We’ve spent the last couple of weeks travelling between three colonial cities and their surrounding Mayan ruins. The three colonial cities are: Valladolid (va-yah-doh-leed), Merida (May-ree-da), and Campeche (Cam-pay-chay). The Mayan ruins: Coba, Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Kabah, Edzna, and Palenque. We’ve hit the point where we’re starting to feel a little “ruined” out, and our desire to see more colonial cities has dissipated a bit from where it was 2 weeks ago. What we are really looking forward to now is a chance to slow down, stay in one place for a month or so, and learn Spanish.

As such, we’ve decided to cut short our time in Mexico, skipping previous “plans” of visiting San Cristobal (another colonial city), and the Mayan ruins Yaxchilan and Bonampak. We hopped on a bus, then a boat, then another bus with plans of reaching San Padro by Sunday.  Despite our better judgment, we decided to spend a couple of nights in Flores, Guatemala and visit one last set of Mayan ruins: Tikal, the supposed capital of the Mayan world.

Now getting back to those colonial cities – despite the fact that we feel we’ve had enough of bouncing around between them, that’s not to say we haven’t enjoyed them.  I think we’re just a little tired of bouncing around from hostel to hostel, and bus to bus.

The three subject cities were founded by Francisco de Montejo (there were actually 3 people with the same name, the father, son, and a cousin who each founded one of them) who had been given the rights to govern the Yucatan as Conquistadors. This meant conquering the existing Mayan people and extracting whatever wealth there was.

The cities were built atop of Mayan ruins that were still in use by the indigenous Mayans beginning with Campeche in 1540. Stone by stone, the existing structures were taken apart and the stones were used to construct houses, roads, and churches. A little later on, there was an inevitable revolt by the Mayans, called the caste war, an economic boom from the production of henequen, and pirate attacks at the port of Campeche.

All this adds up to a lot of history, and a lot of old buildings just waiting to be discovered. Here’s some of the highlights.

Architecture:

Most of the existing buildings were put up during the colonial period of the 18th and 19th centuries. It’s not just a few buildings, but the whole historic city centre. Street after street of colonial buildings, with bright paint, in various states of repair.

Campeche – Street View

Some of the most interesting buildings were the churches, built from the stones of ancient Mayan temples by Mayan slaves in the 1500’s.

Merida – Cathedral Knockers

Valladolid – Convento de San Bernardino de Siena

Campeche – Main Cathedral

My favourite building was Casa Montejo in Merida. This mansion showed very clearly the message the Spanish were trying to give to the Mayans by founding these cities on top of those previously occupied by the Mayans.

Merida – Casa Montejo

Note the screaming heads of the Mayans being stood upon by the Conquistador.   And is that someone who’s been tarred and feathered?

Museums:

More than a few of the more impressive historic buildings have been re-purposed into museums. The quality and quantity of English translations vary, but most were quite acceptable. I found the history of these cities fascinating, dating back over 1,000 years (Merida is suspected of being the oldest continually colonized city in the Americas). They covered everything from the ancient Mayans, through to the Conquistadors, the haciendas, pirate attacks and modern times. We spent several days wondering from museum to museum. If you’re interested in history, this is a must.

Merida – Mayan Carvings

Parks:

There are plenty of parks in these Colonial towns. It’s quite nice. These parks always had an adjoining church and often a market to buy your fresh fruit, meet, and eggs during the day. In the evening, you could find restaurants setup on the streets, vendors of all kinds, and plenty of free music.  There was also a free zoo at one in Merida, complete with giraffes and hippos.

Merida – Hippos at the Zoo

Valladolid – Lover’s Chairs, great for having a conversation

Culture:

We managed to watch a play that was a comedy in Spanish (we didn’t understand a thing) and watch some traditional Mayan dancing (looked like traditional Spanish dancing to me, but who am I to say?) for free. It was entertaining, and gave me a little better understanding of life in the Yucatan. I think there’s plenty of shows and festivals that go on throughout the year to keep yourself occupied if you were interested in setting up shop in one of these cities for the longer term.

Merida – Traditional Mayan Dancing

What’s up next?  We’ve got a few more Mexican inspired posts to come and a roundup of our time in Mexico.  For us, it’s time to enjoy Guatemala.

