Day 18 28.07.15
Today it was time to say goodbye to Mexico as we were heading towards Belize and Caye Caulker. Gosh I was so excited about going to Belize. I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed Mexico and all that it had to offer.
I love the colours of the houses, the advertisement painted on them, the tiles and doors and the a lot more playful lifestyle. I loved the food, the refried beans, becoming more and more used to chilli, all the eggs we had, the quesadillas, the tacos, the avocados and guacemoles, all moles to be precise actually, and how this food changed throughout the areas we visited. I tried to have some local food, (of the region) everywhere I went, to be able to tell the difference and am now happy I can at least somehow geographically place the Mexican food I will order back home. I might as well try myself at some cochinita pibil, I’ll just have to find a good recipe. (Maybe I’ll steal it from some of my new Mexican friends…). Speaking of friends. Having such a good time in Mexico was also for a big part due to the people I met along the way. Be it a friendly barman, a friendly cleaning lady or receptionist, that lovely lady at the fish market, talkative taxi and van drivers, great and entertaining guides or just the people you would meet at a bar or on the streets. Everyone was friendly. I never really saw angry people or sad people. Maybe that is due to the places we visited, but even in the poorest of areas around San Cristobal de las Casas for example, the people were struggling to get by, but all wore a big smile when you talked to them. Yes they might have been out to sell something to you but even if you didn’t buy anything they wouldn’t throw curse words at you but instead just wish you a great day. Thanks Mexico in restoring my faith in you, and enabling me to tell all my friends and family about how good you are. I also felt very secure. Yes there was a high police presence, especially around Mexico City, but apart from that, people were honest in returning lost objects, or even just change, and I never felt afraid or anxious walking the streets alone. I was also very surprised as to the quality of the hotels. There was only one hotel along the whole trip, which after a second look wasn’t quite up to par (the one in Playa del Carmen), but the rest were great, mostly clean, with great wifi and friendly staff. The streets too were a lot cleaner than I would have imagined, even though some parts needed some renovation or just plain construction, I never found many places that were very dirty and uncomfortable to walk through. What I do have to mention of course is the wonders we have seen along the trip in the form of the different civilisation we got to experience. The Aztects, the Chalulas, the Teotihuacans, the Miztecs, the Zapatecans and the Mayans (I probably missed out another civilisation – such a bad students, but at least I can name five now and would have received a free drink had we played the game in the bus again :) ) were all so impressive and to think that these civilisations were at such an advanced level so many years ago, knowing about astrology, knowing about the calendar, all their knowledge on architecture the numeric system and also agriculture, is just very fascinating.
Of course there were also some things I wasn’t too happy about. For example the lack of music, specifically live music in Mexico. From Cuba I was “used to” a lot of street music and just everybody having a good time. The only time I got to hear Mexican music was via Mariachi bands, at some clubs, and when the restaurant decided to play this music. Only once did we see live music in La Negrita in Merida, and only once did I dance Salsa, at exactly the same place. I am definitely counting for a bit more of salsa action when I get to Guatemala, but until then I will just have to keep my dancing shoes still. The music that I did get to hear was a majority of Cuban music, (mainly for salsa), some Reggaeton, some pop music and some rock, but nothing that I can point my finger at and name you (apart from “El Taxi”, which I already did in my blog from Puebla). I wasn’t a big fan of the overnight buses I must say. The first one was alright, but the second was just a real nightmare. I will try and find out which bus we took then to hopefully somehow avoid it along the rest of my trip, or for others to. Transportation in itself wasn’t bad, it was just the few times we went on overnight buses that killed me. I can’t stand speed bumps. In Spain we had had a couple in our village and they were just so unnecessary. Especially on our trip from San Cristobal to Palenque this was quite strenuous as there were so many speed bumps, causing us to always slow down beforehand and that not being done in the gentlest way.
Another thing that had some getting used to do was coping with the humidity and the heat and also the mosquitos. The humidity came while travelling further South and then up to the coasts. The heat was there the whole time. At least we got to capture some and work on our tans, but when walking through ruins and it already being about 35 degrees at 09:00 in the morning, it can be quite unbearable. The mosquitoes bothered me mainly from Puebla to Palenque and then stopped bothering me as much. It might be due to the fact that I started taking antihistamines then, but maybe it is just due to a different type of mosquito in each region, which looks for “different tasting blood”.
