Life's a beach

We arrived here in Tulum a few days ago after another meal-less flight on Aeromexico followed by a fast 2 hour car transfer. On the flight, RM caught up with a newspaper and spotted an article which said there had been a 5.1 earthquake in Mexico City the day before. He said he was sure he felt the earth move!

We are staying at the dreadfully named Hip Hotel, although there is nothing dreadful about it.  The place consists of 20 cabanas located right on a white sandy beach.  Shoes are not required at all during the day and we put on sandals to dress up in the evening.

Our days have fallen into a routine.

6am - the sun starts streaming through our bedroom window, the birds start to sing and we wake to the sound of crashing waves.


Our room is top left

7am - suitably lathered in sunscreen, we have a morning constitutional along the beach walking past many other small beach front places very similar to ours.  There are no high rise buildings and many have been built using natural materials with thatched roofs.  The beach seems endless and stretches for much further than we can walk.
 

8am to 10am - sunbathing, reading and the odd dip in the beautiful, turquoise Caribbean sea.

10am - a late American breakfast

11am to 1pm - more beach (in)activity - the Kindle and hotel library are really working well.

1pm - a respite from the sun - either a couple of Corona beers with possibly a light snack depending on what we've had for dinner the previous night,

Afternoon until 5pm - sunning, reading, dipping

5pm to 7pm - is happy hour at the next hotel so we usually manage to put in an appearance for dos margarita.

Evenings - are spent having dinner at one of half a dozen very different restaurants all within a few minutes walk from the Hip!

10pm - lights out ready for another exhausting day.

PR is also having a well earned break.  He is well looked after by our room maid, who is giving him lessons in towel art.

If this routine deviates significantly, we will let you know!

A Mexican Wave

Breakfast on our first day in Mexico City, was on the terrace overlooking the square: once again we had it to ourselves. 

An early morning coffee in the Deli will never be the same again!

Our morning was spent re-acquainting ourselves with the area around the Zocolo. We then decided it was time for some culture and took in two of the cities many museums. We'd tried to pick two that would tell us something about the history of Mexico but ended up learning about the Egyptians - a bit like the British Museum! 

We then headed out to the Artisan Market only to find most of it closed, despite the flyer professing it would be open (perhaps it was because it was Palm Sunday).

Many of the streets were closed off to traffic because of some kind of bike-a-thon. There was also a huge police presence, many of them clad in riot gear.  Mexican cyclists are obviously prone to violence.

Mexico City Cathedral

It was a long and tiring day.  At least the following day was spent out of the city.

First stop was Cuernavaca, famous for its excellent climate, old town square containing many churches and the cathedral and the birth place of the hero of the revolution, Zapata.  RM proceeded to tell Mario all about the Zapata moustache - something HJ had no idea about!

After a gentle stroll around the town, we headed for Taxco, famous for silver mining and design.  This journey took us back up into the mountains and a height above 3000m.  The cobbled streets are very narrow and our driver weaved his way around until he found a car park.  We found we had many steps to climb before reaching a small plaza with countless silver jewelry stores.  Our driver Mario, took us into his favourite and introduced us to the owner who then gave us a brief history about silver design and an annual competition showing us some of the winning entries from previous years.  He produced a replica set of jewellery made for Frida Kahlo which HJ was allowed to try on (value $6,000). 

He started plying us with drinks to loosen our purse strings, little did he know! he showed us the top range of his stock but we bade our time until the value of the items being pointed out came within our range and the glasses we dry.  HJ then made a few purchases with BOO vouchers.

With all parties happy, we celebrated with an excellent light lunch on a balcony overlooking the square.

After lunch, Mario guided us around the warren of hilly, narrow streets and the market.  On sale were bags of live beetles, apparently a favourite stuffed into a tortilla before they fly off: luckily we had eaten.

The town was very picturesque and we would love to return one day. 

We had an early start to see the daily Mexican version of trooping their huge flag in the Zocolo at 8.00am accompanied by a military band and all the trimmings. 

We then had breakfast before getting even more touristy by clambering onto an open-top bus for a tour. 

Bad photo: bad bus ride

Three weary hours of non-stop red traffic lights and hardly any sights later, we eased ourselves off now feeling far more sympathy for the tourists who dog our every move around Parliament.  We tried to get up the Torre Latino Americano high tower for good city views, but the Easter week queues beat us so we ditched our tourist wristbands and headed for the best value wine bar in town - our hotel bar, bliss! 