Besides experiencing the local food and culture, there are two things we wanted to get out of Mexico:  beaches and Mayan ruins.  On the advice of the super helpful girl behind the desk at Tribu hostel in Isla Holbox, we decided to make Valladolid our jumping off point for Coba and Chichen Itza.  Here’s a summary of our first two-day Mayan ruins extravaganza:

Coba Ruins

Coba were the first Mayan ruins we saw.  The guidebooks promise that Coba is uncrowded and off the beaten path.  This is soooo not true anymore… it was blatantly apparent to us that tour buses have discovered it.  Even though we took the earliest bus from Valladolid that we could, the ruins were packed with people when we arrived.

Coba is located in the jungle near several crocodile-filled lakes.  We didn’t actually see any crocodiles, but a group that was down the path from us did (apparently the tour guides regularly carry raw chicken to bait the crocodiles into coming out).  Since we didn’t have any raw chicken, and didn’t feel like using our own flesh as bait, we didn’t venture too close.

The ruins are quite spread out and you have the option of renting a bicycle for the day for 30 pesos (about $2.50 CAD) or hiring a tricycle taxi for a lot more than that.  Not being in any kind of rush, we opted to walk.  In retrospect, we should have coughed up the couple dollars for the bikes.  Oh well… live and learn!

Entrance is 51 pesos a person (just over $4.00 CAD).  There are several guides at the main entrance willing to show you around for a substantial fee.  We weren’t willing to pay somewhere in the neighbourhood of $20 CAD for a tour, so we just wondered around and caught bits information from other people’s tours.

The ruins were okay, but they weren’t spectacular.  They are in pretty rough shape, though the backdrop of the jungle makes up for it.  You need a pretty damn good imagination to see anything in the carvings though.  There is one pyramid (Nohoch Mul) that you can climb, but it’s hardly a mystical experience when you get to the top, standing shoulder to shoulder with other sweaty tourists looking at the jungle in the blazing hot sun.

Nohoch Mul

The sacbeob (raised stone roads, 1-2 m high) were really neat… Coba is thought to have been a trading centre because it seems to be at the crossroads of several of these roads.

Overall, we enjoyed Coba, but would have enjoyed it a lot more if there were less people.  If we had to do it over again, we probably would have gone to Ek Balam (located just outside Valladolid) instead.  The whole trip (bus from Valladolid and back, lunch in the town of Coba, admission to the ruins) only cost us $22 CAD and took most of the day.

Ball Court at Coba

Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza was incredible.  To be honest, I was expecting to be let down by the site.  Everything we had heard and read said that it was ridiculously overcrowded.  But we were not disappointed.

The earliest buses to Chichen Itza left the Valladolid station at 5:00 am, 6:00 am, and 8:15 am.  We tried to buy tickets for the 6 am bus, but the lady behind the counter told us we couldn’t.  She may have been telling us that the gates wouldn’t be open yet or she may have been trying to tell us it was raining chickens (our Spanish is pretty poor right now), so we cut our losses and bought tickets for 8:15 am. The tickets cost 20 pesos each.

We arrived at the ruins at 9:00 to find… NO ONE.  There was one lone tour bus in the parking lot, the ticket building was deserted, and there were only a few vendors along the paths starting to set up their wares.

We had about an hour and a half to explore the ruins before other people really started to show up.  It was so peaceful that we found a nice shady spot, pulled out our Kindles, and read our books amongst the ruins.

El Castillo (a.k.a. Temple of Kukulcan) did not disappoint.  It dominated the skyline and mesmerized me.  I can definitely see why it is one of the seven wonders of the modern world.

El Castillo/Temple of Kukulcan

But Chichen Itza’s appeal goes far beyond the often photographed main pyramid.  It has been restored to a far greater extent than Coba, and the carvings are much more defined.

Chaahk, The Mayan Rain Deity

Some of our favourite buildings were the Observatory and the Church.

El Caracol (The Observatory)

La Iglesia (The Church)

By around 1:00 or 2:00 pm the place was packed and we were more than ready to escape the tourist madness.  We had heard enough jaguar calls and pan flutes from the vendors for one day.

We had two disappointments at Chichen Itza.  First of all, the ball court was closed for maintenance.  It’s supposed to have great acoustics and we were itching to try it out.  Second, we made the mistake of not packing enough snacks.  The only food to eat in the visitor centre is microwaved American cuisine (can you even call it cuisine?).  In our deliriously hungry state, we forked over a whopping 75 pesos ($6.10 CAD) for a microwaved corn dog (no mustard!) and a doughy calzone.  At the time, this was ashamedly our most expensive meal in Mexico.

