Tulum to Antigua

For some reason I completely forgot about Tikal amd Flores in between Belize and Antigua??!! Anyway here is a revised version....


The Cenote trip was amazing to say the least. Imagine a huge network of caves and tunnels with stalagmites and stalagtites protruding everywhere, filled with impossibly clear water and stocked with multitudes of small fish. Because the water was so clear it wasn`t really like swimming at all, more like floating through space, and the surface of the water looked like a mirror from underneath which gives you a weird sensation of swimming upside down. The tips of the stalagtites poking into the surface of the water from above were particularly strange, like upside down islands in a mirror sea. I really wish I had an underwater camera to show some pics, it was truly surreal........

The water here is actually maybe four metres deep

The guide was a strange mexican version of Gus from the hostel in Nelson, Really cool guy.

A comparitively sand free sleep later in the beach hut it was south to the border town of Chetumal for an early morning bus down to Flores, Guatemala via Belize.

After another forgettable bus ride through Belize (Belize is apparently really nice but the part I saw was super dull) and a stop to pay 15 dollars for the privelege it was into Flores in the afternoon to another cool hostel, Los Amigos. Flores is an old colonial town built on and entirely covering a small island in the Lago del Peten Itza, conected to the mainland by a causeway; very picturesque.

A typical house in Belize ( I had to have at least one picture of Belize )

Aside from the pretty little town the reason to visit these parts is to explore the majestic and very atmospheric ruins at Tikal to the north. I started chatting to a british guy while waiting for the bus the next morning and we spent the day clambering up and trying not to fall off the massive temples. Monkeys, insects, lizards and colourful birds everywhere and the view from the top of the temples was amazing. It is a shame I didn`t come here a few years ago, apparently you could bribe a guard and spend the night on top of a temple, getting up to watch the sun rise.....

This temple was 57 metres high

And the stairs were no fun in the rain....

Two of the many spider monkeys swinging aound the place, with the tops of temples in the background

The next morning I boarded yet another long distance bus down to Antigua, via Guatemala city. I was still a couple of hours from Guatemala City when I noticed it was rapidly getting dark and trust me, Guatemala city is no place to wander around at night.....

Luckily I started chatting to a really nice Guatemalan lady who was returning to the city after working the week as a doctor in the remote jungle communities around Coban who offered to help me. Turns out her mother who was picking her up from the bus station was also dropping off a cousin at the Antigua bus stop afterwards and they could take me there and also help me find a cheap place to stay in Antigua, Sweet as.....

The cousin and her boyfriend were both heading to Antigua for the weekend to work as volunteer firefighters/paramedics and after showing me around the station we found a cheap (but grotty) hotel for me and headed out on the town for some beers.

The next day was School hunting day and once again a ridiculously helpful person stepped in to guide me, this time a man from the local tourist information centre. He took me around to seven different schools and introduced me to the directors and after over four hours of comparing I decided on the one that gets the best write up in pretty much every guidebook and website, the Atigueña spanish academy. After a bit of haggling I had the price down to $170US p.w. for four hours of class a day and accomodation and all meals with a local family, which is actually far cheaper than travelling, nice!

Some chicken buses in town with volcun agua in the distance

There are five other students staying in the house so the feel is more like a backpackers than anything but the showers are hot, the food is tasty and I have a nice big comfy bed. With clean sheets too, so luxurious.

Have just finished day three of class with my teacher Delia and am off on an excursion to a macadamia farm with the other students, hopefully no rain today but there is a big black cloud on its way, fingers crossed.......

More Antigua pics when it stops raining!

Oaxaca to Tulum

The overnight bus to Oaxaca was pretty nice actually. Big seats, good aircon and no crying babies. At one stage I woke up and saw this out the window:

Would really like to come back and do a hike through this area at some stage, very nice.

After some more great advice from the tourist info people I checked into the Paulina hostel. Probably the nicest hostel I have ever been in actually, more like a five star resort with dorms. After a great big free breakfast and watching the hummingbirds in the garden for a while I headed up to the Monte Alban ruins in the hills above town with Glendon, a Canadian guy who is riding his motorbike from Canada down to Patagonia.

Oaxaca:

Pretty nice ruins but poor Glendon was having a bit of stomach trouble, and of course there was no toilet paper anywhere, just lots of very rough looking leaves. note to self: buy toilet paper.

Caught a night bus to San Cristobal for a day of wandering around the Spanish colonial town centre and a night in another cool hostel:

Inside the dorm:
Then went out to a local bar with some girls from my room for a few beers and a really good cover band and then back to the hostel for a few bedtime shots of the Mezcal I bought in Oaxaca. (pretty much the same as tequila but because its not from the town of Tequila they have to call it something else).

Palenque was the next stop to see the ruins and spend a night in the jungle hippie camp at Panchan (well it was a hippie camp once upon a time but now its just a collection of cheap cabaña places and people with tattoos and dreadlocks). They did have a cool fire and drumming show though:

The ruins were impressive too, though it was so hot I had to rest every ten minutes:

Apparently this is a rabbit. Nice bunny....

Taking an apple break:

Another night bus to Tulum, this time second class to save some money, which I have been blowing like crazy so far. This time there was a baby, no aircon, and frequent "mystery stops" in the middle of nowhere. Also they love their speed bumps in Mexico, are they really necessary every ten kilometres on a highway???

Got hooked up with a nice little beach hut right on the sand in Tulum. Or in the sand I should say:

And settled in for an afternoon and night of shuddering walls and cascading sandshowers......

The ruins above the beach were cool though:

So this afternoon I`m off to go snorkelling in a cenote ( a cenote is a sinkhole in the limestone shelf that makes up the Yucatan peninsular. The whole peninsular is basically a honeycomb of caves and underground rivers, there is very little water sitting above ground) nearby and then down to Guatemala tomorrow for some more ruins at Tikal.......