Day 190 - Playa del Carmen, Mexico To Caye Caulker, Belize

The bloody alarm went off at 5:15am, so that we could be downstair's at the bus by 6am.

We are crossing the border between Mexico & Belize today & ticking off country number 16 today! Belize is a country both of us have heard lots of good thing's about & we are super excited.
On my way down with my bags, a few minutes before 6am, one of the Irish fellas in our tour group, told me that Tom is not getting out of bed. I was then asked to go upstairs & extract him from his bed by Suzie the tour guide. 

Apparently he went out last night and got back not long before 5am.
Thankfully I had some luck getting him up, after an initial resistance & we didn't make the tour run too late.

It was a 5 hour trip in a mini van to the border. Most people slept or attempted to watch a very poor quality Deadpool 2 movie, obviously pirated. We turned our clocks back 1 hour when we arrived in Belize, making it 10am. The border crossing was easy, though very sweaty.

I was delighted when Suzie gave us some information about Belize! 

The name Belize came from Belix, which is the Mayan word for muddy water.
Belize got it's independence in 1981 from the British. The population in Belize is 348,000, which is quite small, compared to Mexico's population of 127,000,000. The locals are said to be very friendly & welcoming.
We definitely felt this way as we hopped on board an old converted school bus, which would take us the 3.5 hours to Belize city, though no longer the capital due to natural disaster & it's ability to be easily flooded.

The old school bus's we would see in Belize & other countries in central America come down from Canada & America, after being sold cheap at auction, before being pimped out.
The bus ride went quickly & unremarkably. Lots of locals got off & on the bus & we were treated to a reggae remix of every hit song possible. From old rock anthems, to the latest song from Ed Sherin. Belize people love reggae & singing.

Outside the window we drove past lots of coconut & banana trees, alongside of sugar cane fields. There is a very big variety in the richness of housing, however most of the structures look very similar to the elevated houses in Queensland, Australia. Belize is frequented with flooding & hurricanes, which is why.
I didn't see a fence until we got to the city & in between the fields of farming & houses was deep patches of jungle.
Belize is well known for it's intense & huge amount of protected green land & of course it's reefs.



























We've both signed up for a big day of snorkelling tomorrow, which is really exciting. People frequently see lots of fish & healthy reef, nurse sharks, turtles & manta rays. There is a marine conservation reserve for the rays & sharks, which we knew about & was always going to be a big attraction. Last time our guide was here, she was swimming with a manatee! I'm ecstatic to hear this.

Once we arrived in Belize city, the sky opened up & it bucket'd down, as we'd say back in Oz.
The rain came down in sheets & was very large droplet's, saturating everything in seconds. We all scrambled around like ants after getting off the bus at the front, running to the back of the bus to collect luggage & then running into the bus terminal shelter.
From here we took a local taxi to the ferry terminal & have a 20 minute breather/beer before getting on the ferry which will take us across to the island of Caye Caulker.

The ferry was a large & new boat which had 2 decks & seated approximately 200 people. While on the ferry another rain cloud appeared & followed us all the way to the island. Just as we got off the boat & walked down the jetty, it started to rain! At first just intermittently & lightly, but as we collected our bags & walked towards the hostel, it got heavier.

The island of Caye Caulker is stunning & feels totally removed from having any connection to Mexico. It feels & looks like an island in Jamaica.
There's lots of palm trees, grass roof's & people selling coconuts. There's no Spanish anywhere & the locals are extremely friendly. The ocean is really flat & is gorgeous colours of green & blue. The island is only a few kilometres in length & in some sections, you can stand in the middle of the street & see both sides of it & the surrounding ocean, so it's not that wide either. A very nice, small community with huge amounts of natural beauty.

Interestingly our hostel has beach views & a private jetty, but before reaching this you have to walk through a cemetery! It's a strange view.

Tom is put in a dorm room with all the 8 other guys & I'm in a girls room with 6 beds. I'm getting along really well with Hannah & Barbie, so we continue this arrangement & in addition get another girl called Dolly. The dorm room is simple, but comfortable enough.
Once we all dump our bags into our dorms we get ready to head off for dinner.

