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| Yaaay! Human sacrifice! |
We didn’t really know a lot about Campeche, only that it was a reasonable distance from there to Merida, and there to Valladolid for Chichen Itza. And there, from Cancun, which was a red hot, sunny, beachy paradise apparently. However, the pictures made it look pretty fancy, so off we went.
We arrived and got ourselves a taxi to the where the apartment was marked on the map. Unfortunately, it was inaccurate in the sense the road was very long, and the apartment was all the way on the other side of it. After about a kilometre or so walk though, we finally found the place, extremely grateful for the air conditioning by this point. It was stupidly hot, feeling like almost 40 degrees, which isn’t something we choose where possible.
We decided to wander to the centre to see what there was to find. Not a lot visible en route, but we were overjoyed to find ourselves an Oxxo store by the time we arrived so we could retreat into the air conditioned glory. Gathering ourselves a supply of cold drinks, we realised we should probably see a little of the town itself, so headed out and took a seat in the shade and took in the area. A large platform in the middle, probably for concerts and shows (although who would do a show in this heat…), otherwise, just pidgeons, loads of them. One guy randomly picked one up and just sat holding it for about 5 minutes. Unsure why.
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| 2 or 3 of them here..! |
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| Always new friends to be made |
We ended up finding a pedestrian road and wandering along to the end, where it took us to the sea. Most of the sights seemed to be along the coastal road, so we had a look at the statues as we passed, until we could retreat into the Walmart and absorb as much air conditioning as possible again. It really was that hot. That evening however, it utterly pissed down with rain, which wasn’t unwelcome.
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| Thar be a large chihuahua! |
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| Got it! |
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| Every town, find the siiigns... |
The next day, we headed to some nearby ruins which were considered the main thing to do in the area. Considering that I had failed to see the last ones, I was hoping I could keep my head together to take these ones in at least. Getting there was little hassle, although it took a while as the colectivo only left on the hour or when full, and it never filled. We were dropped off at the door. It was still bloody hot.
The ruins were pretty cool, and we were allowed to climb bits of it to get a view around to see the rest.
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| As I said, always new friends to be made...! |
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| 'This way, follow me!' |
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| 'Come! Explore!' |
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| Chunky lil bugger |
Leaving however was a bit more of a hassle. We walked back up to the road we came on, but after 20 or so minutes, no colectivos had passed. It was STILL bloody hot, and I wasn’t quite sure how long we’d be waiting. Luckily, a big white SUV drove passed and the guy asked where we were going, then let us in the back. Turned out, these were people also at the ruins when we were, a father, twin sons and a daughter who all spoke perfect English. We chatted about the upcoming Mexican election, Brexit (they were unaware we hadn’t actually left yet, considering all the drama it’s causing I guess that’s no surprise) and travel. We ended up having a comfortable (air conditioned…) ride back and dropped off about 1km from the centre. Very handy!
On our way back we swung by a supermarket to grab stuff for dinner. Unfortunately we hung around just 10 minutes too long, as on our walk back, the heavens opened in the most dramatic way possible. Roads were completely flooded, cars were kicking up tidal waves as they went past. We waited for it to pass for about 20 minutes but eventually realised this wasn’t going to happen and just ran for it. By the time we arrived back, we were completely drenched through. And no longer complaining about the heat.
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| No cutlery in our apartment so we improvised..! |
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| Fancy sunset though |
Our next stop was Merida. Again, we had no idea what there was to see here but it was on the list and it looked huge. Our accommodation was unusual, the house was made up of three circular buildings, next to each other and joined up. They had a swimming pool in the garden, again, the all important air conditioning, but most importantly a pupper!
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| Pup? Me? Yup! |
The house did have some negatives though, unfortunately it was a good 30+ minute walk from town. We made our way to the centre and got ourselves acquainted. It wasn’t long until a guy started talking to us and telling us that there was a show in town tonight, and to get there for about 8 as it’s really busy by 9. He also started telling us about a market in the area, some sort of Mayan co-operative. I asked where abouts, which was silly in retrospect, and he showed us the way. On the way though, we bumped into the twins we’d got a lift back with the day before, turned out they were coming to Merida before heading back to home. Strange coincidence. Anyway, we were dropped off at a market where everything was crazy expensive, even though they told us it was the cheapest in the area. We left without buying anything, especially after finding out the jewelry Diana was looking at was over $150 each for things we’d seen in previous places for $20, and that would have had a huge mark up too. No ta.
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| Another town, another sign! |
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| Funny little chairs connected in an S shape so you face each other |
We hung around until the night time to see this show. Well, nothing had started at 8, so we stuck around until 9. By 9:30, Diana’s eyes were getting heavy and whilst good, wasn’t good enough for us to stick around too much longer, especially as we had a fair walk to go yet.
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| Mahoosive version of the S shaped seats |
We had decided to use today to go see the cenotes, holes in the ground leading to caverns full of water. One particularly fancy set of them involved getting a colectivo to a town about an hour away, then visiting each one by horse-drawn train. Only slightly more robust than the trains in Battambang, in that they actually had seats, but it did mean having to detach the horse and put it on the other side in order to turn around.
