Bacalar


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North America » Mexico » Quintana Roo » Bacalar
March 10th 2018
Published: March 15th 2018
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On Friday morning, at 4Am, after a terrible bus ride of 10 hours with many police controls and bumpy roads, Ajla, Maddy and I finally arrived to Bacalar. We shared a taxi and then split up because they were in a different hostel. I had asked my hostel before, if it's ok to arrive at 4AM and they said that that's all right, but when I checked in, they guy seemed a bit surprised. I got my room anyway and I was glad to get a few more hours of real sleep in a real bed.

The rooms were nice, spacious, showers amazing and breakfast good. Only bad things : hostel staff was not were welcoming, food needed an eternity to cook (i.e. water for rice took 1h to boil!!) and the wifi wasn't really good. But it was a nice hostel anyway, with a nice outdoor space, kind of like a beach at the lake, and a bar.



The first morning, I had breakfast with Cliff and a bit later Linnea joined as well. They wanted to do the free walking tour and I was ok to go with them. Ajla texted me, that her hostel was really bad (later she admitted that she had been exaggerating a bit) and that she was moving to our hostel. So, the four of us went to the main square to do the walking tour.



Bacalar is a quite small town and there is not much to do or to see except for the beautiful lake. Our guide was a nice young woman who showed us some cultural centers and some nice bars and restaurants. She explained that first the city had belonged to Mayas, then was invaded by Spain and later it was a harbor for pirates who stole from the Spanish ships their merchandise. That's why the Spanish built a fortress in Bacalar. Later, the Mayas, who had been hiding and living in the jungle, invaded this fortress through underground tunnels and it took the Spanish quite some time to regain this area.

The walking tour was quite nice, but I was feeling more and more sick and didn't enjoy it much. Since we had had the bad cacao beans in San Cristóbal de las casas, I had been having bad stomach cramps and in the evenings some diarrhea, but this morning, it was just getting worse and worse. In one bar, we had papaya juice and that's when I started being naucious. Everyone could see I was suffering and at our last stop, a nice organic shop with restaurant, I emptied my stomach and went back to the hostel. On the way I bought some rice, because you know, rice is the only thing you should eat if you have food poisoning or an upset stomach. I rested for a while and then went to the kitchen to prepare some rice. I started feeling a little better and joined the others at the lake where we had a nice swim, tried to teach Cliff how to swim and enjoyed the lazy afternoon in the sun.

Then we went back to the hostel where we rested for a while. At some point a German woman joined us and suddenly everyone else disappeared. Weired! She was strange, not a very positive person and it was not a pleasure to talk to her. Later I went back to bed to rest my poor stomach and Cliff came to tell me that they had met this German, Ana, in the morning and she had been very unpleasant to them, telling them Germany had already to many foreigners and they should go study somewhere else (Linnea had been talking about going to study in Germany). She had mentioned Hitler few times in their conversation and nobody wanted to talk to her anymore.



In the evening, we went for dinner with German Chris and Felix who were staying at a different hostel. Since they had no white rice, I couldn't eat anything and so we went back to our hostel after dinner so I could prepare some rice for myself. The others had a few drinks and we had a nice last night together. Linnea and I went to bed quite early and so we said goodbye to Chris and Felix whom we wouldn't see anymore.



The next morning, I was still feeling sick and I rested at the hostel. At some point I also went swimming for a bit, the water was just to nice to not to go in ! :-)



While the others went for lunch, I cooked my rice in the hostel and relaxed. At 1PM we met at the bus terminal where we spent our last hour together before saying goodbye. I might see Linnea again somewhere in Central America, since we're doing more or less the same road, but Cliff was going home 2 days later and Ajla was staying in Mexico but not in the same cities as me. Saying goodbye was a bit sad, these people had been like family these past weeks... But I'm sure we'll stay in touch. :-)


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