Category: Mexico

Only doing it in bits because wifi is a bit iffy, so can’t send many photos at the same time.  Anyway, looks can be deceiving.  We don’t really like Tulum, which is a bit surprising given the pics below.

Sitting on some rocks looking over the ocean.  But it’s all private and really hard to get to.  And the road is incredibly busy – in fact the whole of Tulum is by far the busiest and most expensive place we’ve been to.

View from dinner was fantastic – especially when you add in a flock (?) of about 15 Pelicans dive-bombing the fish to get their evening meal.  Wonderful entertainment.

Yours truly contemplating something or other.

So there you go.  How on earth can we have got grumpy today?  It’s a strange world!

It’s getting towards the end and we are heading up the east coast, destination Tulum.  Part of the drive was fun ..

The remainder was the usual deadly dull.  You can see a bit in the picture above – the roads are fine, straight and quiet.  But the foliage is always about 20-30 feet high and very thick, so you don’t see any scenery – not that there is any because huge swathes of it are this low jungle anyway.

Enough of a moan.  Got to Tulum and went straight to the Mayan ruins.  Not especially spectacular, apart from the position – right on the ocean.

Part of the ruins ..

And a representation of what it would have looked like.

Found a friend – a Mexican Racoon who introduced himself as Eric.

And one of his pals, Iggy the iguana!

That is, pretty much the same as yesterday.  Note the lake …

… and the wild creatures!

We did get out later on, for a visit to the local fort.  And don’t be fooled by grey skies – it’s been high 20s all week which suits us fine.

And on to our favourite restaurant – La Playita.  I’ve said before the food has been memorable (in a good way), but this place is terrific.

Pizzas are good, and I had something with such a memorable name that we didn’t bother to write it down.  Something like Lacro Choclo – described as a shrimp stew with avocados, sweet potatoes and potatoes, but we think also coconut, ginger, tomato, lime and probably other stuff.  Fantastic.  Might even beat the Nachos in Valladolid.

And you do spot the weirdest wildlife ….

With what we’ve done today, it really doesn’t warrant a blog.  To be exact we have done precisely zilch.  Perhaps I could go for the sympathy vote and say it’s about 26 degrees at 8.00 in the evening, which means we will almost certainly have to go all the way to the fridge to get another cold beer.  Any votes?😎
First coffee of the day.

And I don’t think this is being ironic.  There have been Christmas trees and decorations ever since we have been here.

Midday came and went.

We did venture out for dinner.

That’s Eileen on the jetty taking photos.

Bit of a random order, but a decent feast nonetheless.  Stopped off at a large cenote on the way – Eileen wondered if it was a bit like the pool on Hampstead Heath.

Then got to the house by the lake.

View from the terrace.

No idea where this apparition came from!

And dinner in Bacalar.  Life doesn’t get much tougher than this!

Cenote again.

The house.

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And on the 10th day we rested!  It’s been a memorable week and a half, but fortunately Eileen had scheduled in some R&R towards the end.

So we are now in Bacalar at a house right on the lake for 3 days.

More photos to follow.

Right.  A bit of an update on yesterday.  I said it was in the jungle, and here is the evidence.

I did two climbs both pretty steep.  In the top right corner you can see a mound.  That was the first pyramid I climbed and you can see how the jungle had taken over the back and still hasn’t been cleared.

And here is a smaller structure which has only been partially cleared.

They are still working on it and continuing to find new structures.  I think it will take generations to complete.

And to give you an idea of what they looked like in their prime, here is a mock-up in the museum.  They think it is pretty accurate because of the remains and the inscriptions.

Let’s start with a question that you never dreamed you would be asked.  When you have visited a place of interest and paid your entry fee, what is the furthest distance you have then had to travel?  Try 40 miles, or 63km which is what happened at Calakmul today.

It is an enormous Mayan ruin in the heart of the jungle.  It wasn’t strictly true that it was an entrance fee – it was actually about £6 for road maintenance.  You then pay another fee which was never explained after about 20km, before eventually getting to the site after a total of 63km from the main road.  And the road maintenance fee is a bit of a diddle as there are loads of potholes which makes progress slow and laborious.

But we made it and it was well worth it.

See what I mean about in the jungle and overgrown.

Apparently there were about 50,000 inhabitants at its peak about 1200 years ago.

More photos to follow if I can sort out IT (again!).  A great day only stressed a little by FOROOF – fear of running out of fuel.  There weren’t many petrol stations in the middle of the jungle, which was when the needle decided to lurch into the red zone.  But we survived!