Bus Journeys and Jungle Adventures

I’m a bit behind on updating so this might be a long entry, if you don’t have the patience to read the whole thing I completely understand.

Tuesday was a relatively uneventful day as it was a long travel day. We took a public bus from Merida to Palenque which took about 9 hours. The bus was pretty comfortable and I was able to sleep for a bit which was great because I didn’t sleep much the night before. We boarded the bus around 8:30 and when we stopped at another station shortly after 1:00 I asked our guide Mani if we were about half way there. He told me ‘no’ and I questioned him. He asked me if I wanted to hear the truth or if I just wanted him to tell me what I wanted to hear. I told him I wanted the truth and he told me that it was a 9 hour journey and we still had a long way to go and that we wouldn’t get there until about 5:00. So by my math that means we were roughly half way there but he insisted we were not.

Our hotel in Palenque was a bit nicer than the last two but still didn’t have an elevator and our room was on the third floor so I was kicking myself once again for using a backpack instead of a suit case. The stairs are never all in the same spot either because who wants one flight of stairs that goes directly from the bottom floor to the top floor anyway? It’s much more fun to design your hotel like a labyrinth with no signs indicating where the next flight of stairs might be hiding. Also randomly putt a room 401 on the second floor just to throw people off is also a fantastic idea to keep people on their toes. All of the hotels we have stayed at so far only give you one key for the room even if there are two people in the room. This is especially fun if those two people don’t know each other and have different plans for the day. I expressed my frustration to my roommate and she said she thinks it is a security measure. I disagree because when we left the hotel we would leave the key at the front desk incase we didn’t both come back at the same time and when you came back you would ask for the key for your room and they wouldn’t even ask your name let alone your room number. It’s definitely not a security measure…I think they’re just cheap.

In Mexico families actually gather for Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve so shortly after we arrived at the hotel the rest of the group left for Christmas dinner at a restaurant in the jungle. I opted to stay behind because the meal was a 4 course fixed menu that cost roughly $40 before adding any drinks or tips and I probably only would have eaten half of one of the dishes and not touched the others so it didn’t seem worth it. I did have a bit of FOMO but my FOWM (fear of wasting money) won out and I decided not to join the group. I tried to find dinner closer to the hotel but unfortunately most of the places I visited also had set holiday menus for the night and if they didn’t they didn’t have any food I would eat. I ended up alone in my room eating a marble cake I bought at a gas station and watching youtube videos. Aside from not have a real meal all day it was actually a pretty nice evening.

I’m glad I had a chance to relax because yesterday was action packed from start to finish. I signed up for both of the optional activities offered and I feel they were both marketed incorrectly. The morning activity was described as a ‘jungle walk’. That sounds like a fun way to start my morning. An hour and a half in a national park should be a breeze, a brisk walk on groomed trails I can totally do that. Unfortunately while the “walk” was in a national park it was nothing like I imagined. As far as I’m concerned if you need to maintain three points of contact at any given time that activity is no longer called walking. We scrambled up hills, traversed multiple rivers, climbed up a waterfall, and spent two and a half hours worried that death was right around the corner. We saw parts of ruins, most of which had been grown over by the jungle but I honestly didn’t absorb a single thing the guide said because every time we stopped for him to talk I was trying to catch my breath and be thankful that for the next few minutes I didn’t have to think about what treacherous terrain was ahead. Don’t get me wrong the jungle was beautiful but I am in terrible shape and probably would not have signed up for the activity if it had been advertised as a treacherous jungle expedition rather than a walk.

Since there is no rest for the wicked as soon as the jungle walk ended we were straight into the next activity, visiting the Mayan ruins of Palenque. Salvador the same man who took us through the jungle also guided us through the Palenque ruins. He seemed like a pretty knowledgeable guy but once again I did not absorb anything. We had no time to recover from the jungle “walk”, no time to use the bathrooms, and we were climbing up ruins with steps that were all about a foot tall. Ooo I lied a few things stuck. The sarcophagus of a woman covered in red sediment and jade was found in one of the temples. She was known as the Red Queen. They also found the tomb of a former leader who they think was 80 when he died (super impressive for that time period) who was holding a cube and a bowl and had a jaguar mask made of jade covering his face. Drawings that were found have also lead anthropologists to believe that he had 5 wives and 50 kids. Sister Wives Mayan Edition.

