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Trip Recap: Best of, Worst of …

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Well, we’ve been back about three weeks now and the Round the World trip is fading into memory … What a fabulous journey. I feel so fortunate to have been able to do this trip – it was amazing. Even the (few) parts that weren’t so great were great (if you know what I mean). Time to recap the highlights and lowlights:

Best (non-urban) Beach

Hong Island, Krabi, West Coast of Thailand

Hong Island, the largest of the group of islands in Than Bok Thoranee Marine National Park, is beautiful: powder white sand, glorious green vegetation, turquoise-green water, and towering orange-tinged limestone cliffs. Two small bays are separated by smaller limestone clifflets, through a gap in which we could see boats come and go. See my original post here.

Best Beach (urban)

This is a toss-up between three very different beaches: Jomtien, Pattaya, Thailand, Cancun, Mexico, and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Jomtien, because the beach is decent, with great restaurants, a lively vibe, great people-watching, and very cheap transportation around the area.

Cancun, because the beach is long and wide, twenty six kilometers of sand. Playa Gaviota Azul, in Cancun’s Hotel Zone, was a favourite spot for us. The large, wide beach was often full of local families, with kids large and small enjoying the day. Because this area of the beach has a sand bar not too far offshore, a shallow pool of ocean water untouched by the big surf is created so it’s perfect for small children. Read more here.

Los Muertos beach in Puerto Vallarta, because it’s sandy, has big waves and great beach restaurants, and the weather was amazing. Read more here and here.

Best Accomodation (apartment/condo)

Our fully-equipped, nicely decorated 4th floor apartment 1/2 block off Los Muertos Beach in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, an incredible deal at Easter for $45 a night.

See my post here for more on Puerto Vallarta’s South Side.

Best Accommodation (hotel, B&B, hostel)

This is a tricky one – in the running, are: Merthayasa Bungalows in Ubud, Bali; Blue Star Bungalows in Amed, Bali; Sabai Mansion in Ao Nang, Thailand; and Hotelito Swiss Oasis in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Each of these was great in its own way. We loved the pool at the Merthayasa and the price was right at 180,000 IDR ($19) a night.

The Blue Star, right on the beach at Jemeluk Bay, had wonderful staff, great snorkelling and swimming, and a pleasant enough room for 200,000 IDR a night ($21.50 – a special price because we didn’t use the air con).

Sabai Mansion was well-located 500 meters from the beach, with a great pool, a restaurant, and nice staff for 855 bht a night ($27.50).

And we also loved the Hotelito Swiss Oasis, 1/2 block from Playa Zicatela in Puerto Escondido, with a pool and small communal kitchen, for 450 pesos night ($34.50).

The Pool and Palm villa in Siem Reap had the best pool, large, beautiful, and clean, very refreshing in the heat of central Cambodia.

Best Recreational Activity (Land-based)

Bali Eco Cycling, a cycle trip beginning at a volcano, then riding downhill through a coffee plantation, village homes and temples, and rice fields, finishing with a Balinese food feast. Read all about it here.

Runner up: Cycling the North Head, in Manly, Australia: wildlife, artillery, ecological projects, golden chariot, cemeteries. Read more here.

Best Recreational Activity (Water-based)

Our private longtail boat trip to the Hong Islands, Krabi, Thailand, a great day out on the water visiting several different beaches, lagoons, and islands in the Andaman Sea. Read my post here.

Best Temple(s) Ancient

This one is no contest – Angkor Wat/Thom in Siem Reap, Cambodia is an epic, once-in-a-lifetime Must See for all you temple and archeological site lovers. Incredibly beautiful architecture and sculpture in a huge and beautiful park setting. See my posts here, here, and here.

Runner up: Uxmal and the Puuc route south of Merida in the Yucatan.

Wanting to see some of the less well-known Mayan ruins in the Yucatan while in Merida, but not wanting to drive ourselves, Ty and I decided to do a day trip with a driver from Yucatan Connect to the Lol Tun Caves and the sites along the Puuc Route, south and south east of Merida. Highly recommended – read more here.

Best Temple (Modern)

Bang Rieng, Krabi, Thailand, a mountain-top temple about an hour and a half’s driving north of Ao Nang along the road to Phuket. It sits atop Khao Lan or One Million Mountain, overlooking the Thaput countryside. The temple and grounds are spectacular, as is the view from the top; green hills and tended fields spread out in a vast panorama below the temple precincts, looking very much like central Italy. Read more here.

Best visual art scene

This category is a tie between Ubud, Bali and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Ubud has lots of great contemporary art galleries, as well as a couple of excellent art museums focusing on modern Balinese and Indonesian art. Read more here and here.

Puerto Vallarta also has a great contemporary art scene, with lots of commercial galleries, artists studios and residencies, and two weekly art walks in the old town and centro areas. Read more here and here.