It's at this point Tom realises that the electrical items he had charging in his dorm the previous night, next to the microwave, are not in his bag. He asks me if I grabbed them when I came to wake him up & of course, I did not..... sadly it was our newly brought multi adapter wall socket, Tom's phone charger & his last spare phone cable, which was attached to the battery pack. This is going to be a huge inconvenience now in our trip & were not likely to find replacement's anytime soon.

There is an amazing selection of restaurants here & the specialty is seafood. Suzie has booked us a big table at her favourite place that does $10 lobsters. I'm sure you can guess what we ate for dinner!
It was a meal deal with 2 lobsters, 1 snapper fillet, garlic bread, coconut rice, vegetables & 2 drinks. It was amazing! During dinner we had happy hour & Suzie got us extra special deals. There is a drink on Caye Caulker called a panty rippa, which is basically fresh fruit juice & coconut rum.
It's really delicious & dangerously potent... which is not a good combination.

Despite the big dinner, we all stumbled out of the bar very happy & rowdy.
The next stop was the sports bar, followed by the Jamaican bar followed by our roof top balcony.
It sounds like a big list of places, but everything on the island shuts early & a huge chunk of the group (including me) were in bed by 1am. Tom stayed up much later with some of the Irish lads.

- Alli

Day 189 - Tulum Ruins & The Cristalino Cenote

We snuck out of our dorm room's at 4.45am, so we didn't wake the other people in our tour group & set off at a brisk pace, walking to HM hotel, which is now about 10 blocks away.
When we arrived it was 4.55am. We were 20 minutes early!  We sat down out the front & waited ..... & waited.

By 5.20am, neither Tom or I wanted to acknowledge the thought that it's happened again, but it was getting increasingly  harder & harder to ignore.
Tom went into the HM hotel reception & used the reception phone 3 times between the times of 5.20am & 5.50am. It was the same as yesterday, no answer on either contact number. Why bother giving an 'emergency' contact number if you fail to answer it ?
We tried again at 6am & finally got through. The receptionist at the HM hotel was the same man we saw yesterday. He was very sympathetic towards our cause & was happy to translate for us when we couldn't communicate with the person on the phone. Unfortunately,  the result was no resolution & no tour. The offered us a later one today but at an extra charge or to re-schedule again for tomorrow which wouldn't work because we are leaving.  Interestingly, they tried to say that they came past & we weren't waiting, so they left. It's absolutely ridiculous!
Luckily, hotel staff saw us sitting there & did not see a tour van. They were bloody lying! The receptionist actually said this tot he person he was talking to on the phone, to no avail.
Tom told the guy to hang up.
We were absolutely gutted & so disappointed in this company.

We walked home, but it felt more like angry stomping, discussing how we would articulate the complaint email & refund demand. We were both so angry & definitely a bit sad. Despite already seeing 3 ruins, Chichen Itza would have been special & another world wonder to cross off the list. As Tom said, it's a good excuse to come back.

The other guys on the tour group were going to see the Tulum ruins today & swim in a cenote. Thankfully there was room to tag along & we have Suzie's full support in demanding a refund for the Chichen Itza tour, she was just as angry as we were & even offered to ring them & yell at them in Spanish.  We Are going to have a good day & see another ruin, even if tis not the one we intended to see.

We all squished into a mini van to drive the hour to the Tulum ruins.
I'm glad we did something today & it wasn't wasted, we did know about this day trip & probably would have done it today, anyway, if Chichen Itza had worked out the first day.

When we arrived and unloaded out of the mini van, there was a police officer forcing a Mexican man onto the ground & hand-cufffing his arms behind his back. The man was crying & screaming.
We had no idea what had happened & when we asked Suzie, she said that he was extremely intoxicated & had been asked to move away, but refused.
I felt sorry for the poor drunk man, who was blubbering & cruing away in Spanish. Other police promptly arrived & he was lifted into the back of a police ute & driven away.