After the guide took us through the main part of the ruins we had some free time to explore some more ruins on top of a giant hill. By this point my knee was starting to swell so as much as I wanted to see those ruins up close and check out the view from the top of the hill but in the end I think I made the right choice. In order to get back to our van we still had to walk for about another 30 minutes and that walked involved a lot of those giant steps. The walk did also take us past a few waterfalls which were quite beautiful and made me feel less guilty about stopping to rest for a few minutes. Man I really need to start exercising when I get home.

For lunch we went to the same restaurant that the group went to for dinner the night before. They all said they had a good time and they had food on their regular menu that I would actually eat so I was optimistic it would be a good time.  I don’t know if their service the night before was a fluke or if they were short staffed because it was Christmas but it was not a good time. It took an hour and a half just to get my coke. Other people in our group had completely finished their meals by then. Two hours went by before I actually got my pasta and it was mediocre. It was nice to sit and relax for a bit but I would have appreciated my drink after I ordered it.

Because lunch took so long we had to rush back to the hotel and change for our next activity - swimming in Roberto Barrios waterfalls. We were way behind schedule so the nature of this activity may have changed a bit since we were racing sunset but it was not at all what I expected. I knew there would be options to jump off of and slide down the waterfalls but I also thought there would be opportunities to swim in water beneath the waterfalls. I also that there would be life jackets since there were life jackets at the cenotes which had little to no current. There were no life jackets and no opportunity to swim unless you jumped off falls. I can swim but I have no endurance. Like at all. The swim to shore after the first jump was pretty lengthy and I didn’t want to risk it and it ended up being the easiest swim of all. I ended up paying $40 to walk barefoot through the muddy jungle in the dark while being eaten alive by ants. I also fell trying to watch the people who were participating and have a huge bruise on my ass now. I also almost died twice as we were walking because you had to walk over a waterfall on muddy board that was about 18 inches wide and slippery as hell. The board was directly over a waterfall and had I slipped I almost certainly would have gone over with drowned or broken my neck. Either way I would have been leaving in a body bag.

Had I known the activity was going to go down this way I probably would have stayed at the hotel but then I would have missed out on one of the highlights of the trip. David, one of the guys on the trip celebrated his 21st birthday yesterday and in order to celebrate in true Mexican fashion we bought him a piñata. The village that the waterfalls are in is  a pretty impoverished area so Mani suggested we have David’s birthday party in their neighbourhood and we had them hit the piñata and we also brought a cake and bought some other toys. The kids were so excited. They thoroughly enjoyed the piñata and all dove like jackals every time even a single piece of candy fell out. As soon as they done with the piñata two of the younger kids left to go home. I stopped them on their way and gave them each some pay-doh. They both screamed with delight and I almost cried. We continued to give out toys and hang out with the kids for about half an hour and it was easily the best part of my day.

Today we loaded up the van and started the journey to Bacalar. The trip took about 7 hours and was mostly uneventful. Mostly. About ten minutes after our first bathroom break I was hit with a very sudden urge to use the bathroom. Number 2. I couldn’t ask to stop again so I just held it and prayed. One thing I had noticed about Mexico that became incredible more prevalent while I was trying not to shit my pants is that Mexico loves speed bumps! Driving on the highway? Better not go to fast let’s just throw in the odd speed bump here and there. Struggling to make it up a steep, winding hill? You better believe there is a speed bump around every bend. Making your way through a small town? You guessed it speed bumps. Yes that’s right, plural. About every 200 meters. Nearing a tourist attraction? Speed bump, speed bump, speed bump. After about an hour had passed I asked  if we could please stop at the next bathroom. Wanna know how far away that was? About another hour! It was also a pay toilet which I usually refuse to use out of principle but I didn’t even care. Take all my money just let me unclench! 

Once we arrived in Bacalar we dropped our bags in the hotel then made our way into town. I’m still feeling pretty beat after yesterday’s shenanigans so after I ate lunch I wandered around for a little bit then made my way back to the hotel. Now I’m just relaxing, I some how managed to get my own room so I’m just chilling and watching movies. Tomorrow we head out on the lagoon and I’m really looking forward to it. 

I feel like the overall tone of this entry was a bit negative which was not my intention at all. I’m having a great time and I’m sorry for being such a negative Nelly! I will try to be more positive in my next post. 