We fly to our final destination next: the relatively quiet village of Tulum.  We are likely to be a bit cut off IT-wise so postings may be sparse.  We think we can stand it for a couple of weeks. 

River deep, Mountain high

Having said goodbye to San Cristobal in style with an excellent meal at an authentic Mayan restaurant complete with marimba music, we were more than ready for Alberto to pick us up and transfer us to Tuxtla airport for our flight to Mexico City.

The itinerary had suggested there may be time for a short boat ride.  But nothing prepared us for the treat in store. After a blissful hour on a four lane, smooth highway, going quickly downhill and popping our ears as we went from over 2000m to around 500m, we pulled off and parked at a river jetty and put on life jackets in readiness for a shared trip through the Sumidero Canyon. The first surprise was that our shared boat turned out to be us, Alberto and thankfully someone to steer the boat.

The river cuts its way through 2000m high cliffs and is at times 200m deep.  Over the next two hours we passed through spectacular scenery including caves, stalactites and wildlife with our guides giving background commentary. 

A bonus was an annual swimming competition where around 100 foolhardy Mexicans willingly swim for around 2 hours through the crocodile infested river (yes we did see some)!

The swimmers getting ready to set off

Wind and sun blown we arrived back at the jetty to hear the magic sentence from Alberto, "would you like a beer before you set off?"

This is the boat we had to ourselves!

Our lunch time flight to Mexico City took off on time and although we could have a beer, there was no food apart from a packet of nuts.

Our hotel is dead city centre and overlooks the main plaza called the Zocolo.  Unfortunately it is covered in huge marquees for some mobile media event.  It is due to end on Sunday and so hopefully it will be restored to its beauty before we leave.

Our hotel on the corner

The hotel has a roof top terrace overlooking the cathedral and square and so we took the opportunity to celebrate our arrival with what for us is the first bottle of rose of the summer. We then returned to our room to hear CNN telling us about the snow back in England!

Living the High Life

We set off after breakfast with our new guide, Alberto. Our first stop was Agua Azul, a series of waterfalls that due to deposits in the rocks of the river, the pools are an amazing bright blue. 

The only thing that lay between us and our destination of San Cristobal, was the now very familiar hills, twists and turns and those awful speed bumps.  Added to the bumps were hoards of children shoving all manner of things through the car window for us to buy.  This time, the mothers were joining in by adding a washing line across the road to slow us down even more.  We duly arrived 2 hours later.

San Cristobal is a lovely colonial town with three important ingredients for us: a centrally located hotel (Casa Mexicana), numerous bars and restaurants and safe streets. A winning combination! More importantly, restaurants are open late and so early dinners and nights are postponed for now. The only downside is the altitude, because the town and surrounding villages are all around 2,500m high making traipsing around very hard work.

Above is Casa Santa Domingo, under threatening skies.  Although the days are sunny, the evenings are quite cool (but probably not as chilly as England right now) and our fleeces are now being unpacked.

We visited two nearby indigeous villages, San Juan Chamula and Zinacantan.  It was a fascinating morning spent understanding their way of life and the links between Maya and Catholic cultures.  In SJC we were taken around the neighbourhood and shown homes belonging to the Mayan elite who you must not photograph at any cost. Traditional costumes are worn, with the men wearing a cream tabard of a very shaggy material tied around the waist with a belt. 

From a post card as you cannot photograph them

 We were allowed into one of their homes to see the alter, statues and other offerings to their saints. Whilst we were there a gathering took place that included incense being wafted throughout the room and various other activities (oh to be able to press a shutter button and capture it).

We moved on to the church which is very much this villages' cultural centre and every week stages a special ceremony in homage to the Mayan gods.  In the church we met a spectacular sight.  The marble floor was covered in dried grasses and family groups gathered sat on the floor lighting candles of all sizes and colours each with a different meaning  - there were literally hundreds of candles. They also scatter petals and offer both a soft drink (e.g. bottle of coke) and the local hooch known as posh.  The final act is the sacrifice of chickens which were being contained alive in black plastic bin liners.  As all this went on, music was playing and fireworks were going off outside. 

At Zinacantan we visited Antonio's House where a Mayan family have opened up their home to tourists.  You can see the various costumes they wear and of course visit the obligatory shop full of weavings.  HJ bought a lovely purple scarf so she can face the winter chills on returning home.  

In the kitchen granny was making tortillas from the four different coloured corn (black, white, yellow and red) which we were able to taste filled with cheese, black beans, guacamole and a rather piquant salsa.  

