Merida - Chichen Itza - Isla Mujeres! CARIBBEAN!!!

---

1st August. I didn't get married today. I went to the Chichen Itza instead. It was great. :D

We awoke and showered, amazed we had ever managed to sleep. breakfast was slim pickings - although our hostel was big, safe and had a swimming pool, brekkie was a cup of coffee and a slice of toast. Ah well.

Just as we were being picked up to go to Chichen Itza, and then onto Cancun, Sandy and Lucy arrived. They were the girls on Bamba we had met on the Sumidero Canyon trip, and were meant to be on the Bamba bus to Palenque the same day we had gone. they told us their story - no on had come to pick them up at all, so theyd had to get to Palenque town themselves to stay in the hostel theyd already paid for. Bamba apologetically offered to pay for accomodation and another trip to the ruins when they arrived, but the next tour was three hours late picking them up, and forgot to then pay for their lunch - another catalogue of errors. Perhaps by complaining earlier in our trip we had managed to get a good deal of attention out of Bamba, which these guys werent getting. our transfer arrived to take us, so we hastily made plans to meet at Poc Na on Isla Mujeres and went off to see what this days tourguides had in store.

Air conditioning, for a start. a big coach, full of Mexicans, but also an English-speaking guide, albeit a slightly grumpy one who spoke dramatically with long pauses, making us feel like a bunch of naughty schoolchildren, giggling behind his back. It also brought us another set of Irish honeymooners, Cathy and Neil. Neil we had spotted earlier, wearing an electric-blue Hawaiian shirt. We had hoped he was wearing it for a bet. He was - his Best Man had given it to him to wear on Honeymoon, as thats wehat hed used in his batchelor days to pull women in Belfast. Well, it worked on Cathy, even if she "thought he was a prick" to begin with. It seemed appropriate, given the importance of the date to me, that we should hear so much about weddings, hilarious tales of the stag and hen dos, family misdemeanors, drunken antics, and suddenly be debating the merits of running off to Las vegas instead - theyd been there too, so yet more stories ensued.

At Chichen Itza itself, Don Pedro takes us on a tour of the temples, sacrificial cenote (full of offerings and male bones), ball game court where they still had the original hoops up - impressive as all others we've seen have been in museums - and the wall of skulls. He perked up for a bit. "Have you been here before" he questioned us, deadpan. We shook our heads confusedly. "Maybe you recognise yourself here?" He waved toward the wall depicting all the skulls of sacrifical victims and managed a little smile. At the Cenote, he asked me why I was in Mexico. "To see the history", I replied,"I teach ancient history of Europe, but yours is more interesting." He grinned. Then he grabbed my arm and rubbed it firmly. "You have to spend more time on the beach, burning your skin, and finding a Mexican boyfriend." Then he looked serious. Erm..right.

At Chichen Itza you're not allowed to climb on the ruins any more, and it's easier to imagine people actually living there and doing their everyday business without a hundred tourists covering the temple steps. Most interesting to me was the 'area of a hundred pillars', which was basically their version of a forum, a long area with a covered walkway you could cool down in and conduct business, out of the sun. Only theirs is absolutely huge, and every one of the hundred pillars contains a reference to a warrior. Everything seems to have just that little bit more use than the Roman version. And there are more iguanas here.

Then it starts to rain, a sudden, heavy flurry of proper, heavy drops. We're soacked, and sun back to the entrance to find shelter. Neil buys everyone a beer, and just as suddenly the sun comes out and instantly dries everything off. this country still doesn't fail to surprise.

Later Jas and I take a detour to see a cenote not for sacrificial purposes (except for tourists to sacrifice their money in order to swim in the 60m deep waters.) I've been wanting to see one of these for ages, having been told all about them in the UK by travelling friends, although they're talking about the less developed ones at Tulum, rather than touristy ones like this. (For example: overheard by the entrance: Young American boy moans to his parents, "I hate it when we have to *walk* places". By the entrance! I ask you...) It doesn't really matter in the end; despite the splashing of dive-bombing swimmers, it's easy to see the beauty of the place. Slinky black catfish swim in the deep waters, which are blue-black in the middle. Tiny, twittering birds fly from bolt-hole to nest in the roof, among creepers and bats and tree roots that hang all the way down to the water 20m below the top of the sink hole. The whole thing is open to the sun above, and quite a sight.

