Chapter 4 - Mexican Cartales

A Gibberish Prelude

Oh my sweet, sweet homeland Mexico. At least that’s what a Mexican would say about their country. That is assuming that the Mexican hasn’t been living somewhere else to the point that they now associate that other place as their homeland. In which case the Mexican would no longer call Mexico their homeland. And then even if the Mexican did refer to Mexico as their homeland they would probably be saying it in Spanish. D’ahhh well. But you know, I had to start the chapter somewhere. And isn’t it off to a great start. Look at us go, talkin’ about Mexicans and homelands.

But Mexico. Wow-wee, boy oh boy, wow bloody wow, wow-monger mistress of a wiley wand.

Mexico was up there, up there with the best of them. The non-gibberish travel babble begins in Lake Bacalar…but first, for those that haven't seen it already, here's a trailer to get you really excited about the babble to follow:

Lake Bacalar

Breathe in that sweet sweet lake

It’s renowned for being ‘the lake of 7 colours’. We saw 3. At a stretch 4. The crazy aspect of this particular place wasn’t the fact that the name of the lake sounds like a delicious desert (I’ll let you work that one out) and hence the object of an easy laugh (nah I won’t - it’s baklava!), the crazy part is that Cat and myself were quite literally the only ones soaking up the town. It was apocalyptic, there was nobody else around… well, almost nobody. Let me babble in depth…

As we walked downtown on our first quiet day at Lake Bacalar, we ran into two Israelites. They emerged from the shadows and bequeathed upon us a gem of wisdom. The Israelites whispered, “The Rolling Stones…they will be playing in Cuba… around about the time you will be there.” This prophecy led to a drastic change of our extremely well planned itinerary of Cuba. But more on that in the next chapter…

On one day we rented a kayak for a couple of hours, and undertook a surreal aquatic experience, being the sole paddlers on the massive lake. When we hit land on the other side of the lake we attempted to trudge over a moon-like surface, which turned out to be more like quicksand. Fortunately our paddles could be used as anchors to prevent us from a fun but fatal slip’n’slide to the earth’s crust.

Just how you like sand: eeeexxxtra shhhloppy

We also had a quick dip in the lake from our kayaks. However, due to the eeriness of the whole place, including the fact that the lake is over 300 metres deep and apparently nothing lives in it, it’s fair to say we freaked out upon jumping in the water. Admittedly, me probably a little more so than Cat.

Lake Bacalar was also the location of our first tent sleep of the trip. This is only noteworthy because on that particular night I had to write an essay that essentially saved my career as a lawyer in Newcastle for 2017. I was writing a statement as to why I should be able to keep a promotion I was given at the ATO, because some really rad people appealed against the decision to promote me. Cheers rad people.

It was there in the wee hours of the morning in our tent, that the light of the apple on my apple mac steered me to completion of this arduous task. But that story is neither here nor there really. I mean it’s babble worthy, yeah, that’s true. But only really to those who care about careers, promotions and financial stability, which is not me this year. So let me continue.

Following our serving of Baclava…I mean Lake Bacalar (classical lols), we sat on the nearest highway and started waving down a ride to Tulum. 

Tulum

Oompa Tulum-pa was one of the best places so far. On the first day we hired some pedals and rode ridiculously far, which is becoming quite the habit. From our bikes we saw how some other travellers do it; in amazing luxury resorts that line the long beach of Tulum.  

That same day we also randomly ran into our fellow travelling friendlings from Belize and Guatemala; Greg, Kyle and Tamaya. Since we had consistently ran into each other every damn day no matter what country we were in, we decided then and there to spend the rest of our time in Mexico as a 5-person ultimate squadron.

The Ultimate Squadron 

A couple of highlights from the ultimate squadron’s adventures in Tulum are itemised in bullet point formation below:

• Had one of the greatest days ever by visiting the Gran Cenote followed by the beachside Mayan ruins. Cenotes are rampant throughout Mexico. In total we probably went to about 10. They are underground cavity’s that are partially or completely filled with water. Sometimes they are in a cave, sometimes not. Here’s a video of times had in the beachside Mayan ruins and some snaps of this day of glory:

whaddup y'all

beachside ruins - the best type of ruin

•  On the pedal home from seeing the beachside Mayan ruins we got absolutely smashed by rain. Water came from both air and truck tyre, but the greatest source of water came from Greg’s tears of dismay as he was hating life to the fullest. All in all, it was pretty funny.

Also in Tulum, I somehow got my phone fixed at a local Mexican phone outlet (due to the unfortunate coconut incident - see previous chapter).

