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Published: March 11th 2012
The journey from Copan in Honduras to San Christobal de las Casas in Mexico led us back through Antigua in Guatemala. We arrived at night and left very early the next morning so we really only had time to finally weed out the Indian restaurant we failed to find on previous visits which did not disappoint. The border crossing was easy and the scenery changed dramatically as we crossed into Mexico. It wasn’t long before we spotted our first cactus and the new bus we switched to had air con, curtains on the windows and head rests. The road was smooth and we hit San Christobal earlier than we expected in the afternoon. It is a big town with many colourful colonial buildings, churches, squares filled with restaurants and cafes, musicians playing on streets and in the band stand in the main square, kids selling brightly coloured cotton candy stacked high above their heads at night and has a generally relaxed atmosphere. It was clearly a lot more affluent than places we’d been previously, people dressed well, cars were newer, laptops were everywhere and plenty of locals were in the bars and restaurants, not just gringos. We found a great little
wine bar called La Vino de Bacco that served Mexican wine in carafes (as well as wine from everywhere else) along with popcorn and tapas. Little kids come through periodically to sell clay painted figures and other crafts.
Ade’s birthday fell during our visit so we booked on to a horse riding trip to the local village of Chamula a little bit out of town up in the hills. A pick-up truck collected us and we stood in the back bouncing along on the cobbled and paved streets. Our horses awaited tied to a fence on the main road just out of town so we hopped on and were led by a non-English speaking guide through a little village, a short forest trail and quiet country road to the thriving village of Chamula. The main attractions here are the huge white church with the colourful doorway in the town square, the market stalls selling brightly coloured arts and crafts and people watching. Local indigenous people from the hills around come to town to do business dressed in woollen clothes; the men wear white or black sheepskin tunics with cream cowboy hats and women wear long black woollen
skirts with multi-coloured tops. We followed the same trail back to town but no pick-up awaited us, apparently it had broken down, so we flagged down a local collective for less than a dollar and caught a ride back to town. We splashed out on a fancy meal at the highly recommended Babel restaurant, washing it down with a tequila shot chased with sangrita – tomato juice, Worcester sauce & chilli. Stopping off for some drinks at the off licence we discovered a whole four-sided display unit dedicated solely to different brands of tequila!
Buses in Mexico are impressive. Seats are assigned on the higher end ones, they show movies and have leg room, head rests, air con and toilets. The bus stations are decent too, some even allow you to check in your luggage and load it for you. From San Christobal we took a bus to Palenque on a terrible road which had fallen off in many places and was delayed due to the frequent one way system temporarily in place where this happened. We decided to stay out in the ‘traveller community’ of El Panchan, out of the main town half way to the
Mayan ruins we were there to see, at a place called Margerita and Ed’s. It was fantastic, set back in the jungle with huge rooms and reasonable prices. The only set backs were the 100% humidity, meaning constant wet floors, walls and damp everything and the critters that come with staying in the jungle (we had 2 pretty large spiders pay us a visit over the course of the 2 days). We ate most meals at the always heaving Don Muchos Bar & Restaurant which served great meals all day long and entertained crowds with live music every night and even had an area for stalls at the back where the travelling community sold their jewellery and other crafts in between messing about on unicycles and fire twirling.
The ruins did not disappoint. They were surrounded by jungle, howler monkeys could be heard all around, but the grounds themselves were well maintained and easy to navigate around. We climbed up the steps of tall temples, crouched through narrow tunnels to view stone sarcophagi, climbed all over the palace in the centre and sat in open spaces taking in the vast surroundings climbing hills and stretching into the
Horse Trek
San Cristobal To Chamulajungle. A few stalls were scattered about selling Mayan art and crafts and there were even toilets in between both exits. The humidity was a constant battle though and we stopped frequently, Ash even bought a fan from one stall to stave off the heat. Following the signs for the exit by the museum we trekked on a winding stone trail through the jungle discovering ruins of the nobles housing, a rope bridge over a waterfall and river and an enormous tree. For some reason we decided to walk back to the hostel, a decision we regretted. 2.5km in that humidity feels a lot further!
