Southern Mexico

Arriving in Cancun, Mexico on 16th November, I enjoyed my first 3 nights at the Hyatt after my bid on priceline.com was accepted for $50 per night! For those who don't know, Priceline is a rather cool website that allows you to place a bid on 'mystery' rooms. You won't find out the actual hotel details until you've made a bid on your requested features (mine were 4 stars in Cancun for $50 US per night). It processes your bid and if accepted, the site tells you the hotel details after you make the bid and have already paid for it. You can usually get something for about 1/2 the normal price (so they say). It's better value for high end hotels that don't want to advertise 'discounted' prices to the general public but still want to fill the rooms.

It was great to lie in the sun around the beautiful beach and pool for a few days before starting my budget adventures. Cancun is very over the top touristy and tiring to be in the business district for very long as it's hot with local tour company reps constantly trying to sign you up for time share deals or tours. I did get sucked into one of the time share presentations on my first morning in return for a buffet breakfast, Mexican blanket, 2 t-shirts and nice bottle of tequila:).

Roberto, my presenter was luckily a great guy and had his mind more on his rocky relationship than high pressure sales tactics. Since this was the case, I got to enjoy my breakfast while hearing all the sordid details of this cruel..... yet wonderful woman of his while trying to give him good advice. The presentation ended in teary hugs as I packed up all my free gifts minus the purchase of a limited 3 years access to time shares all through South America for around $4,000 if I bought it on the spot. The renewal price will apparently go down after the first 3 years but given that I'm now unemployed, it wasn't really an option!

Next, I met up with my Canadian friend Travis who stopped in Mexico on his way to a holiday in Cuba. We rented a car for 3 days and drove it West of Cancun, inland to Mérida, which is the capital of the Yucatán territory. It has beautiful, historic buildings but is quite a busy town with lots of traffic. Arriving after dark, we parked on the street in front of the hostel, which wasn't marked with any signs but apparently did have a yellow curb that we couldn't see in the dark. This means it's a no parking area in Mexico even though there were other cars parked there too.. maybe it was no overnight parking? In any case, in the morning, the car was gone and the hotel staff gave us directions to the police station, which had information on where the car had been towed to.

Before I finish this happy tale, I have to admit that I was pretty worried at this point since I'd only heard awful stories previously about how corrupt the Mexican police are from friends who had been fined for (apparently) false traffic violations.

Unbelievably though, in our case the police just politely drew us a little map with directions to where they'd towed our little rental car on a nearby street that allowed parking and even apologised for not speaking better English! The car was fine and we were able to just drive it away without even a fine.. I'm pretty sure that would never happen in Canada or Australia!

Our next plan was to head part way back to Cancun from here as we had 2 nights left before having to return the car. This is where we had our second random act of local kindness when a local guy in a truck behind us, gestured wildly until we pulled over. We nervously did and were just securing our valuables as he pulled up next to us and asked if we were trying to go to Cancun. When we said yes, he told us he could see that we didn't trust him but reassured us that he just wanted to let us know we were on the wrong road and would drive in front of us to lead us back to the right one, which was just the next one parallel to us. So he did and with a simple wave, turned off again to be on his way. It was apparently obvious to him that most tourists driving in that direction were trying to get to Cancun and he was just going out of his way to help us. I've generally found the locals here to be very nice so far and haven't felt unsafe so far.

As we drove towards the signs pointing towards Cancun, we were feeling like luck was on our side until we somehow did turn onto the wrong highway, which left us driving towards Progreso, a little coastal town to the North, instead of East towards Cancun.

In our defense, the direction signs on the highway leaving Mérida all point the same way for towns located in opposite directions! We couldn't work out why that could be other than to guess that by taking any given exit, there would also be secondary roads that somehow changed directions to go towards these other towns. The extra confusion came when you actually did take one of these exits and there were often no signs at all- just more roads. It's either a really clever system somehow or the town planners are playing a cruel joke on all the tourists!

Fortunately for us we did end up in Progreso, which is one of the quantist little beach side towns I've been to, with most of the tourist being Mexicans, adding to that 'local' feel. There was also a parade that evening celebrating the Mexican Revolution(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Revolution).

