Final Pause in Mexico

We arrived at the Hotel Mirador Maya in Xpujil on Tuesday of last week. There's not a lot happening in this part of Mexico other than Mayan ruins, but there's a ton of those. In looking at Google maps there were at least 5 Mayan sites within a few minutes  of our hotel. A group of students were occupying the entire hotel when we arrived so we parked between the complex of rooms and the highway. They stayed up late and partied, but left the next day and we had the place to ourselves - a typical theme in our travels. We rented a room for night #2, but still opted to stay in the RV. 

 

Given our close proximity to so many Mayan sites we had to go check one out on Wednesday. It was Becan and was very cool. The pyramid here is higher than the much more famous pyramid at Chichen Itza, but this site is much less touristed (that's not a word, but it should be) - only four other people there. I checked out the sign-in sheet for the day and, as with the other stops we've made throughout Mexico, the site was mostly being visited by folks from Europe. The North Americans seem to be missing out more and more on the wonders down this way. 

 


While we were at Becan, Ian and Penelope (our Australian friends) caught up to us. We were returning from the site and heading into town (past our hotel) to do a little shopping when we saw Wiggy, their urban assult vehicle, parked by our RV! We were going to make a quick swing through town, but decided instead to swing around and head back to the hotel to see Ian and Pen. We got a bit bogged down in traffic and by the time we got back they had moved on and left a note on the door saying they'd see us at the park in Chetumal.


Hotel Mirador is a super cute little enclave of casitas, but not terribly relaxing so off we went on Thanksgiving morning to our final destination in Mexico, Chetumal. The drive was smooth and less than 2 hours - what a contrast to most driving days. We arrived at Yax-Ha just after noon and set up camp next to Pen & Ian. There were two other campers here from the states, but other than that, isolation in paradise. And Yax-Ha really does feel like paradise. It's right on the ocean, but no beaches, so way fewer biting insects. The entire complex is grassy and full of thick, low-lying palm trees. Truly gorgeous. The sun has been on again, off again, but in general, the weather has been beautiful. 


 



Pen & Ian needed to empty their fridge before crossing into Belize so we got invited to dinner with them for the next two nights. Great ribs and pork stew - not to mention the wonderful company. We had wondered where we would spend our Thanksgiving holiday and we can't think of a better way to do it than with our new, Australian family. It was a wonderful setting, a wonderful meal, and the best of company.

 

Ian & Pen set off for Belize on Saturday morning, the park filled up with local families over the weekend, our other two couples - long-term traveling brothers and their wives from the states, departed Monday morning and we were, once again, solo. That is until early that evening when the Swiss showed up. Who would have ever imagined we would be getting such an incredible European experience in Mexico? 

Erika & Andres, on the more typical, one-year travel plan, started in Boston, headed north and did the Canada thing and then down to Mexico and beyond. Tooling about in their vintage Peugeot van, they've been pleasantly delayed multiple times, but are trying to get as far south as possible in the four months they have left. They joined us for dinner at the restaurant next door, mezcal shots into the evening, and off they went Tuesday afternoon. Here we are, alone again.


We find ourselves dragging our feet, leaving Mexico. We really love it here, but it's lonesome not being able to speak meaningfully with the locals. We will be back, but we must move on. The plan is to depart before the next weekend onslaught of locals. Off to Corozal Friday or Saturday. Until then...

Uno Mas

Before moving forward - a bit of back-tracking, catching up and commentary:

The Incredibly Wonderful People of Mexico:
After posting about our bad experience with the Mexican police officers in Mexico City we received a couple of those "Mexico is rampant with corruption" comments. While I'm sure there's plenty of corruption in Mexico, we've barely experienced it.

