Things that Make You Cry and Things that Freak You Out

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All our efforts of getting up early to visit the internet cafe, have our last brekkie at Cafe Madrid, pack up our room that had been home for several days came unstuck at the airport. Although we got there early enough, our flight was the first of many that would be cancelled. We were told that Guadalajara airport had to be closed so "emergency runway maintenance" could be undertaken. What????? It turned out to be a 4 hour delay. Great! We now had an opportunity to undertake our own Spanish speaking maintenance which I have to say Charlie is getting a high distinction for. When people ask me if I speak Spanish I say no my friend does : ). Surprisingly 4 hours went pretty quickly but we weren´t really prepared for yet another delay when we got to Mexico City.

By the time we got on the plane it was 8:30 in the evening, by the time we arrived at Cancun it was 11(ish) and by the time we arrived in Tulum it was 2 o´clock in the morning. And we had gone from almost cardi weather to being on the Carribean. It´s not the greatest of things to arrive in a town that early in the morning with no real idea of where you´re heading. But, we managed to find a suitable place, after having been bitten 21 times in the space of a few metres (or so it seemed). I was getting so freaked out by the number of insects wanting a piece of me that I would have paid whatever it took to sit in a characterless, airconditioned hotel room. Thankfully we were saved by the hostel which, as it turned out, had private rooms with air-conditioning and ours even came with a tree. I loved having a tree growing out of our room although when the heavens opened up the following day and night it proved to be a tad wet. The hostel gave us another room. It was kind of the same but really, it didn´t have the character. Although we did have a resident spider and cockroach.

The reason for coming to Tulum is that it has a Mayan ruin that sits picturesequly on the Caribbean and where it´s possible to punctuate your visit to the ruin with a little dip in the sea. We weren´t the only ones to have read about this. All the day trippers from Cancun and Playa Del Carmen were also there and it had more of a carnival atmosphere than the feeling one gets when visiting ancient sites. Still, I´m sure this is a good introduction for things to come.

We had hired bicycles from our hostel, one with the seat really high and one with the seat really low, and thought that it would be a nice way to finish off the day to the Tulum ruin by having a cocktail on the beach. I had a michelada which was the spiciest, zestiest to date and was very refreshing. Charlie had her usual margarita. This is what a holiday is all about!

The next day was very wet. Wonderful mozzie breeding weather and an internet catch-up day. And, you know the saying, when it rains it pours well it did kind of that although it felt a bit like walking in a sauna that had no walls and where the heavens were in control of when they would pour water on the hot rocks. Rain sounds refreshing but the relief was only temporary. It was back to steamy in no time. Apart from interneting we also organised our snorkels and masks for the following day's trip out to Sian Ka'an which is a Biosphere Reserve. Hardly a lot of work I know but things just take longer when it's hot...

Ofcourse the day had to include an eating experience. Every day includes one of those as we try to decipher what exactly it is that we are ordering. This day we were presented with a bowl of roasted chiles, sweet potato and carrots along with corn chips. The thing with chile is that they look so appetizing all green, or orange or red. I did have a green chile and survived. Now, for people who know me would agree when I say I am a cautious person. None of this throwing it to the wind for me. So what was it that made me eat a WHOLE chile all at once and think that I would be unaffected???? I can't answer that. Suffice to say that the reaction wasn't instantaneous. I chewed it, swallowed and felt a mild "hotness" which was followed shortly after by a burning sensation that was so indescribable it just left me crying at the table. Oh, and I got heart palpations. I couldn't talk I just had tears flowing for quite some time and thought that my heart would give up on me. Poor Charlie didn't know quite what to do. Strange thing about chile though is that bad as the experience appeared at that time, next thing you know, I'm adding chile to my meal again. Go figure. By the way it was a habenero.

So, next day, Sian Ka'an. Probably one of the highlights of the trip. Picked up from the hostel in a mini-bus and then another pick-up of two Dutch girls and that was our group. That wasn´t the highlight but it was nice to have the privilege of having a guide for such a small group. First stop, a dip in a cenote which is local lingo for freshwater sinkholes and for which we hired our snorkels and masks. Um, I'm not too sure what came over me but I had a mini freak out. I admit I'm not the world's strongest swimmers but I have no idea why I started going into panic mode. Maybe it was the fact that the water was very dark as were the mangrove surrounds, maybe it was that I simply had to jump in, no wading in and getting comfortable, or maybe it was the thought of having to breathe through a snorkel, I don't know. All I know is that I was swimming (uncomfortably) with snorkel and mask in hand to where everybody else was and when I got there I was a bit of a heavy breathing mess. Let's not go into psychoanalysing it anymore. Give me a walk over a glass-bottomed canyon anyday.

The tour continued through mosquito alley, (we were prewarned to put on repellent) and it lived up to it's name. As the name suggested it was an alley and we were out of the thick of it and scooting around in a boat through the lagoons and canals. Sian Ka'an is one of the largest protected areas of Mexico and is rich in bird and wildlife including crocodile, jaguars and marine turtles. We saw none of the lwildlife but did see a fair few birds which is always a thrill along with small Mayan ruin. The highlight though was donning lifejackets and floating down a canal through the mangroves and watching for birds (and crocodiles : ). I think our guide was getting a bit sick of listening to our chatter and suggested we listen to the birds instead. The stillness was quite amazing when we did shut up. But every now and again the stillness would be disturbed by a shriek as one of us would collide into the other - sometimes it's hard to get personal space on a canal... And sometimes you just don't know if your friend is actually a crocodile.

So that was Sian Ka'an, Mayan ruins and tears over a chile.

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