Most Intriguing Cultural Performance

The Balinese Classical Legong and Barong Dance at the Ubud Palace was fascinating and beautiful. See a video of part of the performance here. Read more about Ubud’s cultural scene here.

Best Local Experience

While staying at the Blue Star Bungalows in Amed, Bali, the owner Iluh, a lovely woman, invited me to join her at a village temple ceremony. She showed me how the offerings are made, gave me her temple clothes to wear, and drove me there and back on her motorcycle – an incredible experience.

Read about it here.

Runner up: Nox’ tours in Levuka, Ovalau, Fiji

We did two tours around Levuka with local guide Nox, one exploring all aspects of the town and the other up into the surrounding hills to visit local plantations. Really fascinating! Read more here and here.

Best Food

This category is also no contest – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia has an amazing food scene and, remarkably, without even knowing it, we stayed in absolutely the best place for restaurants in KL, Bukit Bintang. Read my post here.

Best Nightlife

While Ty and I are not exactly nightlife junkies (and sometimes I can barely make it to 11 pm), we did enjoy the lively night scene in Ubud, Bali, particularly the great Spanish band at the Smiling Buddha and the jazz at Cafe Luna. Other nightlife options include Balinese dance, the Jazz Cafe, a gazillion great restaurants and bars …

Best transportation experience

The Pattaya/Jomtien baht bus, the song thaew pickups plying the roads in the area. Go anywhere for only 10 baht (30 cents).

And the tuk-tuks in Siem Reap, Cambodia: padded seats, beautiful fabrics, comfortable rides. Go anywhere around the town for $2.

Worst accommodation

None of the places we stayed were really terrible; some were just less good than the rest and a few were too expensive for what they offered. Sometimes the weather affected our view of a place – Fiji in the rain, for example. Janes Fales in Manase, Savaii, Samoa had a wonderful location right on a beautiful sandy beach, but the food was bad and we had a bad experience at their beach bar there that caused us to leave much sooner than we had planned. More info here.

Worst Food

Mostly, the food everywhere was good, if often not spicy enough for our liking. I guess the worst food I had was this terrible lunch at the Hornbill Restaurant in the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park – blecchhh. Read more about this day here.

Worst Beach

Surprisingly, particularly since the last time we were there it was lovely, the beach at Playa del Carmen was the worst we saw. Almost everywhere in the world erosion is a problem, as is high water and storm surges, all playing havoc with the beaches. One of the last days we were in Playa, after a rain storm, we could smell the sewage that had obviously overflowed the storm sewers and was just gushing out from pipes into the ocean, turning the turquoise water a dull dark brown in places.

Worst local experience

Nadi, Fiji. While in Nadi, we walked along the few rather decrepit blocks of the downtown area, asked for a restaurant recommendation, and were directed to a curry and seafood restaurant which, unfortunately, had bad food. The downtown area was pretty much deserted on a Friday night, which I found somewhat surprising, but the whole place seemed dreary, desperate, and depressing – we didn’t miss it when we left. Read more here and here.

Worst transportation experience

Wow – this is a tough category. Once again, it’s a tie, between the crazed maniacal minibus driver in Fiji, whose insane driving drove us out onto the road and into a school bus; the tweaking idiot in Bangkok whose meth-fuelled speed racer drive from Bangkok to Ayutthaya terrified me; and the overloaded and top heavy ferry boat back from Koh Laan to Pattaya, almost capsizing a couple of times along the way.

Most surprising place

Siem Reap, Cambodia, a lovely city with vibrant nightlife and proximity to the great Angkor temples and Samoa, a beautiful small country.

And Guanajuato, Mexico, a fabulous colourful hill-top town in the central highlands with loads of museums, haciendas, good restaurants, and a vibrant local scene.

For us one of the most surprising things was Semana Santa in Guanajuato – who knew that Easter would be so fabulous there?

Perhaps surprisingly, given how much we liked Bali, especially Amed, East Bali, our choice for retirement living in the sun when we’re old is, at the moment, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Why? Well, let me count the reasons:

1) It has a beautiful beach and a long malecon with sculpture and art.

2) It has a vibrant contemporary art scene, dancing, theatre, community centres with classes in language, art, yoga, tai chi, and the like. Lots of artists around the place.

3) It has great coffee shops and restaurants, especially in the Old Town.

4) Although there are lots of gringos, it’s still a Mexican town, especially a few blocks off the beach.

5) Great day trips to small towns and villages are easy by inexpensive local transport. For an example, see my report on Yelapa here.

6) Inexpensive accommodation can be had a few blocks off the beach

7) Rentals are pet-friendly. We can easily bring Brubin and the cat with us when we visit.

8) Easily and cheaply accessible by direct flight in only a few hours.

9) I speak Spanish, albeit not yet fluently.

Adios Cancun, Hola Vancouver!