The locals were showing off their skills such as Flamenco dancing, soccer tricks, gymnastics, playing music or a simple but cute little shuffle down the road, boosted by the cheering audience lined up on both sides of the street along the beach. It was such a nice event that clearly a lot of preparation went into. The Mexican music and general energy from the crowd also added to it.


The following day, we walked past a lighthouse in the middle of town, which some maintenance men had left the door open to so what else could we do but wander up to the top! Expecting them to confront us there and make us walk right back down the many steep & winding stairs again, we were surprised when they instead casually said 'hey' in the relaxed Mexican way and went on with their work.

We took this opportunity to enjoy the amazing views over the town and ocean, walking slowly around the top while taking landscape pictures in all directions.

We had a great view of the town's notable 7km wharf, which is shaped like a 7 and used by cargo ships to load and unload their vessels. Apparently, there used to be a passenger ferry across the ocean to Florida but due to PR problems with the Captains getting annoyed by delays loading passengers and so on, it stopped operating all together.


We had a feeling like this beautiful little town might get discovered sometime soon, especially since we heard there was soon to be oil drilling not far off the coast so we thought it would be a cool idea to come back in 10-15 years and retake the same pictures, marking the progress during this time.

Later that day we met a guy from Florida named Richard who had opened a little not-for-profit Maya art & craft store in the center of town. He told us the lighthouse is only officially open to the public for viewing on 1 day per year during which there is a long line down the block to go up & have a look! Lucky us:).

He also told us stories about how the Mexican government had planned to kill him twice (once in a machete ambush!) due to all the revolutionary work he had initiated in favour of Maya rights. His stories were pretty amazing although I'm not sure how accurate since he wasn't very secretive and was even letting us take his picture in front of the store!

After Progreso, we stopped at some Maya ruins called Dzibilchaltun and had a guided tour. The area also had a Cenote or water hole covered in tadpoles, amongst the ruins. This whole area was one the Mayans lived in before the Spanish invasion. It was a really peaceful and uncrowded area, which we chose to explore instead of the very popular but touristy ruins of Chichen Itza. The temple in this picture was built so that on a determined day of the year, a ray of the rising sun passes through the widows parallel to its facade and lights up a panel in a building behind it, which is why it is thought Mayas used it to correct their calendar. They invented the calendar in fact, which was developed on a cyclical basis between leap years(every 7th year) and according to our guide is the most accurate method of telling time.

Next, we stopped in Valladolid for the night. It is a very local town with beautiful, old and colourful buildings, which is also not too crowded. There are mostly locals living and visiting here also and not many foreigners, partly since it's not on the Caribbean sea.


I'm enjoying how all the Mexican towns have squares in the centre- a relaxed little park with views of the downtown on all sides and usually at least one cathedral. We found an amazing restaurant here, which was reasonably priced with an open air courtyard and fountain in the middle. The food was also delicious and it felt somewhat like eating in a museum. The atmosphere was amazingly peaceful, with nice music playing in the background. My profile pic for this blog was taken at a table in the restaurant.









Next, we cut across to the East coast, South of Cancun and stopped briefly in Playa del Carmen, which had an amazing white sand beach with the colour and texture of white flour. It was like a 'little Cancun' in some ways though unfortunately, with a similar touristy quality and bars or nightclubs on almost every corner.

With a brief stop to look at the beach here, we drove on South to Tulum, which is between Cancun and the Belize border. From here, Travis had to get back & returned our rental car to Cancun today in order to catch his onward flight. I've settled into the Hostal Casa, which has 6 beds per dorm room for around $7/night and all of the beds are queen size! There is just me and Aki from Japan sharing the room as tourism has been hit quite hard in Mexico this year, according to the guy who runs the hostel, due to Swine Flu.

Tomorrow or the next day I'm planning to take a bus towards Guatemala, to explore and study Spanish.

If you have any good tips or even better will also be in this area over the next few months do get in touch! Hasta luego mis amigos & amigas!