Mexican Madness: 2005-2006

It hasn't been all beaches for us the last few weeks, we did hit a few ruins as well! How could we resist such beautiful white sand and clear turquoise water and the coral reefs are just off shore. We sampled three different resort towns and can safely recommend at least two of them.

We took the bus from Chetumal to the Costa Maya. This stretch of the Caribbean, the most southerly section of the Yucatan peninsula, nearest to Belize, is trying to promote itself as the next big development. They have a way to go. Mahahual is not even a village, it is really just one dirt road between the sea and the mangrove swamps with a line of simple hotels and restaurants. The beach is nice white coral sand and the reef is between 100 and 300 M offshore, creating a shallow swimming area. Because it is so shallow, sea grasses abound. This is good for fish but not too pleasant for swimming, except in one large area that I suspect was cleaned of the sea grass. A new port has been built to entice cruise ships to stop and sample the coast as it was before Cancun. Monday to Friday up to three ships arrive in the morning and some of the passengers disembark to bicycle, ride ATV Quads, kayak, drink beers at the beach bars and buy souvenirs from stands that line the road in town.

We arrived on a Saturday when no cruise ships were in port, most of the souvenir stands were closed up and the only visitors on the beaches were families there from Chetumal and other nearby towns. We weren't sure where we were going to stay so Ray volunteered to stay with our bags and I started walking down the road looking for a good, inexpensive hotel. I walked about 1 Km before reaching a likely place that was too expensive for our small budget. George, a young New Yorker staying at this hotel while having a house built, offered some suggestions for other places. He ended up driving me another 1/2 km down the road to a set of cabañas that were just right. He even drove me to pick up Ray and our luggage and back again to our cabaña. I didn't mind being a lady in distress at all.

Cabañas Del Doctor was right across the road from the beach. We had a large cabaña with comfortable bed and mosquito net, concrete walls and a thatched roof. It had a bathroom with cold water shower and electric light from 7 PM to 11 PM. The breezes picked up in the evening so it was cool for sleeping. What more could we want? We spent our days going for walks down the road in both directions, swimming and reading, very relaxing. I rented snorkel gear one day and found a good spot close to shore where I spotted rays and schools of fish in the warm waters. We ended up staying four days before heading up the coast to Tulum.

We took the same bus as a young couple, Dan and Esther, from Wisconsin. The village of Tulum is on the main highway about 6 km away from the beach. Dan suggested we share a taxi to a cabaña resort on the beach that he had stayed in several years before. It was still there in the middle of a 2 km stretch of that white coral sand, just south of the Tulum ruins. The cabaña we were shown had a thatched roof, simple stick walls that had been covered with concrete on the inside, and a concrete floor, which was an upgrade from the original sand floor. Light was by candles, we had to provide our own towels and soap and the communal washrooms were at the other side of the complex. We said we would try it for one night and stayed four. The restaurant on the premises was good and the beach and the swimming were excellent so the lack of our own bathroom didn't matter.

Dan and Esther raved about their diving expedition to the reef, just 300 M off shore so I signed up for a snorkelling trip. Puerto Escondido is not the only popular resort for Italians. Italians ran several of the businesses in Mahahual and they ran one of the snorkelling operations in Tulum. I joined a boatload of 13 Italians to visit the reefs. We had 40 minutes at each of two prime spots with lots of colourful fish and numerous stag horn, brain and fan corals beneath the crystal clear waters. On the return trip we drove past the Tulum ruins to get a view from the sea. They are quite impressive, set at the top of sheer cliffs at the edge of the sea. It is a popular attraction and the first Mayan ruin we had seen in Mexico when we had vacationed in Cancun 15 years before.

The last day in Tulum we took a taxi to the Gran Cenote. Most of the Yucatan is a flat limestone peninsula. Over the centuries water has collected in the limestone and carved a series of underground rivers and interconnected caverns. Some of the caverns, called cenotes, are filled with fresh water and open to the sky. Gran Cenote, near Tulum Puebla (the town) is a popular diving location because the water is crystal clear and you can go from one underwater cave to another. You can also snorkel, which is what we did. It was a unique experience swimming just under stalactites with hundreds of tiny fish all around us. We followed divers with headlamps below us until they disappeared into the caves, then we explored more openings at surface level.

