The rest of our time in Belize went rather smoothly and calmly. In San Ignacio we spent time on our little porch, walked to the lovely, peaceful ruins of Cahal Pech up on the hill (that we had all to ourselves mostly, a nice change after Tikal)—and ate in one of the many delicious Chinese restaurants. Belize almost reminded me of parts of Louisiana. It was strange. Leaving San Ignacio, we headed up north in Belize’s version of the 2nd class bus, still an old North American schoolbus like those used in Guatemala, but less elaborately decorated, (no tweety bird or Jesus stickers), people didn’t sit three to a seat, and people had fewer bags in general. It was more relaxed.
Our final stop in Belize was the small town of Corozal strategically positioned on a bay that leads into the Caribbean Sea. It was a very sleepy little town, which was fine by us. We walked down to the “beach” which really wasn’t a beach at all but the place where the water met the land with people swimming. It was rather rocky, and difficult to get in the water because of this, but we still managed for a while. We were going to swim in the Caribbean, damnit. The water was beautiful and sparkling and I really felt like I was in a travel brochure ad, just again, without the sand for the beach.
At night we dined on Belizean rice and beans and ceviche and boy was it tasty.
Flash forward to the next day—crossing the border between Belize and Mexico. It all went rather smoothly, hopping on and off buses to go through immigration on both sides. In Belize we had to give in and pay their ridiculously high 37 Belizean dollar tourist fee, but oh well.
The same bus took us all the way to Chetumal, where we stop for the night. The first thing we did after getting to the center of town was buy a Mexican SIM card for our phone, so now we can communicate within a new country, yay. We then waited in the park in front of the Museo de Cultura Maya to wait for Hector, the guy who would be kind enough to let us stay with him. While waiting, this crazy bum strolled up to us and kept rambling. Ryan listened and talked to him more than I did, and it was difficult to get up and bolt, as we were hampered down by our massive bags. He would say a few words in Spanish and then afterwards translate into broken English about his work and how he painted houses and was once a lion tamer? (we think) and other random things. I stopped paying attention finally. At last, Hector arrived, but the guy still followed us and helped us put our bags in Hector’s trunk. He finally left after Hector gave him a few pesos.
It turned out Hector’s new house was still being worked on, so he set us up (paid for) with a room in a nice hostel that his friend’s mom owns, and therefore gets a pretty amazing discount for it. We got some good Mexican lunch and a driving tour of the city. The water in the bay was still so beautiful and crystal clear as we drove past it, seeing the various neighborhoods, little sculptures that littered the boulevard, and landmarks. We mostly took it easy, going out again at night for delicious taco treats, cebollitas de cambray, and some drinks at a bar where old fat people were performing really bad karaoke. It was fun.
The next day we caught the 7 am bus to Valladolid and arrived a little after noon. We found a cute little hostel. (oh and I have to mention that in Valladolid, I think you could flush toilet paper down the toilet again! It felt so strange and wrong to do so after over three months of not…) We wanted to come to Valladolid, a small city in the Yucatan, to swim in the cenotes (sink-holes filled with water) we’d read about. Well, before we could do that we got some lunch at a little lonchería where men wave menus at you from their little stalls, begging you to eat at theirs. Lunch was huevos motuleños, at last! I’d been looking for them for so long. What they are: tostadas topped with fried eggs, pieces of ham, cheese, tomato sauce, and garbanzo beans! Amazing! Ryan got cochinita pibil, another regional specialty and also quite tasty.
The little lunch counter we picked was I believe the best one because it was the busiest and they didn’t try to make us eat there. Always a good sign. Lunch was followed by Ryan’s unfortunate realization that he didn’t have his ATM card and that he must have left it in the ATM we’d used an hour earlier.. returning to the bank didn’t turn up anything though, so that was rather frustrating—but everything should be okay.
After that mishap we changed and walked over to the cenote inside one of the saddest zoos I’ve ever seen (after the Minerva Zoo in Xela). There were two monkeys in one cage. One monkey pathetically laid on the ground with one arm clutching a room tied to the ceiling while the other approached Ryan and I curiously and later looked like he was searching desperately for an escape from his tiny cage with dirty drinking water and watermelon rinds.