We also visited their church which was a far more catholic based affair without the crowds and with preparations aimed at forthcoming Easter festivities.

It was a long day and we felt quite exhausted at the end of it and not very hungry, nor did the bar beckon. We blamed the altitude.

Our final day in San Cristobal was spent on our own and we found the first frustration was the weird and varying opening and closing times of shops and attractions which did not coincide with our agenda. However, we persevered and RM got his hair cut, HJ phoned home, had an ice-cream and a massage to ease the aching legs.

To some extent this is the final chapter of our tour: we fly to Mexico City tomorrow for four nights (strictly speaking this is not in Central America) but we return, when we fly to Tulum for 13 nights on the beach (but with Mayan ruins within a stone's throw).  Next week starts the beginning of Holy Week which is a huge event over here: we are not quite sure what it means for us.  We think we will ether love it or hate it.

Bring on the dancing girls

Our "warm down" from the previous day's excursions, was a trip to the nearby Maya site of Palenque.  The big difference between this site and others is that the location is very green and it is very, very humid.  Unfortunately, it has the same steep, deep steps, which walking up in the heat was even more difficult.

Just before the climb to the very top

Even though we arrived at the site just after opening at 8am, this was the busiest one we've visited both with bus loads of tourists and hundreds of local people setting out souvenirs on blankets on the ground.  Edgar, being a local boy, was very adept at avoiding the crowds and taking us around the site through little used routes.

We left the site, via a route though the jungle, passing a lovely waterfall.

After our exertions the next day and a half were spent doing nothing more strenuous that climbing the steps down in to the pool and up to the restaurant and bar. 

On our final afternoon, our peace was disturbed by excited older men with all sorts of cameras, who began clearing the sun beds around us, but they insisted we could stay where we were. 

We were soon surrounded by dozens of gaily dressed young girls of all ages.  The director then set up the music centre and we worked out they were going to be filming folkloric dancing.

It felt quite bizarre to be sat in our swimsuits whilst all this was happening around us.  HJ even thought about joining the chorus line!

Tomorrow is transfer day again, this time to San Cristabal.

The Final Frontier

Hugo arrived bang on the arranged time of 7am for the transfer from Guatemala to Mexico.  He introduced himself and dashed off to the loo!  During the three hour journey we stopped three more times: he blamed drinking a huge bottle of water before setting off! The last hour of the journey was along an unpaved, bumpy and very dusty road.  Nonetheless he got us to Bethel, the Guatemalan border crossing, where during a final comfort break, our passports were stamped. 

A straight, but dusty and bumpy road

We then boarded a boat on the Rio Usumacinta for the 30 minute trip to the Mexican side of the border, where we were handed over to the non-incontinent Edgar, who walked us up a steep hill, to get Mexican formalities completed.

We boarded yet another boat, a long tailed motorised canoe, for another 30 minute journey to Yaxchilan, a Maya ruin deep in the jungle which can only be reached by river.  Meanwhile PR and all our bags remained with the driver.

Unfortunately Edgar was a very fit young man and had us bounding up steep and deep steps to see wonderful carvings at the top of the high temples. He was enthusiastic without being boring and brought the stories of the Royal Mayan families to life.  We left Yaxchilan with aching knees and backs, but at the least the return boat journey was smooth and cooling as the heat and humidity is very high.

Back to the car, PR, driver and bags for an hour's drive to our next site at Bonampak.  On the journey we decided to skip lunch as there was so much to do. On arrival at Bonampak Edgar explained that the road was owned by the local Mayan tribe which meant transferring from our plush, AC saloon into a rather beaten up "thing" with a couple of windows missing  - which is just as well as there were no winders!  We called this our "MayaMobile".

Our reward for clambering yet another set of vertiginous stone steps, was a series of murals detailing the life of the Royals, a fierce battle and the rather gruesome aftermath of the torture of the prisoners.

Finally, after the return journey by MayaMobile, we got back into our car for the two hour journey to Palenque where we arrived, hot, sweaty, thirsty, tired and hungry at 6.30pm!

After a quick shower to freshen up, you can probably guess where we headed!

How tikal'd we were

Our two days at La Lancha have been very different.

Our first day started early with a 6am departure for Tikal, one of the most powerful and dominant cities of the classic Maya period. It was a huge site, set in jungle, and only re-discovered over the last century. 


Antonio our guide, was very knowledgeable and filled our heads with lots of names, facts, figures and dates - some of which stuck!  His forte however, was to get us around the temples, palaces and pyramids whilst managing to avoid large groups (although the benefit of our early start made this less of a problem). 

