Want to dance by the water 'neath the Mexican sky
07 Juli 2016 | Mexico, Bacalar
I want to dance by the water 'neath the Mexican sky
Drinking Margaritas by a string of blue lights
Listen to the mariachi play at midnight
Are you with me, Kirsten?!
This time I did not travel by myself. I travelled together with Kirsten, a friend I met in Maastricht 7 years ago. We decided to go to central America together after I got back from Isreal and Jordan. The initial plan was that she would join me to the Middle East, but unfortunately that didn't happen. So we decided to go to Central America together, to do the Maya-route along the Yucatán, Guatemala and Belize.
The 2nd of July we had a direct flight from Düsseldorf to Cancún. After arrival we directly took the bus to Valladolid, near the world wonder Chitzén Itzá. So after a journey of nearly 14 hours we had found our first hostel. The next morning we went to Chitzén Itzá. We just took a bus and bought our entree ticket. The park of Chitzén Itzá isn't that big and with the Lonely Planet in my hand I was our own tour guide. It was all very impressive, especially the Mayan arena, were they used to play a ball game where they had to throw the bal through some hoops. I imagined it was actually very similar to Harry Potter's Quidditch, although I doubt if the Mayans had flying broomsticks. And if you won you died. Apparently they sacrificed only the winners. Their beating heart would be ripped out and their dead bodies would be thrown off the stairs of the great Chitzén Itzá temple. In their high days they killed many more people and just threw the bodies away or in the water. Now I don't think it's so mysterious why the Mayans died from diseases.
Again because we were so early in the park there were only a few people. And when we left, people we queuing for the entrance to get in. When we got back in the afternoon we decided to rent some bikes and cycle to the nearest Cennote, a sinkhole filled with water. It was too bad we didn't bring our swimwear It was quite a bumpy ride and it was getting hotter and hotter. Again I was afraid of spontaneous combustion.
Most of my birthday I spend in the bus to Mérida and at the pool of our hostel. The only purpose we had to go to Mérida was to take another bus from there to San Cristobóbal de las Casas, spend a few days there and than cross the border with Guatemala. But it turned out that there were no busses to Chiapas due to roadblocks and teacher's strikes. Now we would do our route the other way around, to enter Guatemala via Belize, and book a flight back from Guatemala City to Cancún.
So now we went back all the way to Bacalar, a hippie place at the Belizian border. From the outside our hostel in Bacalar looked just fine, especially the location at Laguna Bacalar was absolutely stunning. So I wanted to stay a day there to relax, while Kirsten wanted to cross the border with Belize only the next day. At the end we decided to stay one more day, but that was maybe not such a good idea. As I said the hostel looked good from the outside, but not so much from the inside. Apperently there was something wrong with the electricity and the roof of the hostel, so we were moved to a nearby hostel. But this hostel was not finished yet. Only one room was finished, and people were sleeping in tents in te garden and in a old converted schoolbus. We were assigned to the only room in the hostel where we had to bunk with eight other people on ten square meters. There was no aircon and is was crazy hot inside. To get some sleep was out of the question!
The next day we wanted to do a Catamaran tour on the lake, but our hostel was a bit too relaxed to arrange such a tour. Oh, they had a Catamaran themselves but nobody knew when the boat would arrive. So we went to another hostel to book the tour. It is said that Laguna Bacalar has seven colours. It is not like green, yellow, and pink, but actually seven shades of blue. This is because under the water are seven Cennotes with different dephts, hence the darker and lighter blue water. After the tour was finished we also had dinner and drinks at the other hostel, because our hostel was so crappy it didn't even had a bar!
But what our hostel did do was arrange transport to Belize City, where we took the boat to the Caye Caulker, an island just of the coast of Belize.
Drinking Margaritas by a string of blue lights
Listen to the mariachi play at midnight
Are you with me, Kirsten?!
This time I did not travel by myself. I travelled together with Kirsten, a friend I met in Maastricht 7 years ago. We decided to go to central America together after I got back from Isreal and Jordan. The initial plan was that she would join me to the Middle East, but unfortunately that didn't happen. So we decided to go to Central America together, to do the Maya-route along the Yucatán, Guatemala and Belize.
The 2nd of July we had a direct flight from Düsseldorf to Cancún. After arrival we directly took the bus to Valladolid, near the world wonder Chitzén Itzá. So after a journey of nearly 14 hours we had found our first hostel. The next morning we went to Chitzén Itzá. We just took a bus and bought our entree ticket. The park of Chitzén Itzá isn't that big and with the Lonely Planet in my hand I was our own tour guide. It was all very impressive, especially the Mayan arena, were they used to play a ball game where they had to throw the bal through some hoops. I imagined it was actually very similar to Harry Potter's Quidditch, although I doubt if the Mayans had flying broomsticks. And if you won you died. Apparently they sacrificed only the winners. Their beating heart would be ripped out and their dead bodies would be thrown off the stairs of the great Chitzén Itzá temple. In their high days they killed many more people and just threw the bodies away or in the water. Now I don't think it's so mysterious why the Mayans died from diseases.
Again because we were so early in the park there were only a few people. And when we left, people we queuing for the entrance to get in. When we got back in the afternoon we decided to rent some bikes and cycle to the nearest Cennote, a sinkhole filled with water. It was too bad we didn't bring our swimwear It was quite a bumpy ride and it was getting hotter and hotter. Again I was afraid of spontaneous combustion.
Most of my birthday I spend in the bus to Mérida and at the pool of our hostel. The only purpose we had to go to Mérida was to take another bus from there to San Cristobóbal de las Casas, spend a few days there and than cross the border with Guatemala. But it turned out that there were no busses to Chiapas due to roadblocks and teacher's strikes. Now we would do our route the other way around, to enter Guatemala via Belize, and book a flight back from Guatemala City to Cancún.
So now we went back all the way to Bacalar, a hippie place at the Belizian border. From the outside our hostel in Bacalar looked just fine, especially the location at Laguna Bacalar was absolutely stunning. So I wanted to stay a day there to relax, while Kirsten wanted to cross the border with Belize only the next day. At the end we decided to stay one more day, but that was maybe not such a good idea. As I said the hostel looked good from the outside, but not so much from the inside. Apperently there was something wrong with the electricity and the roof of the hostel, so we were moved to a nearby hostel. But this hostel was not finished yet. Only one room was finished, and people were sleeping in tents in te garden and in a old converted schoolbus. We were assigned to the only room in the hostel where we had to bunk with eight other people on ten square meters. There was no aircon and is was crazy hot inside. To get some sleep was out of the question!
The next day we wanted to do a Catamaran tour on the lake, but our hostel was a bit too relaxed to arrange such a tour. Oh, they had a Catamaran themselves but nobody knew when the boat would arrive. So we went to another hostel to book the tour. It is said that Laguna Bacalar has seven colours. It is not like green, yellow, and pink, but actually seven shades of blue. This is because under the water are seven Cennotes with different dephts, hence the darker and lighter blue water. After the tour was finished we also had dinner and drinks at the other hostel, because our hostel was so crappy it didn't even had a bar!
But what our hostel did do was arrange transport to Belize City, where we took the boat to the Caye Caulker, an island just of the coast of Belize.
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