Date of Entry: February 3rd 2018
Date of Writing: June 3rd 2018
I wake up early at Chill in Hostel and enjoy what will sadly be my last delicious breakfast here. Tonight I’m on a night bus to Palenque which I booked at the bus station the night before. I’m going to miss this place, both for its hospitality and friends made here as well as the food for breakfast. Either way I pack up my bag, leave it in the storage area and head up to the main street hoping on one of the local buses headed for Playa Del Carmen and talk the driver into dropping me off just outside of the entrance to Cenote dos ohos, a Cenote when you can swim, snorkel and even take diving expeditions deep into the water filled caves carved out of the soft limestone bed rock. It’s maybe 45 minutes outside to Tulum and well worth the trip.
As I walk into the parking lot I’m met by tour guides who manage to sell me a snorkelling tour of the cenotes complete with flippers and such which is a nice aid. I think the cost was around 350 mexican pesos after negotiation which was a tough sell. You can just pay an entrance fee and go in, but the guides will take you snorkelling into place I might not have the confidence to go alone, not knowing the layouts of the cenotes. I have to wait a while before the snorkelling tour starts so before that I grab my own mask and head down to one of the closest pools where I can swim around. For those that don’t speak Spanish Dos Ojos means two eyes, and while theres more than two cenotes in this complex it’s named this because some people think two of the pools look like eyes. One things for sure, they’re beautiful. Full of fish, crisp cool and clear water, and tons of fascinating rock formations to explore. The colour is also intoxicating.
Sadly that same SD card disaster that led to no underwater photos in Belize also got the photos and videos of today, which is really a tragedy as there were some amazing ones both here and at akumel beach, my next stop.
At any rate I head back up to the tourist hut, opt not to wear a wetsuit and manage to talk my way out of a life jacket, feeling confident in my ability to swim for however long I need to. The tour is long and takes us through a winding labyrinth of narrow passages of water, into places where almost no light enter (we have flashlights) It’s something of an other worldly experience and definitely a half day trip that I highly recommend. There are other cenotes in Mexico that are more photogenic,but this is like a cave system built for snorkelers and is really cool.
After somewhere between 1 and 2 hours the tour ends and I take another 30 minutes or so to explore the various openings into the cave systems and snap a few more pictures of various people in the water. The Day trippers from Cancun and Playa Del carmen have arrived by now so it’s a lot more crowded now, but still beautiful.
My next step is to catch a ride to the main road with one of the tour company employees and then hop on another bus just heading a short distance to the stop nearest to Akumel beach, where there is a rather large population of sea turtles swimming around. It’s just 2 hours or so from Cancun so it feels a bit like a zoo, with people hawking masks and snorkels and lockers on the beach and tons of people in life jackets (which they won’t let you go snorkel without which is utterly ridiculous.) Sadly I’ve got no photos and no videos but I spend almost two hours snorkelling, following dozens of different huge sea turtles and even though there’s lots of people around it’s still pretty amazing, watching these dinosaur type underwater giants feast on sea grass, play with each other, and watch us with eyes full of curiosity.
Eventually I get out of the water and take some pictures of the beach which is crowded but really beautiful, and again the colour of the caribbean just wows me. It seems fake, photoshopped and everything else you can imagine, maybe from another world.
Now quite sunburnt I head back and walk up the road back to the highway to catch a bus back to Tulum. I stop in a pharmacy and buy an ice cream bar as the two check out girls really want a picture. Then I find an Iguana rustling in the bush and watch for a while before stumbling upon what is definitely my most delicious find of the day, a woman on the side of the road just before the main highway selling a sort of hard shell taco pizza with shrimp and fish ceviche, spicy sauce, avocado, cilantro and pico de gallo. It is cheap and crazy delicious and for about 1 dollar Canadian I get two of them, and then order another two because they’re just that good, and I’m famished from swimming all day. These hit the spot and carry me through to my trip back to Tulum.
Back at the hostel I spend a few hours chilling in a hammock writing a bit when one of the guests from the hostel grabs me and tells me to follow him out onto the street, for an amazing mexican sunset with an urban foreground. It’s beautiful and I really feel like I’ve arrived in Mexico at this moment.
After the sunset I grabbed my packed bag and head to the bus station. Since I arrive early I try another much cheaper taco place filled with locals a half block from the bus station. I eat too many of them, alternating between beef pork and chicken and never skimping on the spicy sauce. They’re delicious too and I leave both devastated that I don’t live in Mexico, but also glad because I’d definitely be about a thousand pounds by now if I did.
The night ends with my boarding a night bus to Palenque at about 11 oclock that will take me to Chiapas state and a place I’ve been aching to visit since my Dad first started telling me travel stories. I may be sleepy as I board but needless to say I’m excited too.