We started the time-saving trick of travelling on overnight buses in Mexico. While it is true you can save time doing this, sometimes you get such a bad night’s sleep you nap for half of the next day anyway. Drowsy antihistamines became our best friends quickly during these nights. The beautiful town of Valladolid was our next destination, our first stop in the Yucatan province (San Christobal & Palenque are in Chiapas). Upon arrival we used a map of the city of Merida to navigate which was possible because the street numbering
system is similar in many cities all over Latin America. The only hostel mentioned in the Lonely Planet was full which turned out to be a blessing disguise as it meant we discovered the Hotel Zaci. We got a big room with hot water, tv, fast internet and a swimming pool in a lovely courtyard setting in the centre of town for only a smidgen more. Happy days! While in Valladolid we visited the Cenote Zaci, a sinkhole filled with water and partially surrounded by stone steps and covered by an earth ceiling with tree roots reaching down to the water. Ade was brave enough to swim alone in it and he was watched by interested locals out for their Sunday excursion. One evening we tried to find a restaurant (Taberna de los Frailes) we read about on TripAdvisor and got lost on the many streets that lead out from the Convento San Bernandina de Siena. Luckily we spotted the 9pm wedding ceremony taking place in the church before stumbling upon the restaurant as we’d given up and we heading back to our hotel. The food was fantastic and the setting was nice even though we were the only customers
that late at night.
Some foods we tried in Valladolid and loved were: Salsa Mexicana (tomato, chilli, garlic, onion, lime juice and coriander), an avocado & chilli dip both served with non salty nachos, the famed tamales and of course burritos & quesadillas.
From Valladolid we visited one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, Chitzen Itza. We took a local bus which was rammed full of people although luckily we got seats as we boarded at the station. The car park at the site was packed full of tour coaches, minibuses and cars. Thousands of tourists descend every day from the all-inclusive resorts along the Yucatan Peninsula and the cruise ships docked at the various ports. We queued for over 20 minutes to get our tickets, entered the lobby area then queued again to pay the tax before going through security and entering the site itself. Efficiency at its best! Unsurprisingly, they were the most expensive ruins we visited at $13 each compared to $6 at Palenque. Hundreds of stalls lined the paths around the massive site all selling the same stuff – jewellery, art, wooden frogs that croak when you rub
a stick across their backs, wooden whistles that make jaguar noises, sarongs, t-shirts etc. The vendors call ‘Only $1’ or ‘Cheaper than Walmart’ or ‘Nearly free!’ after you as you pass then try to guess your nationality to get you talking. The ruins themselves are actually very impressive. You can’t climb up them as you can with most others but with the volume of traffic passing through it’s understandable. The main temple is massive and square shaped with steps leading up on all four sides. Many walls have carvings of animals or skulls along them, hundreds of columns line the perimeter, a huge ball court attracts many clapping hands to hear the famed acoustics and some trails lead through jungle to Casas (houses) and temples of those who lived in the ancient city. As most tourists stay with their guide in the main complex it is possible to be alone at some of the further away temples and structures although local kids of the vendors may follow you asking for sweets or money.
Our next destination was the town of Tulum, famed for its beachside ruins and the nearby cenotes. Outside the bus station there was a
board listing all the hotels and the taxi fares to each which we hadn’t seen before. Makes life a lot easier! We had picked a beachside hostel from the guide book and took the last room just before sunset. Our round cement hut on the sand was really close to the beach with a cute palm tree seeding garden on one side. We only had electricity for a few hours at night and the path to the toilets was lined with swaying palm trees. From the beach we could see the ruins of Tulum on the cliff a little way down. Unfortunately it was very expensive so we only stayed the one night, checking out the ruins in the morning before we headed back into town. Being there at opening meant we had them mostly to ourselves. Although small, they are still worth a visit because of the stunning backdrop, crowning the cliffs and the pounding turquoise sea below. As we left the crowds were arriving.
