Last stop: Tulum

We left Punta Allen early in the a.m. because we were dying for a hot shower and I really had to do some business transactions online, otherwise things would not be happy in our company/business world.
We had to find a fisherman that would sell us some gas (there is no gas station)--at least enough to get up to the Pemex in Tulum, and we took off.
We first stopped at on of the little boutique resorts in Boca Paila on the way for some coffee and breakfast. Now mind you, it took us a good hour + to even get to there. We stopped arbitrarily at a place called Villas Las Estrallas which was very cute and had good food and coffee, albeit definitely gringo/european prices. We struck up a conversation with the couple sitting at a table next to us and they were very interesting--living in Costa Rica for 6 months and the US for 6 months. The waiter was at his wit's end because apparently a lot of the staff didn't show up due to major partying the night before on Christmas Eve. That is when most Mexicans celebrate Christmas.
On to Tulum, we found a hotel on the main drag with everything we needed: hot water and Wi-Fi. Plus it was only 400 pesos a night (came to around 67.00 USD for 2 nights)

Tulum has a main drag with lots of little touristy shops and restaurants, but there are still some cheapo local places to eat. We chose one of those: Pollo Bronco, where you could get a whole grilled chicken with rice and salsa for only 100 pesos (about 8 USD)--perfect to split between two people

The next day we rented bicycles and rode out to the public beach. Tulum has a nice bicycle path that goes out to the turn off to the public beach and also down to Boca Pailo where the boutique hotels are.

Phil cruising on the main drag^
The first little beach we came to had a beach area and a very picturesque rocky area. Here is where you can swim nude if you want although we did see a few women sunbathing topless at the public beach. NO pictures of that, sorry guys!

Here is a picture of the main public beach, which is lovely, with a couple hotels right off the beach that have restaurants as well

After a while we pedaled back to town and relaxed, napping and taking it easy until dinner. We had an amazing dinner at a place on the main drag called "Buenos Aires" which specialized in grilled meats and seafood. I liked Tulum a lot. A little touristy, but not obnoxiously so. YOu can still find good deals here and the town is very laid back. A LOT of Europeans and very few Americans, which gives the town a different feel that I definitely enjoyed.
Thus ended our time in Mexico. Back home to Belize and our doggies. Some American friends express concern about traveling to Mexico--no need to worry. The police presence here, particularly in the touristed areas is HUGE. There are cops of every kind everywhere all the time. Mexican cops can be corrupt, but generally not where it concerns the general tourist. Mexico knows that tourism is one of it's biggest money-makers and I think they are really trying to protect that. I love Mexico and will come here again and explore more of the country! We've been to the Pacific coast a couple of times and loved it, but would like to try further south on the Pacific near Guatemala. A big country with lots to see and do! Hasta Luego, Mexico!

Puerto Allen, or the Edge of Mexico

After saying "Adios" to Valladolid (such a nice town! You should definitely visit it!), wee headed down the road to find Punta Allen. We got turned around at Coba (Maya ruin site), but not for long, and found our way to the road that takes you down a long long long peninsula to PUnta Allen. Just out side Tulum, at first the road is paved with many little boutique resorts. And I mean many. Like, as in, back to back. Honestly, I don't know how they all make money...probably by charging exorbitant price. After that small stretch of road there was approx. 50 miles or road that looked like this

Which lead to the small village of Punta Allen. We were going to rent a room at this one place I found on the internet, but it wasn't quite to our liking, so we looked around and found this place, Costa Del Sol, which was right on the beach and cheap! Only $50.00/night

Here are some pics of our casita etc

Punta Allen is a tiny little village where there is only power 6 hours a day,There is no cell serice there. There is an internet cafe that is open about 2 hours a day, but no wi-fi. It was a good place to unwind and disconnect. However, after about 2 days of beach, sleeping, cold showers and eating, we were ready to go. Plus, note to english-only speakers: very very little english is spoken in villages like this, or even in larger places like Valladolid in the interior, so it is helpful to learn a few words of Spanish to help you get by and bring your translation book. I will leave you with a few pics of PUnta Allen

Swimming in Cenotes

Our last day in Valladolid we decided to explore the cenotes in the area. A cenote is a place where the limetone has collapsed allowing water from underground aquifers or springs to come up. They are usually very clear and swimmable. Mexico has many of these, although Belize has a very few and I have also seen one in the Bahamas (odd, since those are islands).
First we visited Cenote Zaci, right in the heart of Valladolid. It was quite open, as far as these go; usually they are way down in the ground. The openness, allowing light in, meant it wasn't as clear as some, but still lovely.