The cenotes were interesting though. A bit of a stark contrast to the rest of the temperatures, 35+ degrees above ground and very chilly indeed in the water. We had a swim about in them all though, with one having a swing to get in and another looking like there wasn’t any water until following a long dark passageway for a minute or so and finding a secret cave. All of them had little black fish swimming around in them and bats overhead, and surprisingly clear (yet very blue?) water. Definitely a bit different to usual. On the way out, Diana tried to give the horse a tip of one crunchy apple, but it didn’t seem too keen.
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| HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII |
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| Cave swimmer! |
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| A Jonno-fish |
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| Big 'ole, they only realised there was water because of the huge tree apparently |
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| And here's said water |
We were fortunate that the colectivo back wasn’t too long on the way back, and soon found ourselves back in Merida. It was too hot to do anything else though so we just decided to head back, but still managed to bump into the family who gave us a lift again. Anyone would think they were following us! We had hoped to stay here another night and check out some more stuff, but the house wasn’t available so we decided instead to have another night in the next town, Valladolid.
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| Bye pup! |
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| Got it! |
Unfortunately the bus ride there included another brain implosion, leaving Diana to do most of the job of getting us to the hotel and checking us in. Not much was accomplished for me this day, but Diana came back with about 4 bags of shopping, including clothes, so someone managed to achieve something.
The next morning we headed out to Mexico’s star attraction, Chichen Itza, a huge pyramid used for human sacrifice (yay). We left fairly early to try and beat the crowds and heat, but the colectivo had slightly different ideas and hung on for almost an hour before we set off. We arrived at what was effectively Mayan Disneyland, grabbed our tickets and walked on in. We decided not to opt for a guide and take a look around at our own pace. It had been half reconstructed, which is the half we walked into at first. Whilst a lot less crowded than it could have been (and by the time we left the coach loads of people were turning up), people still did their best to get in the way of every photo we tried to take, with people going infront of other people to get their photo without someone in it, in turn making them go in front of them, until they were practically climbing it. People were walking around clapping, as it seems all this Mayan architecture came with the added bonus of a strange reverberation noise upon clapping. I suspect this wasn’t by design, unless it was to make more impressive rounds of applause when people were sacrificed.
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| Found you! |
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| Always a good time to be on one leg! |
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| There it is! |
The grounds were reasonably large, with some more ruins and pillars dotted around, and a huge pitch for ‘Juego de Pelota’ – a ball game they used to play where they weren’t allowed to use their hands and feet, to try and get the ball into a hoop a good 20 metres in the air and not much larger than the ball itself. Oh and the reward was sacrifice. So there’s some motivation for you.
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| Anyone want to buy a pillar? Don't trust the saleswoman though, she looks shifty! |
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| We've got a huge selection..! |
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| The tourist tat shops were just setting up |
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| Some light reading! |
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| The ball game pitch, pretty big |
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| But teeeeny tiny targets! |
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| Skull wall, naturally |
Overall impressions, pretty good. Not so exciting we couldn’t possibly leave, but probably one of the better ‘wonders’ we’ve seen. But honestly, that’s not difficult, they’re so over-commercialised now that it isn’t exactly like you’ve just discovered the place yourself.
Another day, another cenote, this time a much more commercialised one with showers, swimming pool and a bar. First we checked out the cenote itself, which had a much more impressive rope swing and was pretty large. We don’t know how deep it was but I suspect the answer is ‘pretty deep’.
The rest of the day we just spent sat in/by the pool, listening to young backpackers talking bollocks. One of them said they’d ‘heard someone talking about Chichen Itza’ like it was a thing that just the occasional person knows about. Bless them.
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| Found some street pups on the way back |
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| An old Mayan house |
That was it for Valladolid. Finally, on to sun, pools, sea, sand (the last two I don’t much care for but whatever)…! Or so we thought. Our last week in Cancun has been nothing but non-stop rain. And not like a tiny amount, we’re talking tropical monsoons, day in, day out. Thunder, lightning, the lot..! We took a day trip to go see Tulum, braving the rain (which fortunately was a little lighter than normal but still ever present), but otherwise, a lot of films and TV shows were watched in the comfort of our little apartment in the middle of nowhere..!
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| Gotcha! |
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| Fancy building art |
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| All the crisp flavours you could want. Red chilli, flaming hot, and jalapeno. Such variety! |
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| The next (rainy..) one |
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| Diana hopped in to the nearest skelfie! |
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| Mexico vs Germany - the TV section of the supermarket became useful |
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| Last one! |
And that marks the end of our 7 and a half month journey.. Right now, I wouldn’t say we’re too sad about that. There’s been plenty of fun along the way, but we’re missing family, friends, dogs, motorbikes (Me…), running (Diana…) and just knowing what the heck we’re doing day to day. Bring on normality!
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| Adios! |