Tulum ruin's is a 13th century Mayan archaeological site that is very unique for being one of the last Mayan cities built, having a walled structure, a trading post along the Caribbean sea coast line & even remained inhabited for approximately 70 years after the Spanish conquest. Tulum is named after the Yucatan Mayan word for fence or wall. It's very picturesque sitting on the edge of the cliff & facing out towards the sea. A picture of Tulum is actually the profile picture for the trip we are about to go on, if you were to look on the G adventures website. We recognised it as soon as we saw it!

We had been there exploring the ruins, maybe 4 minutes before we spotted our first iguana! I was super excited! I was even more excited for the second one we spotted which was much bigger & closer to the footpath, eating purple flowers.
I turned around from photographing the second guy & realised there was 8, of various sizes behind me. They would become a regular sighting & in any direction, looking at the ruins, you were guaranteed to see at least 3.

The ruins were quite small, a bit touristy, but very unique from being on the coast. It was a picture perfect day, though very hot. We spent an hour here before heading back to the Carpark.
On our way out we saw this very strange animal. It was a lemur, apparently a local one called Lucy, who was rescued after being injured & now lives here.

Our next stop was lunch in a restaurant on the beach side. Tom & I ate a pizza & burrito, with a few beers while digging our toe's into the soft sand under the table, which was exceptionally good! 

Finally it was time to see a Cenote. We were meant to see a ritualistic one at Chichen Itza, at least we would see one today & be bale to go swimming.
Here's a fun fact; Cenote means big boobes in a Mayan dialect & therefore asking a local women if she can show you the Cenote's could get you into a lot of trouble!

It was really something special. With gorgeous cave structures, crystal clear water, fish & lots of plants.

We could easily swim & see deep into the clear water, not actually realising how deep some of the cave & river channels went, until we saw 2 scuba divers way down below us. It was a really magical place & we spent a couple of hours here, Tom mostly with his head under water trying to find a pair of sunglasses that slipped off his head. He's gone through 2 pairs in 2 days!

Overall it was a really nice last day in Mexico & a good way to socialise with the other tour group members.
After we arrived back in Playa del Carmen, we went to the Wal-Mart to buy Tom more thongs & get some supplies to make dinner/lunch for tomorrow.
We cooked rice with burrito seasoning in the water, refried beans, avo, tomato, lettuce & cheese. We also lashed out & got a jalapeno mayonnaise & a habanero bbq sauce.

After dinner, we sat down & wrote the complaint email to the booking company. We thought we were calm & that the email was well written. Fingers crossed that there is no resistance & we can get a full refund.
After this we said goodnight & I read my book, unawares there was beers going on upstairs in Tom's room & a big night would proceed the beers.

- Alli

Day 188 - The Day We Were Meant To Go To Chichen Itza

So today the alarm went off at 4.30am. We had barely any sleep from all the street noise & the booming bass from the nearby night club's. Sometimes, being very central is NOT a good thing!!

We got ready & packed a day bag & walked the 7 minutes to our pick up point, dodging all the drunks as we went.
We booked a tour yesterday for an 'early visit' to Chichen Itza, to beat the crowds & with an english speaking archaeologist as a guide. We were sent some information straight after booking & a confirmation email about 8pm, last night which we had to reply to as confirmation. Both of the documents said the pickup was at the HM hotel, with no street address given. They did kindly supply a direct google maps link with a pin drop in the confirmation email, which matched our own google maps search for the hotel.