Merida, Cenotes, and Other Adventures

It took well over an hour to get yesterday’s entry to post because the internet here is so terrible. At some point I got frustrated and gave up and decided to go have a shower Boy was that an adventure! I wish the internet was better so I could post a picture of our spacious bathroom but alas I will just describe it. It is so small that you have to turn sideways to get through the door and past the sink to the toilet which is pretty much touching the sink. About two inches away from the toilet is the shower curtain for the tiny shower. Having all of this room comes in really handy when you’re sharing a room with a stranger and need to get dressed/changed in the bathroom but that’s not the point of this story. The faucets are labeled ‘F’ and ‘C’ and in my head I think froid is cold and chaud is hot in french so the Spanish must be similar I’ve got this. I turn on the shower and take a step back to avoid the spray until I can make sure it’s the right temperature but this shower head is bananas it starts spraying in about 16 different directions. There is no avoiding this water and I’m feeling confident that my clothes are now soaked despite the shower curtain. I’m also freezing. Maybe I was wrong. I think fuego means hot so I turn off the c faucet and turn the f faucet all the way on. Ice. Ok that obviously didn’t work lets try the opposite. Ice. There is no way I’m washing my hair in this frigid water so I quickly rinse my body and give up. Thankfully my clothes and towel were pretty much the only things in the bathroom that didn’t get soaked so things could have been worse. Why does showering in other countries have to be so difficult? I’m really hoping for better luck at the hotel we’re staying at tomorrow but I think it is a lodge in the middle of the jungle so I don’t have high hopes. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!

After the failed shower attempt and finally getting my blog entry to post it was finally time to meet up with the group for family dinner. We went to a cute restaurant called Coyote Maya. The rain had cleared so we sat in their back room that has a retractable roof and we had the place to ourselves. Once again everyone was trying new and exciting things and I ordered the fettuccini alfredo. The pasta was not cooked all the way through and it was lukewarm but I guess that’s what you get when you order Italian food in Mexico. We left for dinner at 7:30 and at 10:00 people were still eating their desserts which was super frustrating. A bunch of us ended up leaving the group early and I came back to the hotel and went to bed. 

This morning we got up early and piled into the van for our trip to the cenotes. At this point I’m thinking ‘I just paid $60 to go swimming, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking’ and driver is playing spanish dance music really loudly at 8am and I’m wishing I had picked a different activity.

The drive was a little over an hour and despite the fact that my motion sickness has progressively been getting worse I figured an hour isn’t that long and I could handle it. About 15 minutes in it became clear that I could not in fact handle it. I took a gravol and it seemed to take forever to start working. I was starting to worry that maybe it wasn’t motion sickness and it was actually Montezuma's revenge but thankfully that wasn’t the case.

We stopped along the way in the parking lot of a church that was built next to an indigenous site. Apparently this is something that settlers liked to do and sometimes even destroyed the indigenous sites and built churches in their place. I think the main reason we made this stop though was so Mani could pick up a watermelon. We also passed a traditional haceinda. Before today I thought a hacienda was a guest house because I thought that’s what Gina from Real Housewives of Orange County moved into when she and her husband separated but apparently I’m mistaken because it’s actually a farm. The haciendas in this area were used to grow a crop that I can’t remember the name of but it looks like an aloe vera plant and was used to make rope once upon a time. They were owned by rich people who had slaves do their manual labour for them. Our guide told us they weren’t technically slaves because they were free to leave any time they wanted but if they did no one else would hire them and they would eventually starve to death. I’m pretty sure that’s a slave. He also told us that the indigenous people used to grow this crop before they were forced out of their territory by the colonizers. 

After the motion sickness scare and the history lesson we finally arrived at our destination. Before we arrived we were given the option of taking a horse carriage or a bicycle to the cenotes. I just paid $60 to go swimming so you better believe I’m not putting in anymore work than I have to to get where I’m going so I picked the horse option. I was expecting a horse with a carriage that holds 2 to 4 people like the ones you would find in Central Park in New York, the Blackpool Promenade, or even here in Merida but that is not at all what it was. Instead it was a wooden platform that was on wheels that fit a train track that 6 people plus the driver sat on and hung on to a piece of rope for dear life while this tiny little horse pulled us down the track in protest. I’m not describing this well and will try to post a picture later but it was definitely a unique experience.

