Last stop in the Americas

Mexico City, Mexico

It had been almost 3 months since we had been in a city and as such we were both looking forward to it. It did however mark the end of our 2 month long stretch of beach time, but only for a few days!
In the past I had heard only that Mexico City was a massive, sprawling and dirty city. I guess for a city with a population of somewhere around 25 million that would be expected. However we were really pleasantly surprised by the mexican capital, it was remarkably clean and had a warm atmosphere. We found a great little hotel right near the main square, the Zocalo, which at 8 quid a night was the cheapest place we'd stayed in a while (but it even had marble tiles in the bathroom!!) The great location enabled us to wander the streets and see the sights. We considered doing the proper tourist bit and getting on the open bus tour but in the end decided that it was best to explore on foot.

And explore we did, for most of the 4 days we were there. We pounded the streets then took in the view from the observation tower. The city sprawled out in every direction and it was impossible to see where it started or finished. Massive. We took a couple of trips on the underground there at 10 pence a ride! Went to the cinema, considered a real treat, and generally soaked up the atmosphere. As we wandered round we realised that lots of the impressive old colonial buildings were on the wonk. This, we discovered was due to the fact that most of Mexico City is built on an old lake bed. This had caused major subsidence, the opera house has sunk 4 metres but still remains intact!

Funnily enough the bit we probably enjoy most about cities in the enormous range of food they offer. As mexican food had proved so good up til now we hoped we wouldn't be disappointed. We weren't. The best food by far were the bits we ate from the street vendors. They served up fantastic deep fried quasadillas filled with whatever you liked, and tacos galore. We ate meat tacos for just 15 pence each, and for 35 pence you could get a larger taco stuffed with steak, onions and chips! Needless to say we went back many lunchtimes, much to the amusement of the locals. Even more so when they watched me pour loads of what I thought was guacamole onto my taco and then realise with burning lips that it was something quite different. Mik got that one, and I ordered a fresh one, well at 15 pence a pop I could!

I gave the locals something else to chuckle about one morning as we walked round the Zocalo. Whilst trying to avoid the people washing down the pavements I managed to walk smack into a hanging basket. And no it wasn't just a plastic thing filled with a few plants it was a big metal thing which made for a great thunk when my head came into contact with it. The thunk was almost as loud as the expletives that followed it, so soon everyone was staring at me. I can see how they would have found it amusing, I mean all of them would have been able to pass right under the blessed thing no problem. I guess that's the price we pay for being that much taller than the locals!

Finally it was time for us to leave the spanish speaking world. We had spent a fantastic 7 months in South and Central America but now it was time to stop pretending we could speak any Spanish, and move on to English speaking parts of the world. Our flight to the Cook Islands took us via Los Angeles. Anyone who has been here will know it does not give the best impression of the States, it's a dump. In fact the only plus point was that here I was able to put the toilet paperdown the toilet instead of in a bin, something I hadn't done in 7 months!!

Cara

El Cuyo

El Cuyo, Northern Yucatan, Mexico

Our plan after leaving Isla Mujeres was to rent a car and drive down to the apartment we had rented in El Cuyo the day before Mum&Mum arrived. That way we could stock up the fridge and get the place ready for them. The company we were renting the car from picked us up from the ferry port and took us to our car, a banged up old Nissan Tsuru which seemed to be the most numerous car on the road in this part of the world. It looked like 3 large suitcases glued together, but it was an automatic and had air-conditioning so we weren't complaining. We drove down to the super supermarket and spent a happy hour wandering the aisles, filling up the trolley with all the tasty treats we had been missing for the previous few months. We had been advised to get as much stuff as we could in Cancun as there was little that could be bought in El Cuyo itself and the nearest supermarket was an hour's drive away. Then we set off on the two hour drive to El Cuyo, which actually took nearly three and a half hours. Each village we passed through was smaller than the last (but still contained the requisite 47 speedbumps) and eventually they were just collections of wooden huts by the roadside. We arrived in El Cuyo, collected the keys and unloaded the car into the apartment. It was a huge place, and as close to the sea as it's possible to get without getting your feet wet. The only downside was that for most of the journey there we were driving through small scale brush fires along the length of the road. By the time we reached El Cuyo, the air was thick with the smoke from the fires and it hung over the whole coast like a thick fog. After coming from Isla Mujeres where it was bright and sunny every day, it would be a shame if all out time here was spent in a grey haze and smelling of bonfires. When we woke up the next morning, however, the wind had changed direction and the sky was as blue as you could want it.