Our original plan had been to visit Playa del Carmen, but we heard nothing but negative reports of the crowded beaches and over-developed town so we headed to quiet Puerto Morelos instead. It was a wise choice. Midway between Play del Carmen and Cancun, Puerto Morelos has resisted the huge resorts that make Cancun the Miami of Mexico. Building ordinances limit hotels and condos to three stories, although I saw a few four stories creeping up. There are plenty of restaurants in town to choose from and the beach is just as beautiful as Tulum. We stayed in a small hotel a few blocks from the beach. Hotel Inglaterra had several nice terraces to relax on and a communal kitchen where we prepared breakfast and evening snacks.

Hurricane Wilma stalled over Puerto Morelos for three days last fall with winds of more than 100 miles per hour and caused a lot of damage. It blew tiles off roofs, broke windows, took down palm trees lining the shore and undermined foundations of houses along the beach, causing several to collapse. New palms have been planted and reconstruction is taking place all along the beach. The boardwalk in town has been rebuilt and the damaged buildings are being repaired.

The Sunday we arrived there were many Mexican families enjoying the beach but the rest of the week there were hardly any other tourists on the beach. The reef 300 M off shore is a protected national park and the snorkelling is excellent. We took a snorkel trip out to the reef to enjoy the fish and corals. We had to wear life jackets to keep us above the corals but it didn't matter because the waters were shallow and visibility was excellent. We were led through two different spots near the reef. We were pleasantly surprised that the reef was so little damaged by the hurricanes last fall. We were told that the hurricane created a few more breaks in the reef resulting in more fish inside the reef, all the better for snorkellers.

t was time to visit another Mayan ruin and what better one that the huge Chichén Itzá. We took the bus from Puerto Morelos to Hotel Dolores Alba, just 2 km from the eastern gate of the ruin. The hotel was very comfortable with a restaurant and two swimming pools to cool off in after exploring the area.

There is more in the area than Chichén Itzá. The first day we walked to the Grutas Balankanché, caves discovered in 1959. A Chichén guide started exploring a cave and after walking 300 M found a huge opening with a column around which were numerous ceremonial Mayan artefacts from 1000 years before. The artefacts were removed for study but have been replaced in their original positions so that tourists like us can see them. We arrived for the English version of the history and legends of the caves. This audio presentation is heard as you walk along the paths leading down to three different ceremonial sites deep underground. The audio explained how important caves were to the Mayans, providing a link to an afterlife. Many of the pottery items had images of the rain god Chac, so important to the Mayans, who were farmers in a region of little rain.

Chichén Itza was important in the late classic era, between the 10th and 14th C. Mayans ruled for the first few centuries but were eventually conquered by the more war-like Toltecs. As a result, Chichén contains examples of both cultures. We hired a guide, Raul, to take us around the site and give us more of its history.

El Castillo, or the Pirámide de Kukulcán, is the image most photographed. It is actually two pyramids, one built on top of the other. Archaeologists believe the smaller inner pyramid with 65 stairs on each of its four sides represents the short Mayan calendar. The outer pyramid has 91 stairs on each of four sides, making a total of 364. With one more for the temple on the top, it totals 365, the same number of days as the long Mayan calendar. There are also 52 carved panels on the outside of the pyramid, the number of years in a Mayan version of a century. Numerology everywhere!

We would have loved to climb to the top for the view but the pyramid was closed to all climbers. An elderly American woman fell to her death from the 71st stair in January. Apparently the public outcry about the closure will result in the pyramid reopening in May but we will be long gone.

Chichén also has a fascinating area called the Plaza de Mil Columnas (1000 columns). Raul explained that this was a market area and the distance between the many columns that outlined the area was the space given to individual vendors, similar to the space given vendors in many of Mexico's current markets.

Chichén has the biggest ball court in Mexico. It is huge. We wondered how any team could ever heave a heavy rubber ball through the round stone goals set high up on the opposing vertical walls. The acoustics were perfect in the ball court area as we demonstrated. Hands clapped when standing in the center reverberate off the sides five times.

There were several other temples that were fascinating but the most gruesome was the sacred cenote. To appeal to the rain god Chac, citizens were chosen to sacrifice their lives. They were given hallucinogenic drugs, dressed in their finest jewels, cleansed in a steam bath at the edge of the cenote, and thrown in. The cenote was a 35 M deep steep sided cylinder, so escape was impossible. When the cenote was explored in this century, numerous skeletons and a wealth of jade and other precious jewels were found. They didn't use that cenote for everyday water use.