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For my final post of the incredible Round the World trip, here are a few photos of Isla Mujeres and the beaches of Cancun. Tropical storms have been blowing through this region in the last several days but we did manage to have some sun on our last couple of days in the Cancun area.

As we were walking to the beach on Isla Mujeres, we happened to pass the Municipal Cemetery; I took a few pictures of the colourful tombs.

Storm clouds chased us off the island; we saw these old fishing boats near the Gran Puerto dock.

On the way back from our usual beach, Playa Gaviota Azul, we stopped in to take a look at Playa Tortuga. It was Sunday and lots of local families were enjoying themselves beside the water.

It also has the only Bungee Jump that I’ve seen on the trip (not as high as the one in Nanaimo, however).

Today was our last day at Playa Gaviota Azul – here’s a picture of our usual waiter, Santos from Chiapas. Adios and Sayonara Cancun, Hola Vancouver – Canada here we come (hopefully bringing the sun with us)!

 

 

Cancun: El Meco and Isla Mujeres

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We are enjoying our little apartment in downtown Cancun. The neighbourhood is pleasant, with lots of small casita comidas and a gigantic Soriana grocery store. A few blocks away is the bus stop where we can catch a R-2 or R-15 down to the hotel zone beaches for 8.5 pesos each.

Today, since the morning was pleasant, we decided to visit the second set of ruins here, the El Meco, north of Puerto Juarez, where the boats to Isla Mujeres depart. Rather than taking two buses, we elected to splurge and take a taxi. After negotiating a cost of 90 pesos for the trip, we headed out through the downtown traffic, past Puerto Juarez, to the ruin site, a small area just across the road from the ocean. Just as we pulled up a truck was blasting pesticide into the place to take out any fugitive mosquitoes – blechhh.

El Meco is Cancun’s version of Tulum, the waterfront ruin site down the coast from Playa del Carmen, although it’s not nearly as large and not right on the water. “The city is … believed to have been a major commercial port for the Maya and overlooks the beach and docks from across the road at Punta Sam where nearby claims indicate that there’s the last vestiges of the ancient port hidden along the beach line.

The city’s importance to the Maya is thought to have occurred from its proximity across the coast from Isla Mujeres, its location along the coastal trading routes and the area of calm but deeper water for vessels.” Architectural evidence dating back to the early Classic period (300-600 ce) show that El Meco was a small, self-sufficient fishing village dependent upon the larger capital of Coba.

“At the center of the site is the large El Castillo Pyramid surrounded by a dozen or so smaller structures believed to be used for governmental, religious and commercial trading purposes by the Post Classical period Maya starting in the 10th or 11th century AD.

The site previous to this was believed to be home to a small native village going back to the 6th century AD. … Speculation based on artifact finds and architecture places El Meco at the heart of one of the Chichen Itza periods and further speculates that the city was amongst the then extended realms of the rulers of Chichen Itza.” (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g150807-d1108603/Cancun:Mexico:El.Meco.Ruins.html).

As has happened lots on this trip, we were the only visitors to the site, enjoying walking through the well-treed ruins and throwing bits of apple to the tiny iguanas.

We were surprised to see only very small, skittish lizards here (except the medium-sized guy below), none of whom were willing to come near enough to get the pieces of apple we placed for them.

Ty speculated that the lizards are not well-treated here and as a consequence those that survive are afraid of humans. Can they be eaten for food, I wonder? If so, this would explain why there are no big iguanas here.

After our visit we walked along the very quiet highway, saw a beachfront chapel, and flagged down a collectivo which dropped us at Puerto Juarez.

We took a look at the old dock where the first passenger ferry to travel between Cancun and Isla Mujeres runs – it’s almost deserted now that the new Ultra Mar catamaran plies the water between the newly-built Gran Puerto dock and the island.

Although we hadn’t planned to visit Isla Mujeres today, since we were there anyway, and the boat left in five minutes, we bought our tickets and hopped aboard for the twenty minute run across the incredible clear blue water.

Arriving on the other side, we walked through downtown Isla M, enjoying the bright colours of the buildings, the wares on display, the graffiti, and the laid back island vibe.

Not bad advice …

After having a dockside beer at the Bally-Hoo Inn, we walked five minutes down the road to Playa Norte, where we stationed ourselves beachside for the rest of the afternoon, swimming in the placid water.

Unlike in Cancun, where the high waves have prevented actual swimming (as opposed to frolicking in the waves), here it is possible to swim laps in the roped off area.

Unfortunately for Ty, his burned stomach meant no sun for him, just relaxation under the ol’ sombrillo. Yesterday, both of us had spent quite a bit of time in the high waves of Gaviota Azul beach and the glare from the water and sand must have been too much for the sunscreen to cope with.

See more pics here.