We headed back to Cancun to collect Mum&Mum, got lost on the motorway in Cancun as Mexicans are so good at navigating they don't need signs, and arrived at the airport just a few minutes before they walked out with their suitcases. Both Cara and I were really looking forward to seeing our mums again, and it was great to see family again after all this time away. They both looked surprisingly chipper after such a long flight, which was good as they then had to sit in the car for another three and a half hours to get to the apartment. If Cara's mum, Linda, or my mum had hoped to get any sleep on the drive there they were out of luck, as Mexican roads have speedbumps every twenty metres. These, couples with the more than numerous potholes guaranteed they were bouncing around in the back seat for the entire journey. By the time we got there they were both starting to flag a bit, so we got them settled into their rooms and Cara made a start on dinner, more of her excellent fajitas. This was made a tad more difficult as all the kitchen appliances had been plugged into one extension socket and it just couldn't cope with the pressure. When you switched on the hob, it would take half an hour to warm up and the lights in the room would noticeably dim. Then if you attempted to use the microwave, it would short out the fridge. When you switched the fridge back on, the hob stopped working and so on. It took Cara the best part of two hours to finish cooking something that should have taken thirty minutes. Great! We had dinner out on the enormous balcony overlooking the sea, and much beer and wine was drunk. Cara and I even had another surprise treat to enjoy with our dinner. One of Cara's friends from back home, Helen, had given Linda a can of Strongbow cider for Cara and a can of Boddingtons bitter for me. After drinking crappy lager for the last God knew how long, we savoured those for as long as we could, which turned out to be about seventeen seconds in my case, and about seventeen hours in Cara's. By the end of the evening, everybody was exhausted and Mum&Mum finally made it to bed. They both slept like babies until late the next morning, but over the next couple of days both mums handled the jetlag surprisingly well. A lot better than I would have done, that's for sure. In fact most mornings, the three ladies had usually been for a swim, taken a walk along the beach and had breakfast before I even opened my eyes for the first time (although I'm obviously not the best benchmark for early risers).

Now, one of the supreme advantages of having family visiting mid-journey was to resupply our meagre rations with all the much-yearned for comforts of home. In the preceding months Cara and I had made various online purchases for goodies. New books, a new compact digital camera with assorted memory cards, new filters for the SLR, various cosmetic potions and creams for Cara and some much needed new books for the both of us. All this was fairly straightforward and Mum&Mum were happy to fill their cases with our chosen toys and toiletries. But this was trivial stuff compared to our real needs. Cara wanted, no, needed chocolate. Cadburys chocolate to be precise. And I hadn't had a bacon butty in 8 months. This was to prove a greater challenge. My mum was getting nervous about being an international bacon smuggler even before she bought the stuff, and the thought of getting the shakedown at Mexican customs didn't exactly fill her heart with joy. But true to her word, she packed the rashers into her suitcase (which was only slightly smaller than a detached farmhouse in Wiltshire) and braved the authorities. Linda did the same with Cara's forty seven kilos of assorted Cadburys chocolate products. As it turned out they were fine, despite falling foul of their own honesty and ticking the box on the immigration form relating to carrying food products. Like true professionals, they bluffed their way through customs with goodies intact, although Linda had to sacrifice a lemon for the greater good (fruit smuggling seems to be a family trait). So, the next morning Cara and I enjoyed real bacon sarnies for the first time in ages and for the next two weeks, Cara was never more than four feet away from a piece of chocolate. As a thankyou, Cara and I repaid the favour by giving Mum&Mum fourteen kilos of books and unwanted clothes to take home for us.

