Mexico and a Bit of Belize

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December 29th 2007

Published: January 25th 2008

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Chela and Matthew

Chela Driving the Punt in Belize

This punt is the only way across this river and it operates 24 hours a day with the two operators working 12 hour shifts. Office life doesn´t look so bad after all...

Mexico - 3 December to 29 December 2007

We hit the ground in Mexico exhausted from our hectic last weeks in Peru. However, we still had plenty of chores to do in Cancun before we could relax. The most pressing task was to send a parcel to Canada which contained a whopping 11kg of excess stuff that we had somehow accumulated over the past few months.

After this arduous but important task we were ready to hit the beach for a few days and so caught the ferry over the the somewhat laid-back Isla Mujeres. On the island, we caught up with our sleep requirements, lazed in the warm water and chilled out at the bar. The rest and relaxation did us good and we were soon ready to head out of tourist land and into the wilds of Mexico´s Yucatan peninsula.

Our plan was pretty simple: see as many Mayan archeaological sites in four weeks as humanly possible. And we think we did pretty well with nine sites in all! We saw towering pyramids emerging out of the jungle and intricate carvings dedicated to long ago kings. We learned about a culture that was at times blood

Mayan Church in Chamula

Catholic on the outside, Mayan on the inside.

thirsty and overly obsessed with death and at others seemingly in touch with nature and at one with the world.

This mission to experience the Mayan world took us far and wide and on one occaision into a mosquito infested trail in Belize. We decided to disregard the cost and hop across the border into the English speaking country. We met a cheerful taxi driver who took us on Belize's appalling roads, across a rickety river punt and on finding that there was no guide at the Mayan site walked us around the site himself!

The Mayan route took us to world famous sites like Palenque and Chichen Itza but the best experiences were in the more inaccessible sites like Yaxchilan in deep jungle on the Guatemalan border and the more diverse sites like the intricately decorated Uxmal. At times we found ourselves baking in the intense sun and heavy humidity or waiting on the side of the road for a bus that might not even be coming. We had early mornings and sore feet but the experience as a whole was very rewarding.

The Mayan mission was interspersed with interraction with some living Mexicans as well.

The Jaguar Throne at Uxmal

We had some bizarre experiences such as our encounter with a man in Chetumal who claimed to be a 'Baptist Minister' from Chicago who had lost his bags via a series of increasingly unbelievable misadventures. Even more unbelievable was the fact that the solution to all his problems was enough money for a bus ticket to Mexico City (a long way). What was even more bizarre was that this story was found almost word for word in the lonely planet as a specific scam operating in the area. Did we perhaps have a brush with a local celebrity criminal? Thankfully we weren´t taken in by the scam!

We also visited cultural centres like San Cristobal de las Casas which is a mountain city in the sometime rebel-held territory of Chiapas. There we saw how the modern descendents of the Mayans live. The most interesting thing was how the local people still practice their pre-hispanic religion (complete with the odd chicken sacrifice) inside the town´s old Catholic church in Chamula.

A non-Mayan historical site that we visited was the entire city of Campeche, which was once completely surrounded by a fortified wall to protect the city from the pirates

The Pyramid at Chichen Itza

of the Carribean (the actual ones, not Johnny Depp). The city had a nice pastel colour scheme in its historical centre and we spent quite a bit of time walking around despite the oppressive heat.

We had our Christmas in the crowded and busy city of Merida and were stuck for several days at an unimpressive hostel, where Chela got bed bugs. Luckily the other guests at the hostel were a lot of fun to hang out with and the operators of the hostel pretty much left us alone with the Dutch volunteer employee who was on an exploitative work-for-free-board roster. We enjoyed the city´s cavalier approach to streetside firework displays and spent most of Christmas day eating convenience store food and relaxing.

We soon completed our loop and were back in Cancun to get ready to go to our next country: Cuba

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