Contrary to what our soon-to-be Fear Monger In Chief blabs, the Mexican people are warm, welcoming, helpful and hospitable. While Belize is our goal, Mexico is extremely tempting. We've stopped at more than one park that is a shell of its former self because of media hype about how unsafe Mexico is. Again, we have not once worried about our safety or security. We take walks in the local communities. We drive the truck on excursions. And, there isn't a single time we've been out, driving or walking, when we haven't had multiple people smile at and wave to us. That just doesn't happen in the States.

European Friend Update:
Ian & Penelope, of Australia, are trekking onward toward Belize. They're still at altitude (7,000 feet as last reported) and Southwest of us. We're only getting snippets from them currently, but hoping to spend some time with them in Belize before their December respite to Australia.

We heard from our new German friends, Michael & Achim, the other day. Michael has started a blog and it's wonderful. Being that he is a photographer by profession, his blog is mostly pictorial and speaks for itself. His verbiage is in what he dubs the asteism (sarcastic) style - quite entertaining. The blog is in German, but God bless Google Translator who does a fine job of converting the entire blog in one swell foop. It reminds us of some truly amazing places in Mexico that we're missing, since tourism isn't our primary objective, but as Arnold would say, "We'll be back." Here, I hope, is the translated version of Michael's blog: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Feinalterfreund.wordpress.com%2F&edit-text=

And Speaking of Google...
How did anyone ever traverse Mexico without the internet? We are woefully inadequate when it comes to technology, but had we not finally gotten the Google Maps Gal to speak to us, we would have been totally screwed. Add to that the ability to virtually check out the tricky intersections in advance via Google Street View and our drive days have been totally made possible by Google. Not fans of the corporate giants, but big fans of Google, presently.

Moving Forward:
Getting out of the No-Tell-Motel was a bit challenging. We only had to unhook and rehook the truck up twice on the tight exit from the motel. A half hour or so of nightmare city driving and we had a relatively painless drive to the coast. Type in, "Isla Aguada, Campache" into Google maps and you'll see the little strip we occupied. Not really an island, more of a long peninsula - lagoon on one side, open ocean on the other. Harley would have loved it.

Humans are drawn to the water - kind of fascinating when you think of it. We're land mammals. In any event, if we're at the beach on a weekend, we will be inundated with families. Freedom Shores, our current location, is no exception. The beach visits by the locals extended into Monday, as well. It wasn't until right before our departure that I realized the allure of this section of beach was the palm trees Thelma has planted on the beach. All the locals flock here.



This is an interesting park. Designed by Bill, a quadriplegic, and husband of our hostess, Thelma, as a park that allows total access to those with physical disabilities. Unfortunately, Bill passed 5 years ago and like our first stop in Mexico with Edgar, Thelma is lost without her life-long partner. Notwithstanding, she's obviously a strong woman and continues to move forward. As stated previously, the media in America has largely killed her RV biz, but she has a thriving hotel, restaurant, and beach area.



We were the only ones there on Friday, but then the weekend arrived and the primal call of the sea brought the yoga retreat gals on Saturday, their families later that night, and Sunday through Monday, 80 plus locals of all ages, rotating onto, and off of, the beach, right in front of our RV spot. No one was rowdy or excessively noisy, but all the traffic was like being at a water park.


 

We had planned on leaving Monday morning, but a late night, Saturday storm brought to light a ceiling leak near the rooftop AC unit which soaked all of Laurie's clothes below and, upon further inspection on the lower level, we discovered the water pump was also spewing under the couch/lower level bed. Consequently, Monday turned into laundry/repair/patch/dry out day.

Monday night, we met Kieran, from Australia. Kieran is bicycling through Mexico on his way to Panama. He started in BC, Canada, biked down the continental divide to Texas, flew to Mexico City and biked to Isla Aguada where we met him. Gotta love these Europeans. He's being tempted with an offer to sail out of Cancun for a couple of months, but still plans on hitting Belize, so we're hoping he looks us up. We got an email from our French friends today. Unfortunately, they're already south of Belize so we've missed them. Safe travels Marc, Juliette, Max & Rafael!