Further down the path was a cage of some other strange animal, the agouti we believe, which held at least 5 of these creatures. Some lazily sat around while one restlessly paced back and forth back and forth in his cage in a desperate manner. It was a sad sight to see, I must say. Ugh.
Anyway, the cenote was pretty cool. While it was a tad too cold to swim in for my liking, it was a very tranquil place (except for the two men singing along to the El Chapo songs on their stereo.) After sitting there for a while, pondering the water’s depths, we made our way back to the hostel in the intense, intense heat . We tried to get our laundry washed, cause our clothes are all dirty, but she said it wouldn’t be done till the next day so we are still dirty. Maybe tomorrow. We actually cooked dinner in the hostel since we had kitchen access so that was nice and cheap. More inevitable annoyance with European hostel people, but that’s par for the course we are discovering.
The next day, today, was another early day, but not quite so early as we caught the 8:15 AM bus to the famous Mayan ruins of Chichén Itzá. You think I’d be ruined out after already seeing two ruins within the past week, but it was still quite interesting and fun, and still unique. The price of admission, however, was rather high for the third world, and the lady at the admission desk was pretty rude for so early in the morning. I love people. We dropped the massive bags off at the baggage storage and set off into the ruin wonderland. The first thing we came to was El Castillo, the pyramid complete with feathered serpent heads at the base, which were unfortunately not allowed to climb. Too many accidents. Apparently there’s a sound and light show at night! (oh boy!!! I just love sounds and lights!) but we decided to pass… The patches of tourists were thin this early in the day, thankfully, as was the heat of the sun, so we saw most of the ruins early on.
My favorite thing about Chichén Itzá, and what differentiated it from the other 4 Mayan ruins I’ve seen, was that there were many carvings and sculptures still visible. This was pretty neat and made me more easily imagine the ruins as once being a real city. I also really enjoyed the vast number of iguanas present! They were everywhere and would pop out at us randomly to scurry down a rock.
I stalked a few.
There was another giant cenote at Chichén Itzá as well, which was pretty neat. By the time we made our way out of the site a little after 1 PM, the obnoxious tour groups with people wearing their little floppy hats and carrying parasols were in full force, as were the rays of the sun, so it was time to move on. We made our way with bags in tow to wait underneath a tree where our bus to Mérida would take us away.
This was the nicest bus we’d been on yet, and within a few hours we were in the city. Overall, we were a little disappointed in Mérida. We couldn’t reach our couchsurfer when we arrived so we just got some late lunch at a little lonchería near the bus terminal and then took a cab to a hostel near the main plaza in the centro. We just wandered around, getting accustomed to the city, realizing we were still quite surrounded by tourists either on their way to Cancún or Chichén Itzá… with all the usual people trying to sell them (and us) hammocks. not so fun anymore. The couchsurfer called us later so we said we’d meet up with him the next day. For dinner we ate cheap slices of pizza and 2x12 peso street hot dogs.. mmm. Everything was unfortunately closed because it was the Mexican Labor Day.. There was a strange service going on in the main plaza to commemorate the centennial of the cathedral. It got more interesting later when all the church folk and Jesus talk cleared up and musicians and dancing children in traditional dress took the stage.