Cancun: The Ruins of El Rey and Playa Delfines

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Can’t get enough o’ those great iguanas, those rocky piles, those sands o’ white and waves o’ blue. We discovered that there are two – count ‘em, two – ruin sites in Cancun, one north of the city near Puerto Juarez, and the other in the southern hotel zone, across the road from Playa Delfines, Dolphin Beach. Since today was a beautiful sunny day, we opted to visit El Rey and then head to the beach.

When we arrived at the ruins, no-one was visible at the front desk, but lo and beyond the caretaker emerged from his poker game and newspaper reading as soon as he saw us heading into the site.

The structures here are quite small, built between 1300 and 1550 AD, and the main activities of the inhabitants were fishing and Mayan trading with salt. This city was abandoned after the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century, and being located so close to the Caribbean sea, the area became a haven for pirates for a long time.

But what El Rey lacked in size it made up for in numbers of iguanas, many of whom emerged from their burrows and followed us around the site when they saw that we had apples for them.

At one point the lizard master was interacting with about nine lizards and a bird, and several other iguanas were streaming towards him from other parts of the ruins, all with one thing on their minds – food.

The birds and the iguanas duked it out for the bits of apple thrown by Ty and I. We saw the remains of a dead iguana, its carcass stripped almost to the bone, presumably by the other beasts.

It was interesting to see the juxtaposition of these thousand year old ruins against the backdrop of the more recent ruins of an abandoned hotel in one direction and the gigantic pyramid-shaped Iberostar hotel in the other. Ozymandias, anyone?

After our fun with iguanas, and a climb up the small pyramid,

we walked back across the road to Playa Delphines, a beautiful wide local beach with a few palapas and loungers and no hotels in the immediate vicinity (very unusual for Cancun). There are no restaurants or bars here, so I hopped aboard the bus, went to the nearest Oxxo, and returned with snacks to stave off starvation and dehydration.

There are some food vendors on the beach, including a few guys selling something called “jeebie-jeebie” or “heebie-jeebie”, small edible pouches of fish or meat carried in what look like small aquariums.

Once again the surf was up. The ocean along this coast is rough; every single day we’ve been to the beach the red flags have dominated, with the occasional yellow flag indicating caution.

Many of the people ignore the red flags and frolic in the waves anyway, even if they can’t swim. At Playa Delfines were mostly local families enjoying Fathers’ Day and big numbers of people were in the waves, keeping the lifeguards busy. Right in front of us a middle aged lifeguard with a strong freestyle stroke and a red lifesaving buoy made two saves in the space of an hour, hauling in two men who’d gotten into trouble too far out.

The currents here are very strong and it’s easy to get pulled out if you’re not careful. Many people drown along this coast every year.

Ty and I enjoyed playing in the waves but made sure that we were in the yellow flag section where the current wasn’t as strong – the waves were just as high, though – whooshhhh! Ty took a pounding surfing in on one gigantic wave, while I managed to duck down underneath it.

Our apartment in downtown Cancun is really sweet. It’s the upper floor of a two story row house in what used to be a townhouse community. The young couple who own it, originally from Argentina and resident in Cancun for the last ten years, built the structure and made all the furniture inside from hard wood, mostly with what looks like old ship’s fittings. Many beautiful shells are displayed on the shelves – Aldo is a diver and gathered these from local dive spots.

Aside from the usual insanely barking dogs, and the renovations sometimes going on next door, the place is pretty quiet.

See more pics here.

Lizard and Bird

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Here’s a funny little scene that I saw at the Casa in Playa. A bird and lizard were sitting side by side on the pool edge. Then, developing a powerful thirst, the bird bent down and dipped its beak into the pool for a drink. Seeing his friend sipping from the gigantic water bowl, the lizard decided to do the same.

From Playa to Cancun: Last Stop on the World Tour

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One block away from us in Playa Ejido was a very nice small park – La Ceiba – which has colourful sculpture, a cafe with brightly painted furniture, several art studios, some for kids, and a cinema.

We had originally planned to stay in Playa for four weeks; however, by the third week, we’d had enough of the hard sell everywhere and wanted a change of scenery. I was, though, happy to meet world traveller Nikoya, a woman originally from Vancouver now staying in Playa via twenty years in Chang Mai, Thailand.

We spent a nice evening wandering the Fifth Avenue strip the night before Ty and I hit the road. And I was also happy to share my space with the two small frilled lizards that kept us company – here is the tiniest, and most skittish, one.

Our last few days were spent on the beach and the weather was grand, much better than it had been, pretty well clear and getting hotter. Just as in many of the places we’ve visited over this past year, here, too, the beach is eroding. Although people on forums that I’ve read say that beach erosion is a natural phenomenon (and, yes, it is), the kind of erosion we see here and elsewhere has two primary causes – rampant development and global climate change. The building of gigantic hotel and condo developments, and long piers jutting out into the ocean, disturbs and changes the ocean currents, taking sand from one area and depositing it somewhere else. Also, with global climate change, and the melting of glaciers, the sea level is rising. Just as we saw in Thailand, especially on Koh Samui, here, too, the rising water level means that some businesses along the beach are having to pile up sand bags (or sand whales as they’re called here) or put their sun loungers on an artificially raised platform of sand so that the sea doesn’t inundate them.