Here is a pic of Phil sitting on a large tree branch that hung over the cenote. Too high for me!! yikes!

After we left there, we walked back to the square and through the park

Then we hopped in the car and headed out to Dzitnup where two famous cenotes are located. The two are right across the street from one another, but you have to pay for each one separately. It is set up nicely with bathrooms small food vendors. We first went into cenote X'keken which turned out to be our favourite one

The water was clear and refreshing and there were a few people swimming. We swam too!

After that we walked across the street to cenote Samula. It had more tree roots and stalagtites, but for some reason we like the first one better

There are thick ropes strung across in the water occasionally to give you something to stand on if you get tired. I thought it was a good idea. Near the sides of both cenotes it was shallow enough to stand on the limestone. There were fishes in both cenotes--tiny ones in the first one and bigger ones in the second. They were eating the dead skin cells off my legs and it felt funny! But a lot of people pay good money for skin treatments that accomplished the same thing. After a fresh coco frio (fresh green coconut juice) we headed back to town.
That evening we just walked around the square. Phil succeeded in buying some pants that actually fit him at a small fashion clothing store for guys. It is hard to buy clothes for him in the US because the clothes are made for large people, so he loves to shop in Central America and Mexico. Near the square they were having a pageant to chose La Reina Etnia 2013, which loosely traslates as "Ethnic Queen". In this case, the contestants were women dressed in traditional Yucatec Maya dresses and demonstrating their knowledge of folklore and dancing. The contestants told all about themselves and their families in both Spanish and Yucatec Maya, and then sang, danced or demonstrated some folkloric knowledge.

It was interesting to me to hear the Yucatec Maya spoken because I am more used to hearing Kek'chi Maya, which is widely spoken in our part of Belize (along with Mopan). Yucatec is a bit softer, with less !clicking! and more "shooshing" sounds.
Thus ends our last day in Valladolid!

The Big Day

Ok, so the Big Day started like any other. it was a bit rainy in the a.m., but the rain stopped. It did, however, stay rather windy and cloudy all day. We headed out after breakfast to Chichen Itza about 24 miles to the west of here (Valladolid). Traffic wasn't bad until we got close to the site..then it was a huge clusterfork. There were people, cars, motorcycles, buses everywhere! And lots and lots of police of all kinds. Guess they were waiting for the aliens too. Some enterprising locals had cleared places in the bush to the side of the road for impromptu parking. We walked about 1/2 a mile to the site.

 When we got there, it was already getting crowded and this was fairly early in the day--around 10 a.m.
There were not only the regular park staffers corraling people and guiding them through the chutes (kinda like cattle), the Scouts (boys and girls) were there assisting. We finally made it through the gauntlet of souvenir sellers to the big pyramid

There were people everywhere!! And it hadn't even really gotten bad yet.I won't bore you with pics of the structures too much--you can see those anywhere on the internet. There were tons of hippies, New Agers, tour groups, etc. etc. A really interesting mix of people

People sleeping ^ They probably stayed up all night waiting for the aliens to appear. Probably needed some more windowpane for that to occur.

People meditating ^

People playing instruments ^  This chick was pretty good! Very nice background music to the goings-on.

People taking cheesy pictures in front of the pyramid ^
There were a LOT of people wearing white. I mean, like, at least 20% of the crowd had all white on. I guess we missed the memo on that! Supposed to be all about purification and healing, I guess to help the wearer. Or maybe to be easier to identify by the aliens as True Believers. Who knows?
We finally decded to go to PIste (small town just next to the site) and walk around and have lunch. Quaint typical little Mexican town like any other. A few restaurants, small shops, and a small town square. I wonder what they thought of all the brou-ha-ha? I'll bet they loved the chance to make some extra $$ even if they had to put up with a lot of noise and mayhem. The cops were on patrol though

Rollin' through town^ Mexican stylee.......
Since the Synthesis 2012 gathering was going on in Piste there were a lot of interesting folks there and we came across these people practicing their drumming and dancing. It was very good!

After that, we went back to the site for a while. It was really really crowded for a while...we napped on the grass...people watched....talked to some folks....I got my picture taken a few times because you know how people just love pictures of tattooed freaks like me.....All in all it was a good day! However, since we saw The Sign....we decided to head back to town.

The Sign^
(for those of you who don't read Spanish, it says "2012 it's not the end, it's the start of the party!"