Many restaurants line the main street of Tulum and musicians play a few songs at each before making a collection. The food is good and like most of the Yucatan, loads
of Americans, Canadians and Europeans can be heard all over. We stayed at a cheap but nice hostel just off the main drag.
We were in town for the diving and after some research Ade booked us in with Nicolas, a freelance guide originally from Argentina, who turned out to be excellent. We spent two days diving three different cenotes. The days were extremely well organised and a lot of fun. On the day one we hit Angelita first arriving early and having the place to ourselves. The sinkhole is in the forest, not too far from the road. Diving in fresh water seemed very odd at the beginning, it’s so clear it doesn’t feel like you’re diving at all. We dropped down to a sort of sandy island covered in branches sticking out in all directions surrounded by a green mist. We descended through the mist which tasted funny and blocked out all natural light, diffusing the light from our torches. Coming back up through it was surreal as the lower half of our bodies was invisible! Looking up at the sky and trees above was spectacular and 10 metres from the surface we circled an
upside down tree. A tasty lunch and snacks were provided along with juice and water then we set off to Gran Cenote. This popular site was crowded with snorkelers and divers but that didn’t ruin the experience of gliding through the cavern flanked by stalagmites and stalactites. The blue light coming from the entrance was mesmerising.
The final cenote we dived was Dream Gates, a recently discovered sinkhole set way back in the jungle along a 20 minute dirt track. Here we lowered the gear on a winch and climbed down the recently added wooden stairs into the hole. There is an upstream dive and a downstream dive and we did both. For a lot of the dive we couldn’t see the exit which was quite exciting. Hundreds of little fish followed our dive lights through the cave system. At one point we surfaced in an air pocket and could take out our regs to speak minding our heads as millions of pointy stalactites covered the roof. We’re now hooked on cenote diving and reckon we’ll be back to do some more in the future with Nico.
On the bus to Playa del Carmen
we got upgraded to the swish class which involved mini bottles of water and headphones for watching the movie. The seats went even further back than ever before. Loads of tourists and high rises lined the beach and restaurants and tour agency stalls dotted our path to the ferry terminal. On the ferry to Cozumel we could buy beer in our seats and were treated to a rock band churning out popular Latin hits focusing on crowd participation before handing round the collection buckets on arrival. They must have made a killing as most of the tourists spend American dollars. In fact, we had to ask for the peso rate from here on which was usually slightly less as they round up for the dollar conversion. We stumbled across a web deal for an all-inclusive resort, Grand Occidental Cozumel, and spent our last 3 days in Mexico here. It was a complete change of travel style. We were greeted with champagne on arrival and our bags were brought to our room on a golf cart. There were two pools on site, a bridge over a mangrove pond with turtles poking their little heads up, lots of activities to chose from,
as well as free room service and mini bar. We ate, drank and played games for the three days although poor Ade was sick for one. Ash spent this day on a beach bed under a wooden palapa. We even got entertained by a Mariachi band and played blackjack. The diving off Cozumel was pretty good and we saw a big eagle ray up very close.
Leaving we got some very strange looks, walking through the resort with our backpacks on! We caught our cheap 20 minute flight from Cozumel to Cancun checking out the gorgeous view below. The queue at check in for our Havana bound flight was not to be believed. People had about 4 suitcases each, huge plasma tv’s, stereo systems and all sorts of other unidentified boxes. One guy kept asking people to take some of his luggage to check through. We didn’t see any takers. Getting on the plane was equally chaotic. Ade got the last drop of rum from the drinks trolley and we were only sitting halfway back. It was a preview of what was to come when our short 50 minute flight set down and we met up with
Ade’s parents, Harry & Mo.
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