29th March 2019
Nighttime flight to Mexico City, after a spot at my mum's, where we met our new chickens! Peter kindly gave us a ride to Heathrow. Flying with AeroMexico. Helpful flight assistant who sounded like Miss Piggy.
Toyed with taking a sleeping pill but decided against it add wanted to watch films.
Kerry got the only seat on the plane with broken inflight entertainment system. I gallantly stepped in and swapped seats with her.
11 hours with no screen. I asked 3 stewardesses during the flight, each disappearing up the plane to appear a few minutes later to tell me they had reset it and I should wait 5 minutes. A total of 15 nail biting minutes I waited, not still no screen. Didn't sleep much and so listened to music on my phone.
As we flew closer to our destination we were hoping to see a view of the Popocatepetl volcano (50 miles south on the city) which exploded a few days ago, but alas, no view.
Just as the plane started to descend, i heard Eva threatening to be sick. Unbuckled and jumped out of my seat - Kerry managed to get a sick bag from the seat pocket in time but it wasn't opened properly and she got a good spraying. so did a number if people around us I think. They were very nice about it. Quick hair wash and change into my spare top layer
I took Eva up through business class into the fancy toilets for a wipe down - afterwards I came out to see Kerry patiently queuing for the toilet to wash her hair and change her clothes. I would not have been that patient.
I got another few minutes through the podcast I was listening to before I heard Hannah filling 2 sick bags as we we are about to disembark. People were standing getting their bags and I was given another 5 bags.
6 hours behind Mexico City. 26 degrees. AHH, bliss.
30 minute bus ride and then taxi (which was literally falling apart) to our first destination Porta Morelos, hotel Eden.
Afternoon on the beach
The local beach is wall to wall Americans and hiked prices.
We headed back to our room for a siesta around 4 and slept right through.
31st Sunday
We got up early and hit the beach for sunrise. We met a cool guy with his young daughter (Ciana) - he turned out to be the owner of the popular 'Casa om' yoga retreat on the beach. He was nice. From West Virginia.
We got a lot of information from him about the area which we used to plan the next few days.
Mindfulness at nuclear power plant.
We had breakfast at a place called El Nicho on the main Square (recommended) - really good Huevos Rancheros and then, after some negotiations from touts and working out actual prices we went out on a 5 minute boat to the reef directly off the coast here for 2 hours snorkeling.
After that we played on the beach and bought Kibis (corn fritters) from a man in a silly hat.
For lunch El Nicho was closed, so we headed for Zen gardens/Aram, our yoga teachers favourite. It sure was very Zen. I had gaspachio soup. Eva had 'the only egg' because she has an egg fascination.
Hannah dropped my phone into humus.
We bought food for dinner - very poor fruit and veg section, to give the wallet a rest, bit some route planning, went to the beach for sunset and booked car (and secret for girls) over internet for tomorrow. And some 3rd party insurance
1st April 2019 Monday - Coba
Up at 6. Busy day today.
Down to beach for sunrise
Cheerios for deseyuno
Taxi to Playa del Carmen, listening to Mana
There by 8.30
A much bigger toen than we expected it to be
Cosumal is the place to go - 10 touts before bus
we took an Ado bus to Tulum - a 1 hour journey. Tickets have seats allocated,. But bus seems to be first come, first served
Walked through the town to the budget car rental place (via authentic cheap tacos on the side of the road)
Hired car
119,700 pesos blocked on card!
Coba Mayan ruins
Lots of walking in the heat.
Climbed up big pyramid
Cenote tamcach-ha - massive limestone cave filled with fresh water. Was amazing! Hannah dropped her shoe from the very top of the spiral ladder route down - nearly killed someone
After that we drove to Valladolid, the town closest to the Mayan ruins of Chitzen Itza, where we plan to go tomorrow.
Found a hotel peregrina, 750 with private parking are a small swimming pool;
Dinner was the place next door traditional tamales
2nd April 2019 Tuesday - Chitzen Itza
Up early. Packed up, into car.
Chitzen Itza or 'Itzu Mitzu' as Eva calls it
Massive site. Sections of carved stone columns
Lots of people clapping
Lots of people making jaguar and owl noises with ceramic whistles
Lots of that stalls. In arvo, lots of people.
Bought a cedar mask and a mug. And a owl whistle. And a jaguar one. And a bead hummingbird.
Largest ball court. Spectator sport. Captain of winning team had the pleasure of being decapitated. They should be that in English football to spice things up a little.
Myans - 19 month calendar
Cenote = sinkhole
Big squirrel
300 = 2 bar
We left, hot and bothered but soon were back in our a/c car!