Talk about a tiny tent.

We had a pretty smooth, 5 hour drive to Xpujil today. We're in the heart of the Maya forest of Calakmul. We sense many archeological temptations surrounding us, so we'll research it tonight and, perhaps, explore a bit tomorrow. Then, off to our final destination in Mexico - Chetumal.

Bounding On

Thursday's drive was a reminder of the various driving conditions in Mexico, sans the city driving nightmares which we picked up again briefly, leaving Villahermosa on Friday.

Two hours of peaceful driving through the coastal villages of Veracruz. Lush, green, slow-going. Every time you think you can pick up speed and hit a stride, you encounter another little village with a half dozen speed bumps. After two hours it got old and we were ready for some smooth sailing on the toll road. Wrong.

Next: two hours dodging thousands of pot holes. I am not exaggerating in the slightest, THOUSANDS of pot holes, ranging from 12 inches to 4-feet wide, and 4 inches to 12 inches deep, covering both lanes for two solid hours of driving (at a whopping 25-35 mph). These are car killers. I can't believe this "highway" is typically this bad. It has to be that the area got hit with the hard rains we've been experiencing and washed out all the asphalt patchwork that would normally occupy these holes. As my friend Dan would say, the road conditions are unfuckingbelieveable. Sorry, but I've decided to stretch my legs and not make this is not a "G" rated blog.





The next time I read a comment online from someone who says the Mexican highways are comparable to the U.S. highways I'm going to buy a plane ticket, fly to their location, and slap some sense into them. What are you smoking????

Last two hours: smooth sailing. Concrete highways, minimal pot holes, pretty painless.

Before I progress, let me digress.

We left Coco Loco under less than pleasant circumstances Monday morning. We stayed in the parking lot of a small motel (too out of it to take pictures) and left the next morning for Lake Catemaco. Half the time we drove in the rain, but the drive was smooth and uneventful.

Blessedly, the sun came out the next day. Man, did we ever need that. Catemaco is beautiful. Lush, green, beautiful weather, gorgeous lake, and best of all, no mosquitoes! We would have loved to stay for a few nights, soaked up the sunshine, recharged our batteries, and explored the lake and the town, but what Catemaco also had was religious explosions, all day, every day. I just don't get it. Constant religious explosions = quivering Tess, hiding in the RV. Hence, departure after night #2 and back to where I started at the beginning of this post.






One of the challenges in charting our course was the lack of RV parks in this part of Mexico. However, since we're not RVers, we recently discovered that we can rent a hotel room for little more (and sometimes less) than we would pay for an RV space. We've grown so fond of our little RV room that we still prefer staying in the RV for the night, but the hotel room provides us with secure parking, a hot shower, toilet, and someplace to plug in for the night. It also allows us to find great, mid-way stopping points between RV parks.

Our host in Catemaco turned us onto a great little website/ap, ioverlander.com, that helped us find the hotel we landed in Thursday night. While the reviewer of  this hotel talked about how nicely the place had been remodeled, he/she failed to mention that it's an hourly motel - i.e. a no-tell-motel. And the decor truly reflects its intent. A motel room rents for $500 pesos for 8 hours, but the "madam" at the front desk, seeing the ignorant gringos in their 30 year old RV, rented us a room for $350 pesos for the night. That's less than $18.

The room was lipstick pink, the headboard was back-lit plexiglass, the perimeter of the underside of the bed was lined with blue, neon lights, and the room was equipped with a 'foundling wheel' for anonymous, late-night deliveries of food. I had to look that one up since I haven't seen one of those hatches since the Carmelite Monastery in my home town of Bettendorf, Iowa. Hmm, once used by nuns, now used by sinners.




While it was a grueling drive to the no-tell motel, we needed to continue on the next day so we could get someplace where we could stay for a few days and relax.

Next up: Freedom Shores - Isla Aguada, Campeche - just two stops away from the Belizean border.