What took some getting used to was the time you wait to order, the time between your order and the meal arriving, and the time it takes to receive the bill. I have resulted in calling it “Mexican time”, which always runs a couple of minutes later than all other watches. Of course we went eating in larger groups of people, but at least drinks can be handed out straight away after an order has been placed.
And the last part, that was really tough, was saying goodbye to the other group and transitioning into the new group. Ill have a couple of situations like that coming around, since I will be on several trips along the way and will have new group members each time, to be precise another 6 changeovers. On the other hand, it is always a goodbye and a hello to new people, and a chance to get to know new lovely people once again.
Back to my journey from Mexico to Belize. We were lucky to get to take a private bus all the way to the border of Mexico. It was quite comfortable and we only drove about 3 hours so that was ok. When we got to the border, we paid our fee (about 320 Mexican pesos), handed in the paper we had received upon arrival, and passed through out of Mexico. Here our Belizean drivers were already waiting, picked all of us up, dropped us off on the Belizean border and then we proceeded with exchanging our Pesos to Belizean Dollars. This was quite funny, as the money exchangers were all sat behind a fence and it felt a lot like dealing. After receiving the right amount – of course with fees :), we moved on to the Belizean border and customs.
I got my stamp fairly quickly and moved on to customs where “sometimes they can search your luggage”. I was lucky, so was the rest of our group, no one was searched and we jumped back onto the vans waiting for us. We were in Belize :) :). I was really giddy, but first we stopped off for some money withdrawal – in Caye Caulker there are no real reliable ATMs, so we had to get out as much money as we needed for our 3 days at the Caye. Then we moved on for some proper Belizean lunch.
At Al’s café we were served with incredible beans and rice. Now, beans and rice is not only beans and rice but it is also wonderfully cooked chicken, some potato salad, and some plantains and to accompany it a freshly pressed pineapple juice.
For desert I opted for some ice cream at the ice cream parlour next door. I tried some soursop – whatever that is. I googled it, but I have never seen this fruit before. Tasted a bit like vanilla. But maybe the soursop flavour didn’t come through and the vanilla I got tasted of the ice cream base.
After lunch we took a short stroll around the town and walked to the sea. It was a bit stormy but the water still was turquoise and the breeze was really soozing compared to the constant A/C from the van.
Nevertheless, refreshed and reenergised as we were we hopped back on the bus and rode another 3 hours I think until we got to Belize City to take our ferry to Caye Caulker.
The ferry ride was quite uneventful – nobody vomited and the Captain or steward was hilarious! It was so uneventful I even managed to read a book during the trip.
When we got to Caye Caulker its beauty floored us all. You have to imagine a tropical island with white sands, water all around it, full with palm trees, no cars just golfcarts as taxis, lovely Belizean people roaming the streets, restaurants selling lobster everywhere and a constant sea breeze in your hair. Definitely postcard worthy!
We checked into our hotel and then went off to discover the island. We went to “the nice part of the island” called the split, which is where a tornado separated the island.
Here there is a great bar, everybody gathers after a long day of snorkelling for example and winds down or gets ready for dinner. I ordered myself a coconut mojito, which had the consistency more of an ice cream than a drink but was really really delicious!
At 7:30 pm we met up to go for dinner at a local place for lobster and other seafood. It was a small restaurant, and we were a big group, but still, waiting for about 2 hours for your food and then having several mix-ups was quite hard to deal with and not everyone was as patient and happy to wait. When we got our food however, it was marvellous! I’m really angry I didn’t take a photo but you have to believe me, my lobster garlic with some garlic potatoes, some pasta salad and some coconut rice was to die for. Even though we were served plenty of rum while we were waiting by our tour leader, I sobered up pretty quickly and felt like I needed an early night.
I headed with the others to a bar the “I and I” (I think that’s how you spell it) for one last drink and then went home, seeing as we had a full day snorkelling trip planned for the next day.