I think that the entire Mayan Riviera beach is human-made, with millions of cubic meters of sand trucked in from somewhere else (where, I wonder?) to the tune of millions of dollars. The new sand is just dumped on top of the remaining old sand, or onto rocky shores, and, in not very much time, much of it is eroded away again by the ocean. In the meantime, this sand has blanketed the reefs and killed the coral; as well, the water at the moment is a murky, turbid, milky-white (not sure whether this is temporary or the result of the sand trucked in). So, no sea life can be seen near the shore in developed areas except tiny fish.

In the middle of Playa’s main beach, in front of Fusion Restaurant, the beach has almost disappeared, revealing the original rocky shoreline.

One of the last days we were there, after a rain storm, we could smell the sewage that had obviously overflowed the storm sewers and was just gushing out from pipes into the ocean, turning the turquoise water a dull dark brown in places. Since swimming in that water wasn’t very appealing, we walked north, past the new Ultramar pier (one of the culprits for the beach degradation?), to the north beaches. Last time we were here there wasn’t much in this area but has it ever been developed since then. Many large all-inclusives and beach clubs line the wide beach along here, attracting young people and many locals. Right now this is the best beach area in town, from what I can see.

After checking out of the Casa Ejido we took the ADO bus up the highway to Cancun, our final destination on the around the World jaunt, before heading back to Vancouver the end of June, selected for ease of departure and, hopefully, sun and beach.

We’re staying for 2 days at the La Quinta Inn and Suites downtown before moving to an apartment in a local neighbourhood. La Quinta is almost brand new, has a small pool out back, and is nice enough for a brief stay. One really nice feature is a free shuttle bus which has transported us the last couple of days to one of the beaches in the Hotel Zone.

The Hotel Zone here is enormous, about 26 kilometers of peninsula jutting out into the ocean east of the city. And the hotels are also enormous; gigantic monoliths, huge mostly white condo developments, some older run-down and/or abandoned properties, line the beach and the lagoon the entire way.

These, and the biggest and “best” of American or Americanised culture, such as Hooters, Coco Bongo, Senor Frog’s and the like, and crappy little souvenirs shops with the usual junk, comprise the Cancun peninsula.

Unlike Puerto Vallarta, there is no malecon or beach walk here. The hotels have been built right on the beach, preventing access almost everywhere to what is public beach. To allow others who are not staying at these properties to access the beach, there are ten public entrances dotted the length of the zone but, unless you know where these are, they’re not easy to find. Yesterday, after spending a few hours at the Cabana Beach Club (not an optimum experience), we walked down the beach for about 45 minutes and could not find a public access point off the beach.

So, since we were tired and hungry, we decided to walk through a hotel property. Of course, since Ty doesn’t exactly blend into the background, we were accosted and about to be escorted off the premises until we told the security personnel that we wanted to see a man about a room. After being directed to the lobby we exited at full speed stage right and flagged down a bus outside.

Today the weather was wonderful and we rented two sun loungers on the beach at Gaviota Azul, having a lazy day playing in the big surf.

The large, wide beach was full of local families, with kids large and small enjoying the day. Because this area of the beach has a sand bar not too far offshore, a shallow pool of ocean water untouched by the big surf is created so it’s perfect for small children.

At the moment red and yellow flags are up so the water isn’t good for swimming; however, the high waves are a blast. Ty, floating offshore, was just about pounded by a gigantic one but managed to duck under it in time. Several people enjoyed burying one another in the sand, including this little boy who placed small handfull after handfull of sand on his reclining mother.

Below is a picture of what the beach would look like if no sand was brought in to Cancun.

Although Cancun is not at all our scene, if the weather holds, it will be a very pleasant spot to spend some time frolicing in the water before heading back to what sounds like a cold and wet spring at the moment on the west coast.

See more pics here.

 

Coba: “Waters stirred by Wind”

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Just can’t get enough o’ those Mayan ruins … poor Ty. Yet another visit to yet another big pile of rocks, this time Coba, in central Yucatan south west of Playa del Carmen. The weather is still not that good here – a gigantic cloud seems to be hanging around over top of us here, generating cloudy skies and thunderstorms. We do get some sunny times, mostly in the morning, and then it clouds over mid-afternoon and, often, rains in the early evening. And, while usually the water current in the ocean here flows south along the coast, the past couple of days it seems to have reversed and is now running quickly and strongly north, creating quite big waves. Although it’s not really rainy season here yet, the weather has been strangely wetter than usual – maybe hurricane season is coming early this year. On the satellite map the Gulf of Mexico looks like a gigantic pot of boiling water. Yesterday again the waves were very high, almost like the ones in Puerto Vallarta, and we had a bit of difficulty getting out of the water without being dashed against the shoreline rocks in the middle of Playa’s beach.

