Hola Mexico!

The journey from Quito to Mexico was always going to be a tough one. Because of the way our round the world ticket works, we need to go via Miami and then back to Cancun. At least one thing’s for sure, I’ve travelled to the US more times than I care to remember and I know for certain that we don’t need visas…. so you can imagine my shock when when we arrive at the check-in desk at Quito airport and I’m told we should have registered online with ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) and that our boarding cards can’t be issued until we’ve done so. When I reflect, I haven’t been to the US for a few years and in the meantime it seems the system has changed.  After a brief discussion (!) I sprint to find the nearest internet service in the cafe upstairs and frantically start to complete the registrations – I’ve got about 20 minutes to complete 5 applications; that’s just 4 minutes each! I’m dismayed to see the length of the form and even more so to discover that all the information has to be entered twice for confirmation of accuracy. At this point, I’m convinced the only way we will make the flight is if it’s delayed. Still, I stay calm and work as quickly and accurately as possible. Once complete (definitely more than 20 minutes later), I race back to the check in desk and am relived when the confirmation appears on their computer. Despite my initial protests, the guy at the desk is incredibly helpful – he tells us to follow him and he whisks us to the gate, half-walking, half-running, jumping the queues at security and passport control – we make it but are the last passengers to board. We take a deep breath and walk calmly down the aisle to our seats, smiling serenely at the faces of the passengers already seated, all looking in our direction!

I’ve foolishly decided that there will be so many reasonable motels near Miami airport it’s not necessary to book somewhere in advance. However, when we arrive late in the evening, that doesn’t seem to be the case. There is one hotel in the airport complex but it’s completely full and the staff there won’t let me use the Internet to find another. It’s certainly not the sort of approach to encourage us to stay there next time we are passing through Miami!

I eventually manage to find an information desk book us in to a Days Inn Motel – it’s got a free shuttle service at least. By the time we arrive its about 10.30pm. In front of us at the check-in, there is the most enormously obese man and his matching girlfriend / wife. It’s a long time since I’ve visited the US and it’s shocking – the children have never seen anything like it. They are so wide we can barely see the reception desk. It takes about 20 minutes to get checked in and about another hour (with several reminder phone calls to reception) before the staff manage to get us an extra mattress and bedding in the room. As I’m walking across the car park and then struggling up the stairs with my standard load of 4 large rucksacks (one on the front, one on the back, one in each hand), it strikes me that the guy at reception probably carries more weight than this every step of his life – a frightening thought!

So we eventually get to sleep at around 12.30am and need to be up 3 hours later to get back to the airport. The children get up and out without a word of complaint – extraordinary! We fly to Mexico City, hang around for 3 hours and then it’s on to Cancun. The heat hits us as we come out of the airport but we manage to get a taxi for the two hour drive down to Tulum. The drive is not so interesting; it’s flat, it’s hot, and it’s just the highway running parallel to the coast, but with no views of the ocean. And still there are no complaints or tantrums from the back seat – they really have done incredibly well.

We are staying at El Punto hostel; it’s very simple, but we have two big bedrooms with 3 beds in each, so we know we are going to sleep well. There’s no bar, no restaurant and no pool, just a small outdoor shared kitchen area (where there are a few too many wasps). It’s crazy, because whoever is sitting behind the reception desk is doing nothing all day, when they could also be serving drinks and / or food.  But right next door there’s a hotel with a lovely pool and a really good restaurant. They seem not to mind us hanging around for as long as we want and using the pool. However, it feels only fair to occasionally put some money over the bar, which is a perfectly good excuse to have the occasional margarita I think. And they are the real deal!

We manage to hire bicycles for the week to get around; mine has a small carriage for Millie attached to the back. Given that the bikes are the ‘sit up and beg’ type with only one gear, I’m very grateful for the fact that it’s very flat around here! It’s certainly very hot work peddling around town as Millie relaxes in the back, playing with her dolls.

