MEXICO MARCH 13 - 21

Well I sold my car on March 9th and was on my way to Cancun via an overnight stop in Dallas by March 12th. I have a cousin, Christina Godso, in Dallas who I had not seen in 7 years so I met up with her and her husband David for dinner and stayed at their beautiful house. It was great catching up with Christina and David and hearing how everyone in her family and the Benham family are doing. It's too bad the Benham's and Byers's lived so far apart as I have really enjoyed the few times we have got together.

Christina was kind enough to get up very early the next morning to drive me to the airport. My plane left at 8:30AM and 2 hours later I was in Cancun. Customs was crazy as spring break was in full swing and of course I got the red light when I hit the famous "Button" which meant I had to go through a full search of my stuff. 3 hours after landing, I was on the beach.

CANCUN March 13 - 16

High-lites

Temple of Kukulcan

-Chechen Itza - amazing Mayan ruins with some special sunh effects at the end of the day because of the upcoming spring solstice.
- The 8 foot Boa Constrictor snake that made an unannounced visit while our guide in the ruins was giving his spiel. It was as thick as my arm and ended up climbing onto a nearby moped. Caused quite a commotion until a park employee identifed it as non-poisonous.

Cenote near Chechen Itza

-Swimming in a cenote (a sink hole into the underground river system scattered throughout the Yacatan area).
-Snorkeling in Puerto Moralos - located an hour south of Cancun, a beautiful little fishing village with very little hotel development and the best coral reef in the region with lots of fish.







Low-lights
-With continuous erosion of the Cancun beaches, there is very little beach left in many areas of the hotel strip. In some places the hotel foundations are right at the high tide line.
-Expensive and crowded beach clubs with $20 fee just to sit in a beach chair.
-The poverty of the Mexican towns near Chechen Itza. The houses are tiny and many with thatch rooves. Schools have two 7 hour seperate sessions a day because they can't afford to build new schools.
-Not having a wing man to better enjoy the nighlife.
-Bad blisters on my foot from breaking in some new sandals.
-Too commencialized and expensive.

Accomodations
-Grand Royal Lagoon Hotel about 10 minute walk from the nightclub part of the strip. Nice clean rooms, quiet and a great deal at $40/night.

PLAYA DEL CARMEN March 17 - 18

Highlites
-Nicer beaches than Cancun without mega hotels dominating the beach and the views. Spent a very relaxing day on the beach.
-A more relaxed atmosphere with great shops, restaurants and bars along 5 Avenue.
-Met some people from Vancouver and went to a sports bar to watch the Canucks on HNIC.

Lowlights
-Not quite as commercialized as Cancun but close and very expensive.
-Have only met vacationers so far. I think travelers like me stay away from the big resort areas.
-Carrying my pack and other bag over a km in the noon sun. I need to get rid of some clothes to lighten the load.

Accomodations
-Posada Mariposa Hotel with a great local on 5th Avenue. No too near any bars so quiet, clean and $74/night.

TULUM March 19 - 20

Highlites

-It seems the farther I go south the less commercialized it gets.
-Very nice beaches which I spent a nice afternoon relaxing on while drinking cuevezas.
-Picturesque Tulum Mayan ruin on the cliffs above the ocean, went for a nice afternoon tour and swim on the beach below. I think these ruins are more stunning with he ocean backdrop than Chechen Itza.
-Awesome cabana type hotel with thatch rooved huts and a cool little poolside bar. Even met a few fellow travellers but no one heading to Belize.

-Very cool guy who seem to do a little everything at the hotel named Tom from Seattle. He's been travelling around Central America for 30 years and has given me some suggestions of places to go.

Lowlights
-More affordable than Cancun and PDC but still too expensive.
- My total lack of the Spanish language.

Accomodations
-Green Tulum Hotel - awesome little jungle huts for $50/night.


This part of Mexico is beautiful albeit very commercialized. I would love to come back here on a traditional 1 or 2 week vacation but I would skip Cancun completely and split my time between PDC and Tulum. Cancun is nice but mostly in the 18 to 24 age group. I stopped by a couple of clubs while I was there and even if I modified the rule to taking my age dividing by 3 and adding 7 I would still be older than almost everyone that was in these bars. Cancun would have been fun 20 years ago.

In the morning, I'm catching an 8:00AM bus to Chetumal which is a Mexican port city at the Belize border about 300 miles south of Tulum to catch a high speed passenger ferry to San Pedro in Ambergris Caye, Belize. The snorkeling, beaches and fishing is supposed to be outstanding. I will then stop at Caye Caulker for a night or 2 before heading to Belize City on my way to Placenia on the south coast. Then inland to San Ignacio for some river and jungle tours and some cave exploration. San Ignacio is also a good jumping point into Guatemala sometime in early April for about 3 weeks then on to El Salvador for a week to 10 days before heading to Honduras in early to mid May. The end on May, June and July will be split into Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama aiming to be in South America at the end of July. At least this is the plan now.

I can't wait to officially be in Central America!

Huesta Luego.

P.S. I have lots of pictures but am having technical difficulties. I need to upload them to my Picasa Web account then to my blog but I can't seem to upload any photos to Picasa. I'm hoping one of my more computer savy friends might have some idea. Kris, Jason, Scott or anyone else any ideas? Might it be an android issue. I get to the point where it looks like a photo is uploading and a grey box with the photo id tag displays in Picasa but it just seems to freeze up with the task bar locked at 0%. Send me an e-mail if you have any ideas at abyersnvan@gmail.com.