3 hour drive back to the coast (losing an hour) to Akamal where we had heard there were turtles, but private beaches controlled by the resorts. After some research we discovered we could gain access through a restaurant. We parked the car and gained access to the hidden restaurant. Bought a coffee and bobs your uncle, we were on the beach! Excited looking guy on the beach told us were to go and 20 minutes later we were floating 2 metres above a turtle (a fuzzy turtle - I didn't have my contact lenses in) but a turtle none the less! On the back we saw a ray.
Drove a few km up dirt road to the west of Akumal to our accommodation, which we had booked online this morning - Villa Duendes
It was in the edge of the jungle. Hipster dome. Cool round building but alas, no light, ac, fans, fridge or indeed anything modcons as there was a power cut!
We swapped our beach wear with our jungle wear (me in a business shirt)
Had a fun evening with our Mexican hosts (who supplied the tequila and candles) and an American family who were staying in one of the other domes - expert taco makers - they cooked for us (they had gas) and Supplied beer. We drank tequila while the girls searches for spiders and scorpions.
Luckily we had bought 2 head torches for volcano climbing., And long shirts to keep the mosquitos at bay
Our host told us stories of jaguar sightings in the area. Apparently one of his dogs got bitten in the head by one. Normally the infection would kill the animal and the jaguar would come and eat it a few days later. His dog when to the vets and got better. Much happyness from Eva.
3rd April 2019 Akamal/Tulum/BACALAR
Straight to beach through a restaurant
Remembered to put contact lenses in
Hired some life jackets this time for h&k
Left driving licence with man
Had seen 3 massive turtles before 9am
One with a sucker fish on its back
Breakfast at expensive beachfront place
MORE post Breakfast turtles
reclaimed driving licence and got the car back to budget, Tulum in time with no issues. Rental total was 20 quid. With the 20 I spent on insurance, 40 total. Happy with that.
We hot footed in back to our favourite pulled pork taco place
We took a taxi back up the highway we had just travelled down, to almost exactly the same spot we we're in this morning (ok, we messed up a little) to the big secret of the day - Dolphinaris for our 3pm appointment with some water slugs.
Fintastic!
Sydney and Soleil we're our dolphins. Solei was 27 years old.
After some dolphin fondling, the woman looked me straight in the eye and tried to sell me some digital photos for 200$US. We thought that was a tad overpriced and did not buy.
From there we took a collectivo back to Tulum and took a 3hour bus to Bacalar
Tacos at roadside place.
Accomodation the posada Guadalupe;
4th Bacalar - Chetmal - Belize City
Taxi to Cocalitos which we read gives us access to the lake, laguna Bacalar - bit like Akumal in that the lake front is controlled by the restaurants...The Maldives of Mexico, apparently
Spent a few hours cooling in the lake of 7 colours and admiring the strombolites
We had breakfast there, and aferwards took a taxi back to our room, checked out and collected our bags. We jumped into
a taxi to the bus station and then onto a nice aircon bus to Chetemal to connect with our pre-booked bus tickets to Belize city (we we're advised to book these tickets out of Mexico by our travel agent when we bought the flights)
Got some delicious Deep fried salted plantain bus station #1 and a Mexican lunch at bus station #2. We realised our tickets were for tomorrow and luckily we were able to change the date for free at the bus station.
120US to exit Mexico at the border.
Spend the rest of the ride researching what we wanted to do in Belize, and watching fleabag, my new favourite show.
We went through border control reasonably painlessly. The entire journey took just over 4 hours. We decided to walk to our first Belize accomodation, 'park view villas' as Expedia had kindly provided a map with our booking.
Strange mix of Caribbean and North America. Was lots of poverty.
Streets were in a bad way - filled with holes
Nearly sunset when we reached the point on the map, but alas no accomodation. We found an ice cream shop and discover the map was wrong. the staff called us a cab (Alfredo, a friend of theirs) to reach the real location.
I paid for ice cream with American dollars and our change was in local currency - seeing the Queen's head on the money was nice.
Finally reached the accommodation (for reference it is right on Mateus Park) it was much bigger than we expected - an entire apartment! The owner also owns the coffee shop next door and imagine our surprise when he tried to charge us over 100us for the night - just shy of twice what we were expecting. I pointed out in the ad where it said '$50 cleaning deposit'. Deposit, not surcharge. These two words mean very different things. We didn't pay the cleaning deposit.
We bought eggs and cheese from the shop behind the basketball court and we cooked an omelette for dinner. Happy kids (Netflix) and freshly cleaned clothes (washer dryer in site).
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