan remains. Then watched Revolutionary Road at San Ignacio's cute cinema. SJ

VALENTINE'S DAY: Hangover day. Changed accommodation to the glamorous Omar's and had breakfast. Spent day wandering around street art 'festival'. Sam ate inedible dinner then both went to fun bar with live reggae band but too tired to stay out for long. LR

Tuesday 17th February: Snorkeled 3 ties today and saw green morayeel amongst othr things. More hammock time and grat food courtesy of Lana. Drank fresh coconuts and rum with Jim, Chris, Kristy and Neil. Loving Tobaco Caye. SJ

Friday 20th February: Finally made it to Hol Chan for dives # 20 & 21. Swam with eagle rays, lobsters and geen moray eels. Sam saw nurse sharks when she jumped in to pee! Spent our $20 from Chris and Jim at Rose's for another fresh fishmeal - yum! SJ

Saturday 21st February: Oh my God. Sick as a parrot. Sam up from midnight and Lee growing worse throughout the day. Spent all day in bed or on toilet. Felt terrible. Sad way to end our time in Belize. SJ

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Photos

Caye Caulker
Very busy

Sunset on Caye Caulker
After swearing profusely at the young teenage boys for ruining our sunset snap Sam finally got the money shot with the boys in the frame

ATM
At the entrance of Actun Tunichil Muknal

ATM Caving
Deep within the ATM caves we finally stopped swimming and started climbing

The Mayan Princess
The perfectly preserved skeleton of a Mayan female sacrifice deep inside the ATM caves

Omar´s Guesthouse
An unconventional choice for Valentine´s Day

Tobacco Caye
Our 3 day paradise

Tabacco Toucan
Belize´s national bird on its loveliest island

Hammock time
Sam misses work terribly

Traveling light
and sweating lots in the Belizean heat

Comments

[hoek]

Tobacco Caye
We sure enjoyed sharing time with you guys. Thanks again for having us along on the boat adventure. We have some great pics and enjoyed seeing yours too! Stay safe. Jim and Chris