The village of El Cuyo was tiny, but it had a great atmosphere about it and all the locals were very friendly. They didn't even make any comments about the dandy hats Mum&Mum insisted on wearing everywhere they went. I'm reliably informed they are all the rage back home but I thought they looked like they should be worn by a couple of boiler stokers off an old steam engine. Shows what I know about fashion. There were only two restaurants in El Cuyo and they both closed at 6pm, so we wouldn't be having any crazy late nights on the town. We ate out a few times for lunch and the local seafood was fantastic, and most evenings were spent in the apartment, with Cara and me attempting to cook something up with our limited kitchen appliances.

After about five days in the apartment, we eventually began to run low on supplies. As the only things you could buy in El Cuyo were beer and onions (which incidentally, is what I began to smell like after five days in the apartment) we decided to take a day trip to the nearest supermarket in Tizimin, one and a half hours drive away. We took a walk around the town and had lunch in a very pleasant restaurant overlooking the town square. Mum&Mum were both wearing their Ivor the Engine hats, and Cara and I were a good foot taller than anyone else in town. That, coupled with the fact that we were the only gringos for miles around, guaranteed we received plenty of attention as we wandered the streets of Tizimin. We filled up a trolley with everything we needed at the well stocked supermarket and headed back to El Cuyo.

Now, getting there had been relatively easy. Being the only town of any size for some good distance, Tizimin had been signposted almost as soon as we left the apartment (for some reason, they have signs in the arse-end of nowhere. Just not in major cities or on highways). Getting back was to prove a little more difficult, and of course, it was my turn to drive. After taking several random turns, and taking my bearings from the sun and a pack of circling vultures, the general consensus was that we were lost. Obviously, being a man and Compass Mik, I insisted that I knew where we were going. Cara and Mum&Mum were having none of it. They each offered their own version of our intended course and between us we managed to cover all four points of the compass. Let me tell you, being lost in some shabby backwater of the Yucatan Peninsula with three female backseat drivers is unlikely to ever make the top ten of any man's "Things I'd really like to be doing on a Sunday afternoon" list, but we eventually we found our road and headed back to El Cuyo. Okay, so they were right and my directions would have taken us to El Salvador, but that's really not the point, is it?

We spent a great week and a half in El Cuyo. We had an enormous stretch of beach to ourselves, a great apartment, complete solitude and a lot of fun. My mum even had a go at teaching Linda and Cara how to linedance, though I was thankfully spared. I was, however, abjectly humiliated at a host of card and board games, but I displayed inhuman resilience to conversational topics involving X-Factor contestants and Eastenders plots, so it wasn't all bad.
My Mum and I even managed to watch the Champions League final in town one afternoon. The local internet place (actually somebody's living room with a couple of computers in the corner) had satellite TV and the owner kindly let us watch the game. On the walk back to the apartment along the beach, we found an enormous turtle on the sand, but unfortunately it was dead and had been washed ashore by the tide.

We decided to spend the last couple of days of Mum&Mum's trip on Isla Mujeres, to let them experience the crystal clear blue water and actually have a choice of where to have dinner. That, and the fact that Mum&Mum forgot to mention that their flight home was a day later than they had previously told us and we didn't have any accommodation sorted for the last night. Our first night there we managed to talk Mum&Mum into enjoying a couple of margaritas with dinner and they were both grinning for the rest of the night. When it was finally time to leave, we all took the ferry back to the mainland and said our goodbyes. Cara and I had to go straight to the bus station to catch a twenty four hour bus ride to Mexico City, so Mum&Mum took a taxi to the airport without us. We were sorry to see them leave but we had all had a fantastic time and it was great to see the mums again. This had been the first time I'd had been on holiday with my mum for twenty years and I really enjoyed spending time with her again after all these months away. I know Cara felt the same way and we were both a little bit homesick for a while afterwards. We were now on our last few days in the Americas before heading to New Zealand via the Cook Islands, and out of the sunny, beach life we had enjoyed for the last few months. I was even starting to turn a darker shade of white!