Anyway, on Wednesday the day dawned dry with a glimmer of sun shining through the cloud cover so we decided to visit Coba, a large Mayan ruin site located in the jungle. From the Playa bus station two ADO buses a day run to Coba; we took the 9 am, which stopped at Tulum ruins and Tulum pueblo, before heading inland to Coba and arriving after a pleasant two hour airconditioned ride at the archeological site. From the research I’d done I expected a fairly undeveloped situation at Coba but there were still the usual souvenir stalls and small Yucatecan restaurants outside the grounds, none of which was doing much business as far as I could tell.

Entering the site we walked along a tree-lined path leading to the first set of buildings, next to which are bike and bike taxi rentals. Since Coba is big, and would have taken all day to walk around, we decided to go for the bike taxi, basically a trike with a small padded seat for passengers (I stress the “small”; it barely had room for both of us. We saw two big guys being driven on one, each of whom had one cheek hanging off either side of the seat). Our driver headed off down the shady path, passing walkers and other trikes heading back to the ranch.

There are several different groups of structures open for visiting and with the trike, we were able to see all of them in two hours without having to rush. All of the buildings are situated in a treed jungle area (although “jungle” suggests deep, dark, dense bush, the jungle here consists of small birch-like trees and large banyan-like ones, all of which are small enough to allow lots of light to enter. The paths between the building groups likely follow the old Maya sacbe (white roads). At Coba there are about 40 sacbes, some local, some heading deep into the jungle. The longest sacbe is 100 km, connecting Coba with Yaxuna, close to Chichen Itza. “Coba” means “waters stirred by wind”, an homage to the four lakes along which it’s situated. Unlike Tulum, it is not manicured and reconstructed; a number of large stone jungle-covered mounds can been seen, along with those that can be visited.

Coba dates from the Classic Period, 600 to 900 AD, after which it was abandoned for unknown reasons. At its height Coba supported up to 45,000 inhabitants. The city is thought to have been an important trading post and a commercial link between the cities on the coast and those inland. Coba was never found by the Spanish, thus being left covered by jungle until the 1890s, when it was rediscovered. Excavations started in the 1970s and many of the buildings are left pretty much as they were found. This site of 80 square km/50 square miles is in almost pristine condition. Coba is believed to contain up to 6,500 structures, of which only a small fraction have been restored. (http://www.playa.info/playa-del-carmen-info-mayan-ruins-of-coba.html).

We saw the observatory, a four or five level beehive-like structure, many stele with almost impossible-to-decipher carvings and palapa-roofed coverings, quite a few domestic houses, the “paintings complex” (below),

two stone ball courts, and a grand pyramid, the Nohoch Mul, meaning “big mound”. And big it is, the tallest Mayan ruin structure in the Yucatan at 138 feet.

Nohoch Mul is one of the few Mayan pyramids still climbable. When we arrived there a few people were climbing it, some of whom were red-faced from the effort.

It is quite steep, with a “staircase” of large and uneven steps and a thick rope to help with the descent. From the top, we had a view out over seemingly the entire Yucatan forest of trees to the horizon, only interrupted by a few unexcavated structures whose tops could be seen above the trees.

While going up was relatively easy (and not by an order of magnitude anywhere near as difficult as the climb to the mountaintop of Krabi’s Tiger Cave Temple), coming down was more difficult and tiring. The next day my thigh muscles were still tingling from the workout. [See my post on our Tiger Cave Temple expedition here]

On the function of the Mayan ball courts, here is one account: Coba has at least two very pretty ball courts, one of which has been partially excavated only recently. The ball game played an important role in Mayan society and most cities had a ball court, which is basically a corridor of two stoned walls. The game was played between two teams, using only their hips and elbows to get a rubber ball through a hoop. At some sites, like Coba, the sides of the ball court are slanted, which makes it possible to get close to the hoop.

In other places, like Chichen Itza, the hoops are situated high up on almost vertical walls, seemingly making it impossible to score (unless you don’t subscribe to the law of gravity, which would give us the explanation to many other Mayan mysteries…) Inscriptions and other pieces of art show that human sacrifice was a part of the game. There are different theories as to who actually got sacrificed – the captain or the whole team? Did the losing have to pay with their lives or did the winning team willingly and proudly go to live with their gods? You will hear different stories on this one. (http://www.playa.info/playa-del-carmen-info-mayan-ruins-of-coba.html)

After an almost two hour long tricycle ride, we headed back out to the bus which showed up right on time and whisked us back again to Playa. For those of you interested in Mayan ruins, I’d recommend doing this site by bus; there are two ADO departures from Playa every morning at 8 and 9 am and two returns from Coba at 1 and 3 pm. The bus costs 86 pesos per person each way and the entrance fee into Coba is 57 pesos each. We paid 200 pesos for the tricycle tour (170 for the bike and a 30 peso tip) for a total cost of 486 pesos ($35.55), much cheaper than any of the tours we looked at. And Coba, with its jungle canopy covering, is a beautiful and restful experience.