We were more than happy to leave the expensive food and packed visitor centre behind as we caught our bus to Merida.  All in all, we spent about $43 CAD on this excursion, including transportation to the site, entrance fees, and our terrible lunch.  And we would do it again (even the corn dog, if I had to).

I would definitely recommend a visit to Chichen Itza to anyone traveling in Mexico.  Go early though, and get out when the crowds start overtaking the place.

Info Box for Chichen Itza:
Entrance Cost:  166 pesos  for foreigners ($13.50 CAD)
Cost of Tour Guide:  We were quoted $600 pesos for an English tour.  If you want to do a tour, try to find more people to group up with… the cost is the same whether there are two people or ten.
Getting There:  45 minute 2nd-class bus ride from Valladolid costs 20 pesos/person (about $1.63 CAD)
Services:  lockers for luggage, clean & free bathrooms, bus station, bookstore, expensive snacks

If you like our pictures, you can check out many more in our Mexican photo album!

Booyah!  It’s only Day 16 of our trip and we’ve already hit our budget goal:  $100 CAD or less per day.  Despite the fairly cheap costs in Mexico, it’s taken some time to make up for the roughly $700 airfare.

As of today, our trip has cost us an average of $99.91 per day!  This includes airfare and a few whopping expenditures like the Whale Shark tour in Isla Holbox ($141.08 CAD for the two of us) and today’s splurge tour to Uxmal/Kabah/Mayan Village out of Merida ($111.55 CAD).  We were going celebrate with champagne tonight (actually ice cream after today’s 36°C heat), but didn’t want to tip the balance back to being in the red.

If you want to check out more budget statistics, or just find our exactly how many times Ashley’s beaten Mike at crib (he swears the cards we bought in Isla Holbox are cursed), check out our Statistics page in the About section above.

Yes, I know, I am actually keeping detailed stats… once a math nerd, always a math nerd.

What’s a whale shark you ask?  It’s the world’s largest fish.  They’ve been known to grow to over 41 feet in length.  But keep in mind, it’s not a whale: it’s a fish.  And it’s big.  Despite being part of the shark family, they pose no danger to humans.  Mostly  because they don’t have sharp teeth being that their diet consists of algae, plankton, and krill.  They are also have a fairly docile demeanour making them great swimming companions.

Getting to these guys was fairly easy.  We booked a tour from Isla Holbox for $850Mx ($70 CAD) a person from the hostel we were staying at: Tribu.  You can also book tours from Isla Mujares, but I believe it will cost a bit more.

Once on the boat, it’s a 1 hour ride towards the Caribbean Sea to get to their favourite swimming hole.  When you find a whale shark, you won’t be alone for long.  All the tour companies leave at the same time, and are in constant radio communication.  Pretty soon, the poor whale shark will be surrounded by a half dozen boats or so, all with a half dozen swimmers.  The fish didn’t seem to mind though.

So here’s the deal, they give you a couple of fins, a snorkel, and mask.  At a maximum two people are allowed in the water at a time plus one guide (from all the tour boats).  So, you’ll have to wait your turn to swim.  There was time for us to swim twice, each time for about two minutes.  That’s it.

 

Getting Ready to Dive in!

When it’s your turn to go, the captain takes the boat out directly in front of the whale shark’s path.  When he gives the signal, you jump in and watch as the giant fish swims on a collision course towards you, then right past.  It’s amazing how insignificant us humans are to such a big animal.  The whale shark doesn’t bother to change its course, it expects you to get out of the way.

 

Swimming With the Whale Shark

Once the whale shark passes you by, you turn around and swim after it.  They can move pretty quick, but we had no trouble keeping up, and got an amazing up-close look at this animal.  In fact, both times we were swimming with the whale shark, we were so close that it would have been no trouble at all to reach out and touch it.  We didn’t, because our guide informed us that touching the whale shark was forbidden in the only English he probably knew.

Not my photo, but here’s a view pretty close to what we saw in the water.

Once the swimming fun has ended, you’re fed a sandwich and taken to a reef for some more snorkelling.  While we were there, the reef had poor visibility, so we were taken to a beautiful area between Isla Holbox and the mainland they called the mangroves.

 

Ashley at the Mangrove

The final stop on the tour is just outside the flamingo reserve where you can see pink flamingos in their natural habitat from the boat.