The next morning we awoke in yet another obnoxious hostel full of mostly European “backpackers” where people of course assume we don’t know Spanish.. (How could we? Americans don’t know two languages..) We ate the silent free breakfast of papaya and bread and hit the streets again. Mérida just didn’t really appeal to me as much as I thought it would. People walked the streets in a quick, purposeful manner, much like how the people take to the streets in the center of Manhattan. It’s a bit much. We got in touch with the couchsurfer, and took a bus out to his part of town, which was a bit confusing, but we figured it out. He was a nice guy who gave us our space and a few tips of things to do. After at last doing our laundry on his rooftop, we emerged into town again going to a free museum about the city, buying some fruit in the market, and eating ice cream in the shade whenever possible. We decided to stroll into the Teatro Mérida, a cute movie theater that shows various artsy films. They were showing something called “La Posada de Jamaica” which started right as we were walking into the theater. It was an old black and white flick. (I didn’t learn till later that it was actually an old, old Hitchcock movie), and the volume was turned down so low that I was forced to read the Spanish subtitles to figure out what was going on in the story. I enjoyed it overall. There’s not much else to say about Mérida…
The next day we woke up and took off for the city of Campeche. We were warned by the couchsurfer the night before that it would be dull, but we were ready to leave Mérida and had to follow our route. After another nice overly comfortable bus ride, we were in the city. We reached the couchsurfer we’d be staying with, and he actually came to pick us up, which was cool. Up drove a man, a woman, and two children in a car. The man said, “Ryan?” so we hopped in, only slightly confused. We had forgotten the information about our host, so we were a tad surprised when he wasn’t the assumed twenty-something. But, it was nice. He took us to his nice house which we were granted free reign of. The worst thing was we had to sleep on an air mattress at night that deflated half-way through the night, but hey, it was free.
Our host’s house lay just a block away from the Gulf of Mexico, so we followed the difficult path of the coast until we reached the much nicer malecón, pedestrian walkway that runs along the water. We somehow forgot that it would be insanely hot, so we sweated our way a few kilometers down to the center of town in search of some foods. Campeche is a rather attractive town. For one thing, it’s on the coast. It was originally a walled in fortress city of sorts to keep out pirates, and some of the bastions still remain and house tiny museums you have to pay too much to enter (or we’re just damn cheap. Yeah that’s it.) The plaza is rather pretty and clean and full of pigeons while all buildings are pastel and quaint. Campeche was a nice place to wind down a little away from the mad rush of people that was Mérida. Also, while there were some tourists, they were far fewer in number, thankfully, and we were basically left alone.
Food in Campeche included papadzules (enchilada-like creations rolled in some kind of pumpkin or squash sauce and hard-boiled eggs.. yum), cocounut shrimp, more ice cream, and shrimp cocktail. Delicious.
While the parts of Mexico we’ve been going through are somewhat enjoyable and interesting, they still differ greatly from what I was used to in the central part of the country, and I am eager to get back there to see familiar places. The rest of our time in Campeche was spent with Ryan trying to figure out what to do about his ATM card situation, getting his haircut since it needed it badly, and trying desperately to stay out of the sun and in the shade. As the afternoon turned into evening we would follow the the sea back to the house as the sun set over the waves.
Today we left Campeche on a long bus ride to the dull, hot, hot, city of Villahermosa in Tabasco. There doesn’t seem to be much worthwhile in this state, nor in this city except for a big museum they have that has Olmec artifacts, but we’re not going to stay longer because of it. The bus ride today was rather comfortable and they showed three different movies and an Animal Planet special on seals, all dubbed in Spanish. Fun.
One thing is for sure, in Villahermosa, we are finally out of Gringotouristland. We have not seen any here so far. People even look at us somewhat confused and definitely are shocked when we speak Spanish. It’s strange. The waiter at the Rock and Roll Cocktelería at dinner tonight (yes that was what it was called) even asked us if we were here for the Feria that we didn’t know was even going on. He couldn’t figure out we we’d be there. The reason we are is just because the roads happen to go through this godforsaken city and it was as good as place as any to stop.
Tomorrow we will leave here, enter the state of Veracruz and if all goes well, fall asleep in Xalapa, sometimes also spelled Jalapa. We’ll be there for three nights, which will be nice and give us sometime to catch our breaths. We’re already over halfway done with our long trip home.. Only two more weeks in Mexico and I can kiss that Texas soil, or something. Oh and today was el Cinco de Mayo but I forgot and just remembered now. Oh well. I would also like to add that tomorrow marks the first day during these past four months or so, that we will be leaving the Mayan world as well as the malaria-world! So, so long malaria and Mayans.
Sorry the blog was rather rushed and below my usual standards.. it’s much more difficult to find the time and energy to write when traveling at such a constant pace. I must say I’m excited to be getting back home soon, and I look forward to seeing everyone.
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Note: This entry was actually written several days ago and we have since visited Xalapa, are now in Puebla, and will be leaving for Guanajuato tomorrow. More to come soon maybe.