See more pics here.

Tulum: Leaping Lizards and Hot Rocks

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The weather hasn’t been great here the last few days and so when today dawned with a bit of sun we decided to head on down the highway to visit the Tulum ruins and beach. I had thought that the collective taxis stopped on the main boulevard beneath the highway next to the Chedraui grocery store and so we stood there on the side of the road. But, no, several of them blew right past us as we were frantically waving them down. Shit! I asked a woman sitting at the bus stop where to catch them and, after asking another couple of people as we walked, we eventually found the collectivo station downtown near the bus station. We got the last two seats in our van and were off down the highway for an hour long ride to the Tulum archeological site.

Although we had expected to pay more, the entrance fee was only 57 pesos each and the day, overcast but clearing, was perfect for touring the ruins. Tulum is situated right on oceanfront cliffs, obviously the prime real estate of the post classical Mayan world. It is very much a manicured area and none of the buildings are climbable – too bad because the view from El Castillo out over the sea would be wonderful.

The city of Tulum was at its height during the 13th-15th centuries, and is thus one of the later Mayan outposts. When the Spanish arrived in the early 16th century it was still inhabited. Tulum was an important trading post for the Post classic Mayans, having a beach where merchants could come ashore with their canoes. The highest building, El Castillo, was also a lighthouse to make navigation easier: when two torches aligned, these showed voyagers the way through the reef.

During the Post classic period, the Maya started to use large seagoing canoes and made trading voyages ranging from trips to the Gulf of Mexico, the coast of the Yucatán peninsula, and all the way to what is today Honduras. There is even evidence that they went as far as Costa Rica and Panama. Standing on the cliff here, gazing out to sea, I could imagine a fleet of fifty foot hardwood canoes cruising into the bay below.

In 1518, an expedition lead by the Spaniard Juan de Grijalva sailed past Tulum. The captain and crew were amazed by the sight of this walled city, with its buildings painted red, blue and white and a fire atop the main temple. Some 75 years after the conquest, Tulum was abandoned, but was still visited over the years by Mayan pilgrims. During the War of the Castes, Indian refugees took shelter here from time to time. (See more at http://www.playa.info/playa-del-carmen-info-mayan-ruins-of-tulum.html)

When we had been in Tulum last about 5 years ago, it was very crowded; today, luckily, while there were a number of people, it was not completely packed out.

One of the most delightful features of the ruin site is that it is home to many, many iguanas, all of whom are very tame. Ty discovered an apple in his backpack and proceeded to feed three of the beasts who came racing over when he took the fruit out of his bag.

Another fellow was taking a sandwich out of his pack when a huge lizard jumped onto it, climbed over the pack, and started up his body before receiving the piece of sandwich he desired!

After our visit, we grabbed a collectivo and taxi to Tulum Playa, the two kilometer long beach just north of the town. Here the sand is blindingly white and the water an incredible shade of light cerulean blue.

We had lunch at Playa Paraiso and spent a few hours on the beach before heading back on the collectivo to Playa del Carmen. Tulum Playa has a very different vibe than Playa del Carmen; it’s north of the town proper and accessed by a road that runs along a coastline of low sand dunes.

Tulum beach is more like a warm weather version of Vancouver Island’s west coast beaches (although with more in the way of services like restaurants, bars, sun beds, boat trips, etc). And the beach hotels seem to be much more modest in scale (although probably not in price) here than the vast gated communities along the coast between Playa and Tulum pueblo.

See more pics here.

Playa: Beaches, Ruins, and Beasts

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Playa del Carmen is a town divided: one small part, that along the seashore, is a playground for middle-class and wealthy gringos, mostly from the US and Canada but also Europeans; the rest, extending north, south, and west past the Carreterra Federal highway, is Mexican. Never the thwain shall meet.

Coming back from the beach the other day we got on the wrong bus; instead of taking us up Benito Juarez Avenue to 70th, it rolled along parallel to 5th Avenue and then cruised slowly back up past the highway, past the Hospital, and through the newish development of Los Flores, a vast subdivision of small row houses painted in tropical colours, catering to the locals who work in the tourist industry. Some rich dude must have sold his hacienda property to developers who are now erecting thousands of these small structures.

A couple of days ago we jumped aboard another bus, hopped out at the ADO station, walked the length of Fifth Avenue north and from there took a taxi to the Playa Cemetery. Cemetery visits are one of my little idiosyncracies; I enjoy walking through the grave sites and looking at the inscriptions and mementoes.