 

Flamingos!

Summary:

Was it worth it? Yes. It’s a lot of fun getting to swim with such large animals.  I’d do it again.

If you’re prone to seasickness, as we both are, pills can be had from the local pharmacy for $5 Mx each.  We took one just as we left on the tour and had no trouble keeping our lunch down the entire trip.  Okay,  Mike had no trouble.  Ashley was rather ill, but at least she didn’t actually upchuck.

One last tip… keep your life jacket on at all times while in the boat.  Near the end of our tour the wind began to pick up and there were some larger waves on the sea.  Our captain managed to hit a wave funny, and the boat came down on its side.  We had about 5″ of height left between the gunwale and the water.  We managed to right the boat by jumping to the other side just like you would when tacking a sail boat, and the disaster was diverted.

 

Since Mike and I arrived in Cancun tired from trip preparations and going away parties, and with no plan or schedule, we did what anyone would do in our situation… we hit up the beaches!

Isla Mujeres

Our first full day in Cancun found us walking almost an hour from our accommodations to catch a ferry to Isla Mujeres.  It pretty much rained off and on all day (it is the rainy season here), but that didn’t stop us from enjoying a cerveza on the beach, going for a swim, and checking out the turtle reserve, Tortugranja.  We really enjoyed the island while we were there, but knowing what we know now would have probably skipped it if we did everything over again. It’s a nice little island… it just wasn’t worth the ferry cost (280 pesos, or just over $23 CAD roundtrip for the two of us).  Tortugranja was smaller than we expected.  It’s worth the entrance fee (30 pesos per person), but not the cab fare if you don’t have alternate means of transportation.  We chose to hitchhike our way back on a golf cart rather than pay cab fare again.  Isla Mujeres is definitely geared towards tourists… it’s crowded, full of in-your-face vendors trying to sell you souvenirs and drunk twenty-somethings driving golf carts like they’re indestructible, and it’s expensive to eat there (compared to downtown Cancun).

Cancun – Hotel Zone

The beaches of the hotel zone are beautiful, but you have to tolerate vendors trying to sell you stuff, cigar smoke, and dance music blaring from the nearby hotel pools.  Mike and I decided to catch a bus to the Hotel Zone, rather than walk (it was only 8.50 pesos (less than a loonie).  By law, all of the beaches in Mexico are open to the public.  So you just need to walk through a hotel like you own the place to get to Cancun’s beaches.  We had no problems doing this… in fact, we were even offered drinks by the resort’s waiter.  We had a great time swimming in the waves at the beach.

Isla Holbox – A Place That We Don’t Want To Ever Leave

On the Cancun airport shuttle, we got talking with a German guy who was just finishing up his time in Mexico.  He told us that if we could make the time, we should check out Isla Holbox (pronounced hol-bosh).  He told us about a great hostel, called Tribu, to check out there.  The funny thing was, the guy had never been to Isla Holbox.  His friends told him to check it out and he couldn’t make it out there.

Isla Holbox is a stunningly beautiful island that is a 3 hour bus ride and a 15 minute ferry ride from Cancun.  The bus fare to Chiquila was a mere 80 pesos per person (about $6.60 CAD) and the ferry out to Isla Holbox was 70 pesos per person.  The attitude on the island seems to be No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem.  The beaches have the nicest and softest white sand we have ever encountered, and the streets are made of the same.  Many people forego shoes and just walk barefoot around town.

 

Although Isla Holbox is a popular tourist destination for whale shark tours (more on this in a later post), it never feels overrun by tourists.  It has a much more laid back vibe than Cancun or Isla Mujeres.  Locals get around with golf carts, as there are only a few full-size vehicles on the entire island.  There is lots to do… swimming, sunbathing, kayaking, kite surfing, whale shark tours, birdwatching (there are wild flamingos here), and fishing.  The most popular past-time, however, seems to be relaxing and enjoying nature… and we’re sure getting our fill of this one!

At night, the village of Holbox comes alive.  Vendors fill the streets with street food, carnival games and rides open up, impromptu basketball and football games are started, and concerts are set up in the little amphitheatre in the square.  The really cool thing about it all?  It seems to be all for the locals and their children (this was one thing that surprised us everywhere we’ve been… the kids seem to all come out to play at 8 or 9 pm) – the tourists are just along to share in the fun.