The horses brought us to the first of three cenotes. We reached a cave with a tree growing directly above the opening and made our way down the wooden steps while ducking under the rock formations. I guess this would be a good time to explain what a cenote is. There is a lot of limestone in Mexico and overtime the rain has eroded the limestone creating underground rivers. So basically a cenote is a swimming hole inside a cave. As soon as we made it far enough into that first cave to see the waterI was no longer upset about spending so much money just to go swimming. The water was so clear and so blue and the were stalactites and trees roots coming down from the ceiling. There was a platform in the middle where we were able to leave our bags and I took a slow lap around it and felt refreshed. Before long we were off to our second cenote just a few meters away. The second cenote was even more impressive than the first. The cave itself was more interesting and the water was deeper so you could jump off the platform and into the water. I was too busy thinking about keeping my life jacket from choking me out when I jumped in that I wasn’t thinking about anything else and ended up doing a pin drop and went way deeper than I anticipated and ended up with a nose full of water. Next time, if there is a next time, I’ll be sure to do a cannon ball instead. Once we were finished at the second cenote we had a watermelon break before head to the third. The third cenote was different from the first two as it was completely open at the top. It was also much much deeper than the first two. Knowing that our adventure was coming to an end I think we ended up spending the most time at this cenote. 

We eventually all made our way out of the cave and caught are horse buggy train track thingy back to our starting point where we had lunch then made our way back to Merida. Shortly after returning we departed for our orientation walk that was cancelled due to weather yesterday. We started by going to the house of the person who founded the city only to find that it was closed. We then went to City Hall which must be the old one that was turned into a museum because it certainly doesn’t look like any municipal office I’ve been in. Because our first stop was a bust Mani decided to take us to the local market. I was originally super on board with this plan because I love local markets but take a busy mall on Christmas Eve and multiply that by about a thousand times and that’s how crowded the walk to the market was. There were so many people everywhere and Mani was weaving in between them making it difficult for a group of 16 people to keep track of him but some how we managed to make it work. I kept having flash backs of losing my group in Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia and was practically glued to Mani making sure that didn’t happen again. We did a quick walk through the market so he could show us how meet is sold in the market. It is hung on hooks or left in trays in the room that had to be at least 90 degrees. Absolutely disgusting. From there we made our way back to the town square and ended the walk.

We didn’t really get to explore City Hall when we were there so I went back to check it out on my own. There was a lot of art work hanging all around the building and at first I thought it was cool but eventually it started to remind me of the really inappropriate artwork hanging in Pawnee City Hall in ‘Parks and Recreation’. As soon as I saw a picture of settlers torturing the indigenous people I was done. I understand that we need to learn from history but proudly displaying that scene in your City Hall seemed super inappropriate to me.

I wandered around the square a little bit then made my way back to the hotel for a bit of a rest. Most of the group is going out for street meat at 7:30 but I won’t be joining them. Partly because I don’t want to be up until the end of time, partly because I don’t want to deal with huge crowds of people again, but mostly because I don’t think I will find anything I like. Don’t get me wrong street meat can be great but I’m just not into the cuisine here.

Tomorrow we have a 10 hour bus ride to Palenque so I might not update because there might not be anything to report but watch this space.

I'm Baaaack! And I'm in Mexico!

Guess who’s back. Back Again. Jenna’s Back. Tell a friend.

If you followed my blog previously I’m sorry for the super long hiatus and not finishing telling the story about my African adventures. I fell into a pretty deep depression when I moved back to Canada and updating the blog fell off of my list of things to do. I’m still struggling with depression but finally reached out for help last year and am doing better. I’m currently in Mexico for a mini adventure so I thought I’d give this a shot again. I can’t promise the writing will be any good or that I’ll update every day but something is better than nothing right?

Driving on the 400 gives me anxiety at the best of times, doing it in the dark in the winter is just a recipe for disaster so I took a bus to the airport. Well technically I took 4 buses and got very little sleep but it was fairly stress free and I didn’t have a seat partner on any of the busses so I’ll chalk that up as a win.

The flight went pretty smooth but my luggage took forever to make its way on to the belt and I was starting to panic that my bag got left in Toronto. I was also worried that because I was taking so long to get out of the airport my prearranged shuttle was going to leave without me. Thankfully neither of those things happened and both me and my luggage made it to Playa del Carmen safely yesterday afternoon. 