This cemetery has a lot of young men’s graves – a lot! – and also a section entirely for infants and babies. As I was photographing some of the memorials in the latter, Ty called out to me, saying “It’s time to go”.

Since we’d not been there very long, I was surprised but acquiesced. As we were walking back out, Ty told me that he’d seen a group of about ten young guys drinking around one grave, likely that of a fallen friend, one of whom pulled a pistol out of the back of his shorts. Definitely time to hit the road!

South of the Cozumel ferry terminal are many huge all-inclusive hotels and expensive condo developments. I find this area, known as Playacar, obnoxious. We had gone there to check out the Xaman Ha Mayan ruins and aviary. What remains of the ruins is very small, a few tiny stone house structures and an encircling wall accessed from the beach through the Xaman Ha condominium site that has been erected around them.

Walking past Playacar’s enormous mansions and condo developments to find the aviary was depressing. And when we did come to the small aviary to find that the entrance fee was 300 pesos ($22 American) each, we could not bring ourself to pay it. A total ripoff. In fact, almost any of the “tourist attractions” in this part of the world are ridiculously expensive and completely inauthentic. While all, except the Mummy Museum, of the many really cool museums and haciendas that we saw in Guanajuato were at the most 20 pesos, here it seems that you can’t get in the door anywhere without dropping mega bucks. [Grumble, grumble, grumble .... we interrupt this broadcast for a grumpy old lady grumble].

On the way back to Playa, walking along the Mayan ruin wall, we did see a wild capybara, a gigantic rodent not unlike a huge gerbil. This one was unafraid, munching serenely on grass, and about the size of a small dog.

After our aborted trip to the aviary, we stopped at the upscale shopping centre near the ferry for a coffee at Starbucks (there are no other coffee shops in this area) and had a bit of sushi for lunch, enjoying a break from the humid heat under a large leafy tree. [These two days were cloudy and rainy so the photos are not very good. And, although I've been wearing 50 spf sunscreen the whole time I've been away, I see that I have a tan ...]

At the Casa Ejido there are many small lizards: some are very tiny and black; others are larger, greyish, and have a head frill, looking like miniature dinosaurs. One of the latter (in the picture below) rears up and races on two legs along the edge of the pool almost daily in the morning. I love these guys!

See a few more pics here.

Merida Weekend

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On the weekends in Merida there is quite a bit to do. First, though, we had to walk for a few kilometers in the heat to see a doctor about my swollen hand, received when some malicious insect stung me at the Labna ruin site; it had hurt like hell on that day, and, when we got home and I put on my glasses, I realised that a stinger had been left behind in my palm. Then my palm started to swell and, as the next day progressed, the swelling started to extend down my arm – time to get a remedy! The doctor, a kindly pediatrician who drove down to the clinic to see me, gave me a prescription for some topical and oral steroids and assured me that nothing in the Yucatan is poisonous … good to know. Today, three days later, my hand is back to normal.

Since we were near the Centennial Park, and its zoo, we decided to visit the animals. Although neither Ty nor I like zoos, this one had received some good reviews on the net.

Unfortunately, these reviews weren’t really justified, since most of the animals are in small pens or tiny metal cages that are, in the case of the large cats and hippos certainly, way too small for them.

I was surprised to see so many big cats here; the zoo has lions (with two new small cubs), leopards, tigers, panthers, and some other small cat species, as well as a couple of hippos, and lots of varieties of deer.

Two of the younger cats, a black panther and a leopard, were playing with one another, while many of the other big cats were pacing neurotically up and down in their tiny spaces, or lying listlessly on the ground in the heat.

The zoo also has a snake display, a couple of crocodiles, quite a lot of turtles, monkeys, baboons, two chimps, and a fairly large aviary, with several peacocks.

All the food stands are designed in the shape of architectural structures from around the world – tee-pees, igloos, a castle, a Greek temple, and a mosque, among them.

We were the only tourists there; the place was busy with local families and their kids, all out enjoying the park.

From Thursday to Sunday downtown Merida is closed to cars,

and hosts music and dancing in the squares and on the streets.

At night, the colonial buildings gracing the downtown main square are lit up beautifully.

This past weekend we saw three descendants of the ancient Maya protesting Mayan treatment by the Catholic church in front of the Cathedral of San Idelfonso. While I was busy photographing the buildings, a hard looking working girl sidled up to Ty and tried to get his attention without any success.

On Sunday, from some local antique dealers whose wares were set up in the Santa Lucia Park, I purchased a tin ex-voto painting from 1951 illustrating a promise to St. Teresa to quit smoking from a selection of several such works on sale. Although there are lots of souvenirs and “mayan” handicrafts for sale here, it’s not that easy to get something authentic. My painting is the middle one in the picture below.

We’ve got two more days in Merida and then we’re off on the big bus to Playa del Carmen on the Riviera Maya; both of us are looking forward to being back on the beach!

See more pics here and here.