After spending the morning at Chichén Itzá we took the bus to Mérida in the afternoon. Since Hotel Dolores Alba was such a success at Chichén, we stayed at their sister hotel in Merida. It was centrally located, had rooms around a cooling swimming pool and offered a good value breakfast. They even had a few less expensive rooms with a ceiling fan but no air conditioning, which fit our budget.

Mérida had lots to recommend it. The downtown area has many well-kept colonial buildings to visit. There are lots of restaurants and many shops selling Mayan handicrafts, hammocks of all qualities, Panama hats and Guayabera shirts, comfortable cotton shirts worn by many of the men. Ray looks very chic in his Panama Hat.

Sunday was the day to be in Mérida. We visited the local anthropological museum in the morning and were pleased to take advantage of free Sunday admission. The museum, located in a 19th C mansion, is on a broad boulevard, once the address to have in Mérida. The carvings and other items from Chichén Itza and other nearby ruins were well marked and displayed.

The central plaza area was the scene of free concerts all day long. We started in a theatre next to the plaza with a performance of a local, mostly older group playing guitars and singing popular folk songs. The women were dressed in the favourite huipil of Mérida. It is a white cotton straight dress with a deep lace hem. Each dress was covered with embroidered red flowers, each design different. The men wore a Panama hat, white Guayabera shirt, white pants with a red kerchief tucked in their belts and huarche sandals. They received well-deserved applause for each number.

After the folk concert, we listened to several other groups playing guitars and singing and a young group, dressed similarly to the folk group we had seen in the theatre, sing and perform dances of the Yucatan. At the end of the day the Méridians danced to a large Marimba band. Add to that balloon sellers and stalls selling drinks, snacks and Yucatan crafts and it was a busy and happy place to be.

We had one more temple site to visit. We took a guided minibus tour to the ancient Mayan-Puuc cities of Uxmal and Kabah, about 70 km south of Mérida. On the way we drove through an abandoned sisal factory, now a museum, in the Small town of Yaxopoil. Sisal rope, fibres from a local Agave plant, was an important industry for about 100 years. The factory we visited would have been very impressive in its day. The main office was a Spanish style hacienda and the large factory was run with German machinery, still there on display.

Uxmal, important from 600 - 900 AD, was rebuilt five times as each successive ruler left his mark on the city. The city is thought to have been abandoned because of either a severe drought or the rise of Chichén Itzá. There are no underground rivers or cenotes in this area so huge stone cisterns were built to store rainwater. Consequently the rain gods Chac and Tloloc figure prominently.

The Pirámide de Adivino (Magician), with a huge Chac mask, is unusual for its oval base and high rounded sides. Long-nosed Chac carvings and the feathered serpent Quetzalcóatl are found on the walls of the four buildings forming the Cuadrángulo de las Monjas (Nun's quadrangle). No nuns ever lived there. It probably was a school or a military academy. The Governor's Palace, set on a hill, is almost the same length as the buildings of the Nun's Quadrangle, set in a straight line. It was most impressive, covered with Chac faces, stone latticework and geometric designs of a snake, the image of life.

A white crushed limestone road, the Sacbé, once connected Uxmal and Kabah, 16 km away. All that is visible now is an arch at Kabah. The rest has been taken over by the jungle. Kabah was a larger city than Uxmal but far less has been uncovered. The main road bisects the site. We visited the east side because the west side has been little explored. The most interesting building was the Codz Poop (Palace of Masks). Set on a high terrace, the facade is covered with 120 stone Chac masks.

We fly home from Mexico City and rather than spend three or four days in a bus travelling back, we flew from Mérida to Mexico City. That allowed us time to visit another beach town on the Pacific coast. We spent the night in Mexico City at Hostal Moneda, our original hotel in December, and the next morning took the first class bus to Zihuatanejo, 8 Km from Ixtapa. The trip was long, 9 hours, but easy as the route was on a toll road to Acapulco and then north along the coast to Zihautanejo.

Zihautanejo is quite a large town on a large protected bay on the Pacific coast. We are based in the beach area where the streets are lined with inviting stores and restaurants. Hotels have been built all around the bay, above several beaches, not as nice as Tulum or Puerto Morelos, but still nice. The luxury resorts of Ixtapa are just 8 Km away but most people we have talked to prefer more laid back atmosphere of Zihautanejo. We are just taking it easy here, enjoying the beach again, consolidating our tans and sampling the many restaurants.