Mik

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Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Cancun is a city which has developed purely due to tourism. There is a 'hotel zone' which stretches for 22km along white sandy coastline with massive resort hotels the likes of which would no doubt turn us away at the door! So we bypassed Cancun, and instead headed to Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) a 25 min boat ride off the coast. Even this looked quite developed compared to what we had been used to and so we were a little unsure as we stepped off the ferry. However our Irish friends had been here just before they headed home and had recommended apartments where we got a good deal including kitchen again so all was cool.

We spent 8 days on the island doing very little other than lounging on the lovely beach, drinking ice cold Coronas (literally, as our freezer was very effective although the beer didn't freeze until taken out. Mik figured out the reason for this but to be honest I've forgotten his whole physics theory. I was listening at the time, honest Mik!). I was just happy to drink cold beer, albeit with the gringo addition of a slice of lime and cooking ourselves some lovely meals including fresh mushrooms, something we hadn't had for 6 months! Not a terribly interesting fact granted, but we will want to remember it in years to come I am sure!?

We did eat out a couple of nights though, and really enjoyed it. Rather than being a necessity it became a treat again. Especially as mexican food has proved to be very good. Loads of tacos, quesadillas and burritos (esentially the same thing just wrapped a different way!) with lashings of guacamole! And as they serve the chile sauces on the side, everyone is happy!

One day we did head back across the water to the shopping centres of Cancun. The primary reason was to check out the big supermarkets as next week our Mum's were due to arrive for their visit and we needed to know we could stock the apartment for them. It was the biggest supermarket we had seen in many, many months and sadly we spent a good 1/2 hour wandering around taking it all in! The secondary reason for hitting this particular shopping centre was because it housed a Zara (for those not in the know this is probably my favourite shop back home, not least for the fact that their trousers are long enough for me!) I was in heaven. I was very restrained but did just have to spend 5 mins walking round the shop in a pair of their strappy sandals! Oh, I miss heels. Trainers and flipflops have been the norm for far too long! Sorry, girlie moment.

Another day we visited the turtle sanctury on the island. Our guide book had promised huge turtles and lots of different species. Sadly the hurricane last year must have claimed a few turtle lives as there weren't many to be seen. Evidence of the hurricane could be seen all along the east coast of the island where many hotels had been gutted and walkways destroyed. The same was true in Cancun itself and we saw many signs promoting the reopening of some of the big hotels some 8 months after the hurricane hit.

Sitting on the white sandy beach watching the sun set, cold beer in hand, it was difficult to imagine the havoc nature had wreaked. We really enjoyed our time here on a very laid back island and before we knew it it was time to head off to get ready for the arrival of our Mum's!

Cara

Warm seas and cold beers

Tulum, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

Our first stop in Mexico after leaving Belize was the town of Tulum on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Most famous for it's Mayan ruins sitting atop a cliff overlooking the ocean, but most folk stay here to spend their days sitting on the miles of stupendously fantastic golden sandy beaches. We planned on renting a beachside cabana for a few days while we were there, but after walking the beach and checking out a few of the available options, we discovered our money would buy little more than a dilapidated allotment shed with half the roof missing. We further ascertained that the same cash would buy a large cabana in town, complete with bathroom, kitchen, mezzanine bedroom and not a swarm of mosquitoes in sight. Sold to the gringo with the ginger face whiskers. We would take a taxi down to the beach during the day and eat our way through the restaurants in town in the evening, not to mention guzzling our way through plenty of excellent, ice-cold bottles of Corona. Not a bad old life. Cara even got into the spirit by making us some of the best tacos I have ever had in my life. We'll definately be enjoying those again when we get home.

The beaches here really are fantastic. Mile after mile of white, powdery sand and turquoise water with the sun beating down all day. What wasn't so impressive though was our visit to the ruins. They are decent enough, but a bit of an anticlimax after the other sites we've visited in the previous months (I'm trying desperately not to sound like a spoiled little tosser, but I can see I'm losing). On top of that, to protect the site from the coachloads arriving hourly from every point north to Cancun, most of the structures are roped off and you can't ramble all over them as you can at most sites in the Americas. The location is pretty impressive though, overlooking the ocean with the waves crashing onto the cliffs on which the site stands.

We spent a few days in Tulum then jumped onto a bus north up the Yucatan. So there you go, short and sweet.

Mik