We now were on the final leg of the trip … we left Caye Caulker, made it back to Belize City, from where we caught a bus up to Chetumal in Mexico – and then on to Playa del Carmen – the final stop on this trip.
We once more had a last group dinner – this time in a cave restaurant in Playa del Carmen.
The trip did slowly come to an end, today did bring us from Palenque to Lake Catemaco with a stop in Villahermosa to visit the “La Venta Park” – an open air museum focused on Olmec art and zoo (mostly local animals, including crocodils, jaguars and snakes). The next day we made our way back to Mexico City.
We made it back to Palenque – this time staying longer and actually checking out the attractions – starting with the huge ruin site in the jungle.
Ernesto – our local guide (the best of all of them) – showed us around and gave us deep and lively insight in the life of the past occupants of this city. In a game he explained us how/ why (probably) the city has been abandoned. After out visit to the Palenque ruin site, we were led into the jungle – to see some more ruins hidden in the jungle and not excavated (yet). He also showed us the beauty of the jungle. In the afternoon we also visited the Misol-Ha waterfall.
Today saw us heading for a daytrip to the ruin site of Uxmal. Once more we had a guide showing us around and explaining the different buildings. After having visited this ancient site, we were led to a secret cenote somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where we had a nice and refreshing swim.
About halfway from Isla Mujeres to Merida we stopped at Chitzen Itza, the best known – and easiest reachable – Mayan ruin site.
A guide led us through the grounds showing and explaining the most important bits.
From here we continued our journey to Merida, where we arrived in the late afternoon and plenty of time to explore town.
We had swapped our stay in Cancun by a two day trip to Isla Mujeres starting with a one-hour ferry trip to the island, some free time to explore the town/ island. On the second day we had an early start for boat trip, including an opportunity for reef snorkeling to see the beautiful underwater-world of a Caribbean reef and a visit to Isla Contoy. Isla Contoay is a bird sanctuary about 20km north of Isla Mujeres, where we had fish BBQ for lunch (delicious) before heading back.
We finally had made it to the Rivera Maya – to XPU-HA – for four days in beach paradise – camping and/or hammocking directly at a dream beach.
Loads of things to do and experience, starting from just enjoying the beach (swimming, sun-bathing) up to optional activities like underground cenote snorkling, swimming with dolphins, parasailing and a jungle ATV tour with cenote swimming.
We continued to Tulum – a jump into mass-tourism – with plenty of tourists, western price level and facilities as in a western country (toilets, shops, restaurants, snack bars). Anyway – this ruin site needed to be on the plan, nicely located at a beach you normally would just dream of…
From San Cristobal and the Chiapas highlands we continued down into the Jungle – to Mosquitos, high humidity and the Yucatan peninsula (with a swimming stop at the Agua Azul cascades).
After a night near Palenque we continued into the state of Campeche for an overnight stop on the right side of the gate to the Calakmul ruin site. Sunset was spent watching millions of bats descending from a dry cenote in the jungle near Calakmul.
The next day we had an early start to watch the sun rise over the jungle from top of a ruin at the Calakmul ruin site.
We continued up into the Chiapas highlands – to San Cristobal de las Casas.
We walked through the cobblestoned roads, visited the churches and the Indian handicraft markets.
On the second day we did a tour to surrounding villages – first to San Juan Chamula, then on to Zinacantán. During the trip we also got introduced to local live, religion and ceremonies.
