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Published: March 21st 2009
Tim Version:
* Saw and swam inside the Cenotes using some seriously different transport to get there
* Witness huge flocks of Flamingos and other birds at Celestun
The pink, long legged, goofy looking when it flies version:
From Chichen Itza to Merida, a very cruisy ride! These first class buses I admit I will miss. I don't like them more than the chicken buses... the organisation of having to first buy a ticket, then wait for a specific time for it to leave, and having to cue up and having a seat number I now find kinda stifling (hmm, I don't think that word really makes sense here... but it makes sense in my head, so thats all that is important right?). It is however nice to know that your bags are going to make it to the other end of the journey! And since I know how to ask for a window seat now (I didn't have one on many early flights as I didn't remember how to ask) I usually get a good spot for a view and a sleep.
Anyway, I'm here to see Merida now, not the bus. Merida just feels
like a very safe place near the centre! It's quite a large place, with the bus entering the city and driving for quite a while before reaching the bus terminal. This place has a much less touristed feel to me than Tulum and its quite comfortable.
After some wandering around at night with all my worldly possesions, always an intelligent idea, I found a hostel I liked called Hostel Santo Lucia. Its an awesome well set up place, and had a good crew of people when I arrived including an Aussie guy I met in Caye Caulker. Within 10 minutes I was already staying 2 days instead of one as there were people going to the Cenotes tomorrow and I got invited along! While Mexico costs more here in the Yucatan when compared to regions like Chiapas (where I go next), it is deservadly so, unlike Guatemala. Things work, it is clean, happy, and yeh... I likes it.
Went and got dinner with a hilarious German guy, and find out he was a software engineer too! Heh I found myself seeking them out quite a bit, as its good to have a nerdy conversation every now and again
to get it outta my system!
The crew for the Cenotes (large underground pools of water in limestone cave like areas that you climb down into to swim in) included us two, an Irish girl (called Lindsey damnit! She even had the nickname Linz!), a swedish girl, the Aussie guy, a dutch guy, and a cuban girl who was wit the dutch guy. Man, the Cuban girl... accent, looks, personality, she had the lot, all making me want to jump on a plane to Cuba! Dutch guy, you're a lucky man =)
The Cenotes - well, we almost missed them! No other early risers except for myself so I got a leisurely morning getting ready. By 8:30 most were up and breakfasting, and as we were aiming for a 10am bus it al looked good... then things slowed down somehow, and we went to the supermarket for food first which turned out to be bloody far away, and we ended up being late! It didn't however matter, as the bus wasn't where we thought it was. It was "2 blocks away". Why in quotations? Well, we then walked probably 12 more blocks or more, stooping every 2 blocks
for directions with EVERY SINGLE PERSON saying "oh its just 2 more blocks this way"! Its like it's a large town joke to play on tourists! We did however find the bus in the end. Post bus, we took some bike taxis, two people per taxi. We had some little kid who struggled like all hell but he got us there! We then caught one of the most unique forms of transport I've seen, which would of made the trip worth it alone! Small 5 person carriage type things on small rickety train tracks, each one with a horse to pull it along and a driver. It was wicked fun! As for the Cenotes, totally beautiful too. There are 3 that we saw in this area, traveling all the way to the last one, then seeing the other 2 on the way back. Their water is crystal clear and fresh, perfect for swimming in. There are a few platforms, some made for jumping and diving off, and large tree roots on the walls and dangling vertically from the roof on the cenotes from trees above that you could climb up. I was totally in my element! 3 other Aussie girls
we had met on the bus also came along with us, swelling our group to a really fun size. We even got up to a bunch of synchronised bombies, and bombie style competitions, of which I've got to say the Dutch guy won.
Post Cenotes, I had another HUUUGE personal win for me - I found a decent dark beer!!! A "Negra Modelo", it wasn't world class, but after all the shit beer I've been drinking you would not believe how happy this made me!! So with that, I drifted off into a happy dream like but awake state (yes, I love beer that much) and chilled for a bit.
That night I had the best Spanish conversation I've ever had! Sitting around the table we had 2 Argentines (of which I understood virtually nothing, but the lady spoke some English so that saved me a bit), Dutch guy, German guy, Swiss girl, Cuban girl, and a Mexican, with the common language being Spanish so thats what 90% of the conversation was. Thankfully somehow my Spanish kicked in, having now recovered from Belize, and I think I learnt more about pronunciation and the usage of words just through
conversation that night than I have in months! I found the Argentine accent the hardest, with the Cuban being the easiest and most crisp. It was really interesting hearing the different opinions of the various nationalities on the topics of other nationalities and where people enjoyed traveling and why. It was however kinda heartbreaking to hear just how hard it is for the Cuban girl to travel, to get visas and so forth. She had such a healthy world view, highly intelligent, beautiful as anything, and yet her nationality makes her life very difficult for a reason nothing to do with her, with her being so much more deserving of the ability to travel in my eyes than so many that do it.
Then next day was Celestun, the reason I really came here! Famous for it's flamingo flocks and other bird life in a beautiful natural setting. We didn't get the early start we were aiming for yet again, but we were early enough. It takes 2 hours to get there from Merida so its a bit of a ride. Full of mangroves and tropical beauty, once there we hired a boat captain for the 4 of us
for an hour, and off we went! The water is very shallow, with no visibility so you can't tell how deep it is until you see people wading in it and birds standing in it! From the surface you would think it at least a couple of metres deep but in reality its about 30cm or less in some spots! We drove upstream to the flamingo flocks, and the sheer number of these birds is amazing! The first thing you notice is a pink horizon, which turns into large flocks of these beautiful pink birds once closer. Thankfully our driver was considerate and didn't get too close as we saw some others do. People love to see the flamingos fly in flocks, so some drivers will fly into a pack to scare them into flight. We still got to see a fair few flying, which is both graceful and yet gangly, like that kid in high school who just doesn't seem to fit his or her body just yet. We watched them for maybe 20 minutes then moved on to another bird island full of pelicans and frigate birds, young and old, all mixing together. It's a funny site seeing
a pelican resting in a tree as they just look too big to do it without the branches breaking! After that we cruised through some mangroves, then into some natural springs which pump out warm crystal clear water, which blends with the murky brown river water at the edge of the mangroves about 50m away. This leaves an inner sanctum of crystal clear water with different types of fish and insects, a good area for a swim. I was surprised that the pool holds it's own against the murky water, there must be quite a force of it being pumped out for it to maintain such a large area of crystal clear water! All that in 1 hour and we were happy and finished, so we bussed ourselves home.
That night I left on a night bus to Palenque, saying goodbye to Merida, a place that I think is not only good to visit but would also be a really good place to live should you want to live in Mexico.
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