I met my roommate Dina as soon as I arrived and it’s a good thing I did because there was only one key to our shared hotel room. The three storey hotel didn’t have an elevator so I had to carry my suitcase (of course I decided to use a suitcase instead of backpack for the first time ever) up a flight of tiled stairs, which were outside and it had been raining. I’m still amazed I survived the trip up the stairs.

I convinced Dina to venture out with me to find food and we made our way to a 50’s diner around the corner. We were meeting with the rest of the group for dinner in a couple of hours so I just ordered fries and a drink. The drink I ordered was called orangeade and I thought I was going to get something resembling a Fanta. Boy was I wrong! I got the pulpiest fresh squeezed orange juice ever to grace this earth. It was like 95% pulp and 5% juice. I was not impresses. I also saw the server lick his hand while making a milkshake and continue working. Needless to say I won’t be returning to that restaurant when we go back to Play del Carmen at the end of the trip.

After eating we went back to the hotel and I had a short nap before meeting up with group for a briefing on our trip. Our very attractive guide (I will try to post a snap a picture before the tour is over)  Manfredo (Mani) broke down how we would be spending the next several days then invited us all to join him for dinner. We walked a few minutes to a local restaurant where everyone but me ordered traditional Mexican dishes. I expect this will be a trend for the remainder of the trip.

After dinner it was back to the hotel and into bed to get ready for today’s big adventures. We loaded up the van fairly early and made our way to Chichen Itza. The ruin site was far more expansive than I imagined it to be and we spent serval hours exploring and learning about the Mayans. I’m not going to lie our guide was super long winded and I remember very little of what he told us. One thing I do remember is that the water God is named Chaahk and the Mayans believed he lived at the bottom of the cenote on their grounds. This particular group relied on the farming of corn in order to survive and would make sacrifices to Chaahk to ensure they would get enough rain to grow a successful crop. The human sacrifices volunteered to be sacrificed and spent their whole lives preparing for this duty where they would be drugged, dehydrated in a sauna, weighted down, and then drowned.. There was another group of people who would make sacrifices to the sun God and they seemed much more violent. They would capture warriors, rip their hearts out of their chests and then set the hearts on fire while they were still beating. Sounds like a pretty good way to go right?

Although I don’t remember many specifics, I remember thinking there were a lot of similarities between the way settlers treated they Mayans and the way they treated the Indigenous community in Canada. When the settlers came the brought small pox which ended up killing a lot of Mayans. Around this time there were also droughts and famines. This lead many of the Mayans to believe that their Gods had abandoned them and in order to survive they must convert to the settlers ways and that is how christianity came to Mexico. I have been participating in meetings with some Indigenous leaders recently at work so I found this really fascinating.

Ooo maybe I absorbed more than I thought because now I’m remembering more about the sun God. He is a serpent but when the night falls he must face many demons so when the night comes he transforms into a jaguar able to defeat anything that comes his way and then when it is time for the sun to rise he transforms into a bird. He is referred to as the feathered serpent or Quetzalcoatl and was depicted in many forms throughout the ruins.

After what felt like the longest tour ever we finally left the ruins to carry on with our day. We went to a buffet for lunch and I was a bit worried I was going to starve to death but I managed to find something to eat. I ate a lot of rice but I also tried a real Mexican dish called chicharron de something something. Okay so maybe that’s not the official name but I can’t remember what it is and my google search wasn’t very fruitful. It was pork marinated in oranges and something else. I only had a tiny piece but guess what…I didn’t die! If it isn’t a buffet I probably wouldn’t have tried it but I did and I’m proud of myself. Others in the group scoffed at my plate but I thought it was impressive I didn’t just load up on pasta salad. Someone even said the said the pasta salad was sweet so I bet they used Miracle Whip and that’s one of my four basic food groups!

Once everyone had finished eating we loaded back into the van and drove another 3 hours to Merida. We are supposed to be on an orientation walk of the city but it is raining cats and dogs so it got postponed until tomorrow afternoon. I don’t have much desire to wander around in the rain so now I’m just relaxing until we meet up for dinner at 7:30. Fingers crossed there is something on the menu I can eat!

I had planned on adding pictures to this post but the internet here is absolutely terrible...I can't even get the upload screen to load so unfortunately you'll have to use your imagination. If I remember I will try to add pictures if our next hotel has better wifi.