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Many travellers that I had met on this trip spoke of the amazing paradise beaches of Playa Del Carmen and Isla Mujeres, and in Belize. After being unimpressed with the beaches of Belize I had hoped that Playa Del Carmen would be the relaxing Mexican beach paradise that I had been looking for and which was hopefully still relatively unspoiled by throngs of tourists. But alas, while PDC was massively more relaxed than Cancun it still was too touristy for my tastes. PDC is still an amazing destination by most people standards, but it still was missing the laid back attitude and cultural charm that makes certain places extra special for me (such as Ko Pi-Pi, Thailand).

With only 3 days left to my trip I had high hopes I would find such a place in Isla Mujeres and on the same day I visited my last Mayan ruins at Edzna near Campeche I took a marathon 9 hour trip (2 buses) to Cancun in order to try to make it to that island. I got there later than planned and was under the false impression (as I later discovered) that I had missed the last ferry to Isla Mujeres (it turns out they run until past midnight). So I had to stay an extra night in my dreaded Cancun and on top of that the single rooms of all the cheaper hotels seemed to be booked so I got stuck in a miserably unventilated dorm room of the hostile (it was literally 88 degrees throughout the night). Fortunately I met a fun group of Irish kids and had several Sol beers to prepare me for what I knew would be a less than comfortable night. With a pretty poor nights sleep (due to temp and the all night disco next door) I headed out for bluer waters, so to speak. After an easy bus ride and ferry with an Aussie gal I met at breakfast, we split and I ended up at the coveted hostile on Isla Mujeres around 11AM.

Since Calakmul is so remote it is not visited by many tourists and there is also only 2 options to get there (rent a car from a major airport like Cancun, or travel with a single tour company providing tours only when they have enough people). Really the only convenient option for me was the tour company, but I was at their mercy of finding a trip only if there were other people already going. I was a bit skeptical and annoeyd by this company because they flat out lied to me about a tour to Edzna on Monday and when I showed up in the afternoon they said sorry, no tour (when I could have gone through the public bus system had I known better). But on Monday night they said there was a tour to Calakmul with a family that I could join and after a heated negotiating session I finally settled on a price (they wanted to jack the price for me for a Spanish-only guide I did not want or need and just as a general application of the “gringo tax”). The cost was $50 which is really a lot of money in Mexico, but I reasoned for a 13 hour trip it was somewhat reasonable for something I would never otherwise see and few others had really seen.

After a few wild nights in Playa Del Carmen (the mainland port off Cozumel) I headed back to Campeche, on the Southwest part of the Yucatan Penninsula. I had meant to visit the ruins of Calakmul with a day trip from Chetumal (on the Belize border), but I learned that although the distance was the same as from Campeche, all the only tours to this extremely remote site operated out of Campeche, presumably since that is also the state they reside in. I caught the 6AM bus to Merida and then promptly passed out to sleep through most of the 4.5 hour trip, then barely caught the next bus in to Campeche (another 2.5 hours), arriving in around 2:00 PM.

Campeche is an extremely quiant, clean and culture-rich city of maybe 350,000 people. It was the first Spanish port in the Yucatan Penninsula and it had some colorful history with Carribean pirates who were in and out of there as well. The Spanish built up a massive colonial fort there, in the style of those in Puerto Rico, Havana and of course Disneyland’s Pirates of the Carribean ride.

After Tikal in Guatemala I was eager to return to some new experiences and ready to move on the Belize which I had not been to before. My first night was spent in the quaint British colonial town of San Ignacio, near the Western border with Guatemala. There I met a group of undergraduate and graduate archaeologists who were doing a dig in one of the smaller nearby sites. I had a very fun night with them going to a somewhat remote pub that was filled only with locals and discussing the intricate tedium of an archaeological dig which I knew I would never have the patience nor interest for. The next day I hopped a local bus to Belize City, on the East coast, but had to stay in that dingy / shady town because I missed the last ferry to Caye (pronounced ‘Key’) Caulker.

I was not really planning on returning to Tikal since I was there in Fall of 2004 (read the original 2004 post here). But after hitting the major sites of Uxmal, Palenque and Yachilan in Mexico and having there fore already been in the mindset of ruins I realized that on my way to Belize it was actually fastest and most direct to pass through Peten, Guatemala and therefore right through Tikal.

So on Friday morning I set out towrds Tikal and hopped on a launcha (long tail water taxi) from Frontera Corozal (Chiapas, MEX) to Bethel, Guatemala. The wide Usumacinta flows between the 2 lush bordering jungle banks that separate Mexico from Guatemala. During the one hour trip I was a bit sleepy and mesmerized by the movement of the boat and the flow of the river and the jungle banks felt reminiscent of ‘Nam and a cool movie quite popped strongly into my mind - (”the longer we stay here, in this war, the weaker we get and the stronger Charlie gets”. After a few minutes in deep contemplation, I eventually realized that a) I was not in ‘Nam and b) I was not in the movie Apocalypse Now. But I digress…

On Thursday morning I hopped a 2 hour collectivo (group taxi) for the border town of Frontera Corozal (across the river from Guatemala). I settled quickly in a room (an ultra tacky pink painted stucco with a thatched roof), dropping my bags and heading for the riverside “embarcadero” (really a dirt road that drops into the water from where you can hop a lancha (long tail boat taxi). The lancha office tried to stick me with a $65 fare, to which I immediately laughed in their face and questioned there sanity (and silently their history of inbreeding). Instead, I headed down to the water to try to negotiate something more reasonable, hoping I could find others heading to the downriver ruins of Yachilan with whom to share a ride. After waiting for a good 1 1/2 hours, it was looking grim and I was contemplating either shelling out the dough (for sport I had already negotiated them down to $40), or skipping the trip entirely (which would have been quite a shame).

After missing my bus to Palenque on Monday (of COURSE there are separate terminals on the opposite side of town for arrivals and departures), I finally made the bus from Campeche to Palenque on Tuesday night and found a nice air-con room (definitely a luxury in Mexico) and settled in. The state of Chiapas is the poorest in Mexico and also the least secure as the Zapatista rebels are still at large (though little or no threat to the cities or tourists since the massive military presence here).

On Wednesday I arose and hopped a collectivo (group taxi) fo the ruins, arriving at what I thought was just before 8AM (I actually get up earlier when on vacation than when working). It turns out that Chiapas does not recognize daylight savings time, so in actuality I was there at 7 and not 8AM. Doah! Still, it was very cool to check out the ruins in the morning sunlight with a foggy mist swirling about, although this makes it very difficult to get any good photos with the flat lighting there.