Less enamouring is the rather foul buffet waiting for us - although we're the ones left waiting for nearly forty-five minutes as one Mexican family on our tour refuses to get out of the water. Sheesh. "Mexican Time" always seems to be the excuse, although as they've already told us our connecting coach is at 4 and it's now 3.45, we're not so relaxed. Again after the food - probably the worst meal Ive eaten in our entire trip and I'm cross and dying to tell them that after they spent so much time building it up - we're off waiting again. We've been lumped onto another non-private-Bamba bus to Cancun, full of tourists now eating *their* lunch, so sit with Neil and Kathy with yet another beer until it's ready to leave.

Cancun...is weird. Rather like I would imagine mish-mash of Las Vegas and Disneyland. We're driving the hotel strip to drop everyone else off before we get to downtown Cancun for the rest of us to take the ferry to Isla Mujeres, a less touristy, low-rise 'paradise'. These palatial hotels are quite a sight, amid countless MacDonalds and Louis Vuitton outlets, but get boring quickly. Those of us bound for Isla Mujeres therefore demand to be let off the bus, much to the dismay of the tip-expecting driver, and get a taxi downtown instead.

Here's where we get our first glipse of the Caribbean itself. It's blue, so very, very blue. I have to call it blue-blue just to start to describe it. Unfortunately, this extended bus drop-off has made us two hours late and we're missing the sunset, but the view of the inky-black sea as we get to Puerto Suarez to catch the ferry is highlighted by the bright blue underlighting on the ferry itself. This appears to be the 'party boat', with weird Jimmy Sommerville-esque pop playing the whole journey there. The other group from the bus consists of some friendly Germans and their English girlfriends, and they cheerfully hand us a beer to enjoy on the trip, to make up for missing the sunset. It's a great start!

Isla Mujeres is indeed low rise and less touristy. Poc Na hostel is apparently the place to be, so we're lucky to have booked it. Arriving in a rather unecessary taxi - it's only about two blocks away, and the whole island is only 7km long - we find the party has already started. the whole place is based around the bar, where live music, cosmic-sounding Jazz played on keyboards by an older guy with glasses and - I double take - a ten year old boy on drums - has already whipped up the residents. After settling in quickly, we get ourselves a couple of bers and enquire of two nice Belgian lads what they're eating. Fifteen minutes later we have our own massive plate of Nachos to munch on. The party continues, out in the beach bar come ten thirty. Cocktails are two-for-one. I figure we're celebrating. I get into a very long conversation with the Jazz guy, whom I discover is again called Jesus , about places to play in London and who is a better short-story writer: Poe or Guy de Maupassant. Before long we're all dancing like loons, and finally it's time for bed. Somehow I have bagged the top bunk with a fan all to myself, much to Jasmine's chagrin - ashe barely sleeps in the sticky heat. But it's been a blissful day.

Isla Mujeres passes by in a rush of utter relaxation. Highlights are:

- meeting an actually cool American guy called Derek at breakfast, then going with him to hire bikes and ride the 20k round the island in a 40degree heat (near sunstroke), then watching him swim and getting to play with his fearsome Canon camera...

- meeting Sandy and Lucy again the next night and swapping Bamba stories...

- sitting on the beach to watch Derek try his hand at spear fishing after he has spent the previous evening eschewing the bar in order to carve his own spear from driftwood...

- making up epithets for Derek with Jas like "Derek the Invincible", "Derek the Modest" (and "Derek the Failure" after two hours spear fishing with not a sign of a fish in his net afterward)...and then telling him to see his reaction...

- watching Lucy drive around in her little rented golf cart...

- IMMENSE licuado platano for breakfast. Addiction continues. Yum yum.

- listening to a truly terrible Californian droner murder every cool song from the 60s and 70s and still try and make us buy his CD, and debating Jimi Hendrix'genius with Tim...

- spending a whole day on blissful Caribbean bikini-time beach, photographing tiny silver fish in the hip-deep clear water, lying under a palapa shade and eating the best ever tuna sandwich for lunch...

- trying to work out what on earth is happening each morning on Spanish CNN...they like to watch buildings fall down...

- partying our last night away to celebrate our Brit friend Tim's completion of his PADI course, and losing everyone in order to sit in a hammock with a beer and my ipod, *finally* understanding The Beatles...

- finally leaving, and getting ourselves to Playa del Carmen... ...

---