Bacalar to Valladolid

We left Hotel Lacuna and Lake Bacalar headed north to Valladolid. It was a fairly unremarkable drive. The highway before Felipe Carrillo Puerto (a small town) was a really good divided highway. We stopped once for coffee and restroom at this place

It was basically a snack shack but they had coffee (instant, of course) and restrooms. Word up to people who don't know: a lot of small public restrooms like this throughout Mexico and Central America do not have toilet seats. Now, I do not sit on public toilet seats anyway, but if you are unfamiliar with the lack of
toilet seats that may come as a surprise. They also had a couple of young coatimundis for pets.Coatimundis are similar to raccoons with longer tails. They DO NOT make good pets (just like raccoons). In Belize, it is illegal to keep these as pets, but people still do it. Here is a pic of one up near the palapa roof

After Felippe Carrillo Puerto the road turned into an undivided highway that was pretty desolate with the exception of small villages occasionally featuring mainly traditional thatch houses like this

There were obviously a lot of people living off in the bush also because we saw men on those 3-wheeled bicycles with the carts on the front gathering firewood way off in between villages. Cooking with firewood is common here (as it is in many parts of Belize).
We arrived in Valladolid, a charming colonial town of about 50,000 people. It features a nice central park and other green spaces. We stayed at El Meson del Marques--a lovely hotel right on the square. Here is Phil cheesin' in our room

And a picture of the pool courtyard that our room was right beside

That evening we walked around the square and checked out fhe shops along the streets near our hotel. There were a lot of tour buses in town at one point which made things a bit hectic--people getting ready for the "end of the world" on the 21st. The local dance company put on a really neat show in the park that was a recreation of a Maya ceremony and they explained what the primary gods (represented by the dancers) were. This was all in Spanish, but fortunately I understand enough to follow along. Here is a pic of the drummers and dancers together.

Here are some close ups of the dancers and drummers

This guy was my favourite-

the one with the big headdress^  I wish the pics had been better but it was kind of dark there.
I will close this blog post with a pic of how they deliver Domino's Pizza here

Corozal to Bacalar

We crossed the Belize border to head into Mexico in the a.m. and it was pretty easy. We left our truck in the yard on the Belize side because it wasn't tagged yet with permanent Belize tags. Cheap to park--3.00 BZ for day parking and 10.00 BZ for overnight (that is $6.50 US for 24 hours). We took the bus over the border to Mexico immigration in Chetumal, and then snagged a taxi to get to a car rental place. Well, easier said than done....The taxi guy took us to about 4 car rental places before we found one that even HAD a car in the yard to rent--it being the holidays and all. The car wouldn't even be back until 3:00 in the afternoon, so we had about 4 hours to kill. We wandered through the mercado (market) on the main drag and found a little place to eat

Here is a sign from the eatery ^. When you go to these places a lot of the menu signs are hand made and
you just have to ask if they have what you want. Phil wanted grilled chicken, which they had. I had huevos and chorizo. After we ate we kind of walked around and decided to check out this place

It's the Museum of Maya Culture. HOwever, the main part of the museum was under renovation, so we checked out some art exhibits on display. There was one photographic display that featured photos of the cañeras--people who work in the sugar can fields. That is one of the hardest, crappiest, jobs in the world and they hardly get paid squat. There was a pretty courtyard in the middle of the museum

This cool sculpture was outside the museo on the street.
 The downtown of Chetumal was typical of any Mexican city I have every been in--small shops, a mercado where everything from clothing to meat is sold (fresh butchering--no refrigeration required here!), a little park with shade trees and benches for lounging. We got some coffee, snacked on some fresh fruit and roasted favas and checked out everything while we killed time.
We went back to the car rental place (which was actually in a hotel) and the guy said the car wasn't back and might not be back for 2 or 3 days....WHAT???? We wasted all that time waiting on that car? Well, by this time we had just about figured out that it was going to be the bus or nothing....but he made a call and found a car over at one other place. It was more $$ than we wanted, but we really wanted a car. yeah, we can do the backpacking thing, taking buses etc, but it was more hassle than we wanted and we really weren't set up for that. Anyhoo---we went to the place, got the car, and we were off to Lake Bacalar where we had reservations at this place

Really nice place on Lake Bacalar. Here is a pic of the sunset over the hotel/lake

The only draw back was their internet connection really sucked. LIke, as in, almost non-existent. I do a lot of business online so I felt lost. Anyhoo, there are some pics of the place

Phil trying to listen in on the neighbours. Check out the shell overhead lights

Guess they used Google Translator on this one ^

The pool-side bar at Hotel Lacuna ^

The ceiling over the bar--all shells! Cool!!!
Thus ends day 2 of our adventure! Onwards into the Yucatan peninsula tomorrow!!