Tribu is also an exceptionally cool hostel.  It has spiral staircases that lead to the rooftops where you can watch the sunset, lie in the hammocks, and crash a birthday party with a jam session and cake (as we did last night).  There are lounge chairs, hammock chairs, and a BBQ in the main outdoor commons area.  There is a cinema with a projector and a bar that hosts a variety of activities on different nights.

If this wasn’t the very start of our journey and if we knew a little more Spanish, we probably would have looked into getting jobs and staying on this island we loved it so much.  But alas, all good things must come to an end.

If you want to check out more photos from the beaches of Mexico, click on one of the photos below to go to the photo galleries:

Mike’s Clothes

• 1 belt
• 2 technical t-shirt
• 1 collared shirt
• 1 pair cotton shorts
• 1 pairs of quick dry cargo/hiking pants
• 1 pair technical shorts
• 1 pair of swim shorts
• 5 pair underwear
• 5 pair liner socks
• 3 pairs wool socks
• 1 baseball hat
• 1 pair hiking shoes
• 1 wallet
• 1 Buff
• 1 long underwear top
• 1 long underwear bottom
• 1 sweater
• 1 fleece
• 1 rain jacket
• eye glasses
• prescription sunglasses
• 1 pair North Face hiking shoes

Ashley’s Clothes

• 5 pairs of liner socks
• 3 pairs wool socks
• 5 pairs non-cotton underwear
• 1 sports bra
• 2 regular bras
• 2 bathing suits (a one-piece and a bikini)
• 2 cotton t-shirts (red & black)
• 1 technical purple t-shirt
• 2 cotton tank tops (navy & turquoise)
• 1 dressier black tank top
• 1 long sleeve technical shirt
• 2 pairs shorts (black & brown)
• 1 pair beige cotton capris
• 1 pair black yoga capris
• 1 pair khaki-coloured “travel” technical pants
• 1 belt
• 1 pair of long underwear
• 1 wool sweater
• 1 micro-fleece
• 1 rain jacket
• buff
• 1 military-style hat
• prescription eye glasses
• sunglasses
• 1 pair North Face hiking shoes
• 1 pair Merrell sandals

Toiletry Bag

• 2 deodorants (1 each)
• camp soap (laundry detergent, shampoo, soap)
• 2 toothbrushes
• tooth paste
• dental floss
• lip gloss
• nail clippers
• shampoo
• hair elastics/elastic headbands
• small hairbrush
• 2 XL travel towels
• mosquito repellent
• 4 bottles of sunscreen, SPF 55 and higher (we stocked up because it’s expensive in Central America!)
• Clear Care contact lens solution (Ashley)
• contacts case (Ashley)
• 12 pairs of contacts
• Refresh contacts eye drops
• lotion
• face moisturizer with SPF
• small compact mirror
• disposable razor (Ashley)
• beard trimmer (Mike)
• Diva Cup (Ashley)
• Q-tips
• microfibre cloths for glasses

Luggage

• 2 Osprey Kestrel 38L backpacks
• Crumpler 5 Million Dollar Home camera bag (Mike)
• North Face Cadene messenger bag (Ashley)
• 6 Eagle Creek packing cubes (2 large for Mike, 2 large + 2 medium for Ashley)
• 1 Eagle Creek toiletry bag (Mike)
• 3 stuff sacks (2 for Mike, 1 for Ashley)
• 2 mesh bags (for dirty cloths)
• 1 dry bag
• 1 12L PacSafe

First Aid Kit

• 30 days each of Doxycycline (anti-malarial)
• gauze pads (various sizes)
• bandaids (various sizes)
• tape
• moleskin
• Benadryl Itch Relief Cream (for allergies, insect bites, poison ivy, sunburns)
• Gastrolyte (re-hydration salts)
• Immodium (anti-diarrhea meds)
• antihistamines
• emergency blanket
• tincture of iodine
• tweezers
• triangular bandage
• crazy glue
• Ibuprofen
• Extra-Strength Tylenol Ultra (for Ashley’s migraines)
• Extra-Strength Aspirin (for Ashley’s migraines)
• 12 months birth control pills