Getting the phone fixed was a strenuous battle as I tried my best Spanish to converse with the friendly Mexican who spoke zero English. It didn’t help that the Mexican had some sort of complication when he was trying to fix the phone. At the time I didn’t really understand what he was trying to tell me or why he had given me a discounted price to the one previously agreed upon. But later on that evening, after I had taken the phone home, I went to take a selfy (as you do). It was only then that I realised he was trying to tell me that in the course of carrying out the phone surgery, he had broken my phone’s selfy camera lens. D’ah well.

Valladolid

We decided to get out of the tourist hub of Tulum and head north. We ventured to a sweet old Mexican town named Valladolid. Valladolid is as yet untainted by the millions of American spring-breakers and other tourists that ply the Mexican coastline.  

We had another absolutely cracking day here. We checked out one of the most impressive Mayan ruins nearby – Chichen Itza in the morning:

The main event of Chichen Itza - El Castillo

Completely ruin-ed

We then went to another 3 cenotes in the afternoon. Each cenote was unique and very awesome. We also carried out some death defying jumps on the ledges of cenotes as displayed in the video and snaps here:

"have you guysh sheen where i left my glashes?"

Cowabunga

Another highlight for the majority of the 5-person ultimate squadron, but a lowlight for Greg, was the fact that he got shat on twice. Yes you read correctly. I’ll set the scene…

After watching all the old-timers in the village dance salsa on the street, we decided to try a crepe filled with nutella and cheese (a local delicacy). As we were waiting in line, a bird sitting in a tree above us, released a poo, which landed tenderly on Greg’s right shoulder. And then, while Greg was still mute and perplexed with shock at the impact on his right shoulder, another bird or perhaps even the same one, planted one with greater vigour than the first, directly onto his left shoulder. It was fun times for the birds, and tough times for Gregory.

Isla Mujeres

We also had a short stint in Isla Mujeres, an island just off the coast of South East Mexico. We hired some pedals (I’ve decided to no longer use the word bicycle) and of course, began an epic day doing circle work of the legs. It was particularly tough times, given that wind speed was at 1 billion km/h and we had no working gears or breaks. We lapped the island, around 25-30km.

This is the way to do cemeteries

Coupl’a points:

• Doin’ doughies bro, on an airstrip which we assumed was unused…although we’re still not too sure if it was actually unused:

"this is where the planes take off!"

• Riding several hours to the end of the island to see a much hyped about ruin. The ruin turned out to be a small rock – about 20cm x 30cm.

Is this really small or really big? You be the judge

The Real Cancun

We also had a very brief stint in Cancun for a night. Instead of partying hard which is probably what should be done in Cancun, we saw the real Cancun; kids ramming each other in mini remote controlled automobiles at a night market.

It was classical stuff, parents would burn their kids around by remote while the kids would sit in the car stunned and with no idea what was going on.

The WMD's

Cozumel

After Cancun, we had good times on the island of Cozumel with Cat’s cousin, Karen, and her husband Peter. 

#cuz4lyf

A few mentionable happenings:

• Spent a day resort jumping. We made use of a resort’s waterfront and facilities until we were asked to pay an exorbitant fee, upon which time we would move on.
• Tortoises had free reign of the courtyard at our hotel. When you sat on your chair for breakfast you had to be careful not to crack a tortoise shell with the chair leg.

Slow and steady wins the race

• Snorkeled around a plane wreck and hauntingly saw the passenger seats and airplane windows underwater.

great snorkelling gear

• Kyle became a victim of the sun and had to be wrapped up like a mummy in wet bandages for cool down purposes. Here's the big fella amongst tough times:

Mummy mia, im'a not so good

This snorkelling pic came out alright #nofilterbro

Playa del Carmen

Playa isn’t worth writing too much about. It was kind of like the Goldy but on some mega mega steroids. However, 2 interesting things did occur here:

1. Cat seriously proclaimed “This is the best breakfast ever!” as she pulled a 20cm hair out of her breakfast.
2. I got shat on by a bird twice at a night market.

Yes you read number 2 correctly. What are the odds I ask you, of 2 individual people being shat on, on 2 separate occasions within 2 or 3 days of each other? First Greg in Valladolid, and then me in Playa del Carmen. It was probably karma for the amount of laughter I exhaled when Greg got shat on multiple times. In any case, it was amazing, odd-defying times experienced in Mexico.

We also partied at a club where there was some sort of sombrero surplus which was ideal for us. Here's a video of Cat inventing the Mexican Cat dance:

beers, beers, beers, beers

Here's some bonus pics:

Due for a feed

Pleased to meet you kind sir

Well, that's about enough I reckon. The next chapter will take us to a very different land, to the one and only Cuba…. 

Until then Unravellers. And may you take your drinks of the travel babble patient, not stirred.