Tulum is a small town that’s made up of two distinct parts. There’s the town itself, where we are staying, which is just grid of rough roads, with most of the shops and restaurants along the main highway that runs through the town. Then there’s the road that runs along the beach, a couple of kilometres out from the town itself. Here it’s hotel after hotel, restaurant after restaurant – all small and individual, not built up and ruined like many resorts. Not surprisingly, hotels are more expensive out here than in the town itself. Unfortunately it seems that there is an unseasonal slew of seaweed that has washed up along the entire length of the coast – it’s not a disaster but it does make the prospect of swimming in the sea a little less attractive. 

We spend quite a lot of our time here hanging around the hotel next door – it’s really hot and it’s what the children want to do, so why not? The Yucatan peninsula is famous for its cenotes – sink holes with clear, cool water that have been eroded in the sandstone rock. We visit a few of them – the first is Cenote Calavera, a fairly short but searingly hot cycle ride up a busy main road. When we arrive, we are certainly ready for a swim – it’s a very simple place, with just the natural cenote and a couple of tables and benches. There are only two other people there – a couple of European girls who are travelling – and they leave before too long. The water is about 5 metres down from the edge of a hole about 10m across. There’s a simple wooden ladder down, or of course, you can jump straight in! The water is deliciously cool – significantly cooler and more refreshing than the pool at the hotel and more refreshing than the salt water of the sea – it’s perfect on a day like this. The hole opens up into a cave beneath, perhaps 3-4 times the size of the area of the hole above; there are a couple of much smaller holes letting shafts of light through, and the chatter of thousands of bats hanging from the ceiling (they occasionally fly around over our heads as we swim). There’s also a rope swing, suspended over the water and an old inflatable dinghy (which could do with a bit more air in it!). Outside, there’s a large iguana quietly surveying everything that’s going on as he soaks up the sun. We have a fabulous time, swimming and jumping in – it’s a bit nerve-wracking jumping through the tiny skylight holes; there’s always the thought that you might crack your head or scrape yourself on the rocks on the way down, but needless to say it’s bigger than it looks. It’s a real thrill jumping though into the inky blackness below, wondering when your feet are going to hit the water!

The second is the Grand Cenote, another kilometre’s cycle up the same road. This one is much busier and more sophisticated, with wooden steps and decking around what is a much larger cenote. There are turtles swimming in the water, which is even fresher than at Calavera – we can only stay in for about 10 minutes at a time before we have to climb out and warm up in the sunshine. Again, there are caves to swim into, one with impressive stalactites that go deep down into the water. The children love the turtles, but on balance we prefer the simplicity of Calavera.

Our final cenote is Cenote Crystal – it’s quite different to the others, with the water pretty much at ground level rather than several metres below, set among trees, and no caves. It’s more like a regular lake than the other two cenotes. There are quite a few Mexican families here, picnicking and swimming. There’s a fabulous tower that’s been built to jump off (all these cenotes are several metres deep, so no danger of hitting the bottom), although there’s quite a bit of weed floating on the surface so it doesn’t have quite the same feel of gorgeously clean and pure freshness that the others had.

We cycle out to the Tulum Mayan ruins – the first time we arrive too late (everything here seems to close at 5pm), so that was a hot and sweaty cycle ride for nothing (with Millie in her chariot on the back of my bike and the seat not going up quite as high as I would like, I’m the only one to notice the tiny gradients that we encounter!) Although we do stop for a drink and a bite to eat at one of the beautiful little hotel / restaurants alongside this stretch, sitting on the rocks and overlooking the sea.

The second time we manage to arrive a bit earlier and do a quick scoot around. It’s set in a stunning location, on a rocky outcrop directly overlooking the sea, but once again, the children are completely non-plussed. What is it with ruins and children? Thankfully, there are a lot of iguanas here and the children discover that they like eating bananas, so feeding them on the way round provides at least some relief from their complete boredom with the ruins. We also clamber down the rocks to the small beach for a quick cooling swim before we leave.

So it’s been a lovely relaxing week here in Tulum – the cenotes have certainly been the highlight. The food has been good and I’ve had a few Margaritas, but I don’t feel like I’ve seen the real Mexico yet and am looking forward to moving on to Palenque (more ruins – don’t tell the children!) and then to San Cristobal de Las Casas in Chiapas, where we can settle down and immerse ourselves once more, after these last few weeks on the move.