The literal highlight were the six temples, all in different stages of being unearthed from the jungle. 

The tallest at 70m was temple 4 which we were able to climb using a very solid wooden staircase of 180 steps.  At the top, we were on our own to enjoy the terrific views of the whole site.

RM on the way up to Temple 4

Antonio then took us through jungle trails showing us many aspects of Mayan life that supported the 100,000 inhabitants of the city.

This ranged from underground food storage, reservoirs and the political and religious way of life.

Thankfully, only a small percentage of the site has been sufficiently uncovered, otherwise our trip would have taken far more than the four hours that we spent there.

Marching down long Mayan roads and climbing up and down all the various buildings, was very wearing on our poor old knees.  We finished the tour with a look around the thankfully small, but interesting museum of artifacts.

A tiny RM at the huge Temple 5 which you are no longer able to climb due to the rickety staircase.

Our final day in Guatemala was spent started when we hiked back down the steep hill to the jetty to catch a boat that we had booked to take us across the lake to Flores, the biggest town in the area.  The water was very still and the crossing was only 45 minutes to be dropped off on the malecon. 

HJ with the shape of the sland picked out of the plaster on a local house

Flores is actually a small island connected by man made causeway to the mainland. It is very colonial and picturesque topped as usual by cathedral and town square.  We strolled right around the malecon, browsed in the gift shops and eventually found a nice place for lunch which overlooked the lake.

HJ on the Malecon at Flores

The crossing back was a different story.  After a few minutes, our lady skipper slowed the boat and made up and down motions with her hands.  We nodded saying si, si but not quite understanding.  It soon became apparent as we hit the first swell and we then spent the next hour bouncing back to our jetty where we alighted and walked knock kneed back to our room.

Tomorrow we move on to Mexico, our last country although one we've visited before.

Monkey business

Just when we thought the Belize border jinx had hit again (with no one to meet us), Henry rode up to the rescue. Not only that, he provided in-car snacks of fresh fruit, nachos and dips, cookies and bananas for our 90 minute journey to the shores of Lago Peten Itza and La Lancha a small, boutique hotel (10 rooms) owned by Francis Ford Coppola. 

On our arrival we were greeted by our new neighbours, a tree full of howler monkeys right outside our thatched cottage.

 

Before lunch, HJ suggested we pop down to the lakeside as we'd been told of a beach and bar.  We followed a passing member of staff down an initial flight of paved steps but as he seemed to be continuing further and further down a very steep, now wooden and dirt stairway, we called him to check that we were travelling in the right direction.  He turned, smiled and said follow me.  Eventually we came upon a well equipped bar on the shores of the lake with a jetty leading to a lovely sun-deck. Who could resist a Gallo cervaza?

HJ on the hike back up from the bar

The afternoon was spent around the pool, just the two of us, with books from the library as the only other two guests were out.

When we went up the twenty or so steps to the restaurant for dinner, we found each of them lit by candles at both ends.  And on returning to our room after a bottle of Mr Coppala's exceedingly good SB, we found our deck also lit by candles.  All very romantic.

Rain did not stop play

As rain put an end to our planned paddle to the Belize Botanic Gardens at a nearby lodge, we had to settle for plan B - a taxi (or at least a four door pick-up).  At $15 each way, it seemed a bit steep, but so were the muddy hills we covered on the four mile journey.

Thankfully, the sun started to smile on us as we headed for the entrance to the self guided trail.  

We didn't know what to expect but we spent the next hour and a half looking at a wonderful range of trees, shrubs, flowers and orchids.  

All of which were cleverly and wittily described in the handbook we were given. For example, do you know why cashew nuts are so expensive?  The cashew tree bears fruit (which can be eaten and made into wine - tasted later that evening) which have a single nut on the bottom.  Also the leaves from the buttonwood tree are used in ritual baths to cure a spiritual sickness called "mal viento" or bad wind. Expect to be "entertained" by many more interesting facts on return!

After lunch in a tree top restaurant, we returned to Chaa Creek for a visit around the Butterfly House and Natural History Centre.

HJ then spent the afternoon "bird watching" from the hammock on the porch.

After avoiding the conch soup earlier in our stay in Belize, we decided to have the conch fritters for dinner.  They were better than octopus, but only slightly, and RM had to manfully help HJ out whilst she majored on the delicious garlic mashed potato.  RM made feeble jokes about conch (couch) potatoes!

Tomorrow, we return to Northern Guatemala to visit the Maya ruins at Tikal.