 Shared Electronics

• laptop – Lenovo X201 (12″ laptop)
• Canon Rebel xti dSLR
• Canon 430EX Speedlight flash
• lens – Canon 18-200 f3.5-5.6 IS
• lens – Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6
• lens – Canon 50mm f1.8
• circular polarizer filter
• compact flash – 2-8GB, 1-4GB, 1-2GB
• Nikon Coolpix camera
• 3 SD cards – 4 GB, 2GB, 1GB
• spare batteries 1700mAH CANON NB-2L EQUIVALENT
• spare batteries AA & AAA
• memory card reader
• 2 micro USB cords (memory card reader and portable hard drives)
• headset (for skype calls)
• 1 mini USB cord (kindle)
• 1 iShuffle cord
• 1 iphone sync cable
• 1 AC to USB adapter
• canon camera battery charger
• 1 USB Flash Drive 16 GB
• 2 500GB Portable Hard Drive
• 2 ebook readers (Kindles)
• 2 mP3 players (Sandisc Sansa Clip and iShuffle)
• 1 iPhone 3Gs

Other Shared Items

• 2 money belts
• 2 headlamps
• swiss army knife
• sewing kit
• 2 cotton sleep sacks
• 2 pad locks
• 2 retractable wire locks
• portable water filter
• 2 1L water bottles
• 2 2L platypus
• compass
• harmonica (key of C)
• travel clothesline
• jump rope
• resistance band
• collapsible grocery bag
• spare shoelaces
• 2 notebooks with a pen & a pencil
• 1 watch
• 2 travel guides (Central America & South America)
• 1 paperback book (since Ashley wasn’t finished reading it before we left)

Documentation

• see our previous post about this

Total Weight

All combined, we are carrying 69 lb of weight.

We made it!  Ashley and I are writing this post from Alex’s house (our very kind couch surfing host) in Cancun!

First off, lets get the basics out of the way.  We had no trouble with any of the flights, everything was on time and turbulence free.  We had our first bit of fun leaving the Calgary Airport when the flight crew asked us to show hands indicating how long before our return flight to Calgary.

Who’s going to Cancun for a week? Two weeks? Three weeks?… a month?…… Five weeks?…… A year?…… …… …… Holy cow, are you going to live there?

Our hands were the only ones still up after they got to three weeks.

We caught a shuttle from the airport directly to our gracious couch surfing host’s place to find the door locked and nobody home.  Instantly I knew the problem.  I had forgotten to confirm our arrival time, how could we expect to be met at the door when I didn’t say when we were coming?

We set about waiting for about a half hour: looking up nearby hostels in our Lonely Planet guide as a backup plan.  Just as we were ready to leave and explore other options, the military showed up at the gate to the condo.  They dismounted and stood there staring at us.  The really scary part was the fact that they were all wearing full face masks, so nobody could be identified.  Not being terribly familiar with the current state of corruption in Mexico, we decided to wait a little longer before venturing back onto the street.

The military finally leaving the condo entrance

As luck would have it, the military pulled out just as our host walked in.  He opened the door, and we’ve been sleeping on this bed happily ever since.

Our Bed

Weather:

It’s hot, but not too hot.  Humid (my cloths haven’t dried and I washed them over 24 hours ago) but after a couple of days we are starting to get used to it.  Rainy, it’s been cloudy every day, and has ranged from no rain to fierce downpours.  It doesn’t really seem to bother us though.  We spent yesterday outside at the beach on Isla Mujeres during a constant rain and never had to put on a jacket.

Adjustment:

Please note that despite the following we are having a great time, and are not headed home anytime soon:

I’m not adjusted at all.  Neither of us can really fathom that this is going to be our life for the next year, or two, or more.  It still feels like a 2 week vacation.  To tell you the truth, the first night we had a small crisis moment.  There we were, sleeping on the floor, with absolutely no idea what we were going to do the next day.  We had just gone out for supper at a local park and were staunchly aware that there was going to be a language barrier.

We both thought of home… the comfort, security, family, friends.  Then we thought “Oops, what have we done!”  A part of us really wanted to know that we would be returning to that safe comfortable life we had just left.

But here we are on day three, and I haven’t had another crisis moment yet.  We’ve started to plan out what we are going to do in the next few days, and that’s got us really excited.

The Plan:

Still pretty vague.  So far we plan to leave Cancun tomorrow and go to Isla Holbox.  It’s supposed to be a natural beach resort island with an awesome hostel, flamingo reserve, and cheap tours to swim with whale sharks.  Unless the rain today changes our mind, that’s probably where we’ll head next.  That should give us plenty of downtime to figure out how to get to Chitchen Itza, Palenque, and eventually Guatemala.