I have wanted to visit the island of Cozumel for a very long time. It seems though that I have missed my chance to see a beautiful Mexican Caribbean Island, as now it is just a resorters paradise/travellers hell. No local restaurants really remain, so we just ate in the supermarket. Although there is a nice waterfront to sit and have a drink on, the amount of hustlers and pedlars there are yelling hey buddy, Cuban cigars? or special price for honeymooners makes it a really offensive place to be. I only bothered to take the camera out one evening as there was a nice sunset:
The main attraction of Cozumel are the coral reefs that surround it, second in size only to the Great BarrierRreef. Unfortunately, as we are not divers we couldnt see much of it as the shallower parts were largely wiped out by hurricane Wilma. Still, it was an ok-ish snorkel trip:
Whilst we were on Isla Cozumel Tropical Storm Alex rolled in and stayed with us for the next week or so, meaning our stay inour next stop Playa del Carmen was fairly miserable. Whether this was due to the storm or the fact its easier to to get a Whopper with onion rings than tacos and guacamole I’m not sure.
As the storm started to clear we headed south again to Tulum, a place that I have been looking forward to returning to very much. Again, however, we were very disappointed. The Cabanas where you could hang a hammock that used to cost a couple of dollars a night have gone and been replaced by $100 a night cabanas with beds in, that look really really overpriced. We just camped on the beach, but even this has turned terrible, the sand is still icing sugar white and the waters still vivid turqouise, but there is so much litter now that it is quite an unpleasant place to sit. Whether this is from the recent development of hundereds of resorts and apartments in the surrounding area I do not know, but this will definitely be my third and final visit to Tulum.
The ruins, are still amazing, but whereas before there may be 2 or 3 other people there with you today it looks like this:
I can understand why, as they are amazing:
After this 3rd disappointment in a row we left Tulum beach and headed into Tulum town, a few miles inland. Here we arranged to snorkel one of the Cenotes in the area. The whole of the Yucatan Peninsular is linked by a series of underwater tunnels and sinkholes, known as Centoes. The jungle above is fed from the water in these which is why it can be so lush here even during the dry season. The snorkeling was amazing, and I only have this terrible photo of nikki swimming through one of the caves to show you, but if you are in the area I highly recommend it. You can just see in the foreground a small tetra fish, which live there alongside catfish and cichlids.
From Tulum we headed off to Merida, the State Capital of Yucatan, where we had only planned to spend a night but ended up spending 3 as it was so nice:
We stayed in a hostel with a pool, and generally got on with enjoying travelling again, after 10 fairly terrible days. From Merida we headed to Chitchen Itza, the Yucatan Peninsula’s most famous Mayan ruins. They were incredible, especially the main pyramid:
It was actually cheaper to book a tour than to make our own way on public transport to the ruins, and a nice bonus was that we got to see another cenote, a 40 metre deep sinkhole full of black catfish, the best natural swimming pool I have ever seen:
After much persuaision I got Nikki to jump of the diving platform. She is on the left, i’m on the right.
After Merida it was onto Palanque but we decided last minute to go via Campeche, the most boring colonial town we have yet visited, but with a nice view from the hostel roof.
The dorm was unreasonably hot at night, so after a few beers I asked if they would mind if I pitched our tent on the roof. They didnt, so we managed to accidently stumble across epic camping site #5
We are now in Palenque getting ready to visit the ruins and various waterfalls in the morning, then onto San Cristobal, where we will be meeting a certain JGS.
As you may know by now our plans have changed and we are coming home about three weeks earlier than we thought on 6th August. I will try and do a couple more blogs before then. So until next time, I shall not be as smug.
I demand at leasst two more blogs before your return!
Otherwise you’ll just have to blog from london and that would be boring.