We arrived at the location, early & were a bit concerned about not being able to find the hotel. There was no HM hotel in sight & the corner block where we were standing had a really tall fence at the exact pin drop location on google maps...  maybe the hotel was here & has now become a new development ?  After waiting 30 minutes & not being picked up, we tried using a pay phone to ring the number's supplied, but couldn't get through. We then borrowed a phone from a local taxi driver & again, couldn't get through. The taxi driver then told us the HM hotel is actually around the corner & pointed to a place on the map.
We walked 3 blocks away & found the hotel.
We went inside and spoke to the person at reception who confirmed the the tour company does pick people up from here, but that HM have no association with the booking of the tours.
He was really nice & rung them again on our behalf, finally managing to get through on a contact number & spoke to someone who could move our booking to the next day, but wanted to charge us US$15 per person for the rescheduling. We didn't want the hotel receptionist to have to explain the problem, so we agreed to the rescheduling & told him that we would contact them about the problems later.

We think the problem might be that HM hotel doesn't have it's correct location available on google maps, as strange as this is. Surely it's been a problem before & the tour company as well as the booking agent must realise this.
The other problem could be that we booked the tour company through a booking agency, we didn't go straight through the tour company & all of our information came from the booking company.

It's a total waste of day & it's really inconvenient to go do this tomorrow. Once at home, Tom sent an email with screen shots of the location on google maps to the booking company, explaining the problem & asking them to negotiate with Amigo tours on our behalf & have the re-scheduling fee removed, because it wasn't our fault. Following this, we both eventually calmed down & went back to sleep.

At 1.30pm we checked out of the guest house & went to our next lot of accommodation which is included in the tour.  It's at Koox hotel, thankfully only 4 blocks away from where we were.
We Checked in & did the relevant paperwork.
I was a bit put off that we've been split up & put into men & womens dorms. But as Tom said, if it's for other women's safety & comfortability, we would never complain. The rooms are very nice! As we were leaving, on our way to lunch, we ran into 2 other girls from America ! Yayyyy! English speaking people. I was worried the tour would be full of Spanish speaking people, making it harder for us to make friends.

Directly under the hotel was a restaurant that specialises in Mexican cuisine. We were so bloody hungry at this point in time, that we couldn't be bothered walking further & they had a great menu with a great deal on coronas! We got 6 for 120 peso's, which works out to be AUD $1.45 per corona.
While drinking our beers we saw 2 guys across the road, 1 of which just came out of a pharmacy, comparing bottles & box's of what we assume were meds.... to be honest it's not the first time we've suspected that we have been witness to a drug deal. It made for very interesting lunch time entertainment.

Our food was amazing & we left very satisfied & needing a nap.
By this time we still haven't heard anything back from the tour company or the booking company about our problems today & the tour to Chichen Itza that we missed.

After lunch we went for a wander down to the main strip in town & came across some Mexican street performers who do this traditional performance that involves climbing up a very high pole in costume. Tying themselves to a rope around the abdomen that has been wound up on a mechanism at the top of the pole, which allows the pole to rotate. Once the men are secured & the music hits a certain frequency (possibly when the audience has given enough money into the basket) the Men then push themselves off the platform & hang upside down while the rope unwinds & slowly spins them down to the ground. It looked very technical & wold have required a lot of practice. After watching this we strolled along the beach & did some more souvenir shopping for friends & family. 

Technically today is day 1 of our tour & involves meeting everyone. At 6pm we met our tour leader, her name is Suzie & she's from the UK, but has 9 years of central American knowledge & an obvious love for these countries she wants to share. There is a group of 18 of us, at least half are Irish, there is 2 Americans, a couple of Germans & Brits & a few solo travellers from various parts of Europe. We're the only Aussies! Most people are only doing 16 days on tour & will leave us in Guatemala & have different people join us for the rest of the trip.

After the meeting we all went for a walk into the centre of Playa del Carmen, for traditional Mexican food & margaritas. The food was really good, but expensive in comparison to the places Tom & I have been eating at. Tom & I shared dishes of fish tacos & vegetarian fajitas.

By 9.30pm, we were full, tipsy & tired, knowing we had another early start tomorrow, where fingers crossed we would get to Chichen Itza & all of the drama from today would be forgotten.
We said goodnight at the stairs between floors 3 & 4, before going to our separate rooms & beds.
The beds were actually super comfortable & we were both asleep before too much time passed.

- Alli