Home » Mexico » Arriba, arriba, arriba.....Yutacan es fantastico!

Hola! from the sunny and sweaty land of Mexico. Its been an interesting, exhilarating and exciting few days on our arrival at this fantastic country. We arrived at Cancun after a knackering 18 hour journey, and were greeted with a swift wave of tropical humidity that hit us like a wet flannel as we sweated our way to the hotel we´d booked. It was a cool, orginal hotel, with its own tropical rainforest festering beside the pool, and air-con the saviour in the unexpected heat atmosphere we were surrounded by.

Arriba, arriba, arriba.....Yutacan es fantastico!

Lucian Reed-Drake
2006-03-27 14:09:56

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I hustled and jostled, and managed to stab a unlikely goal out of something. But, for the rest of the game, Dad and I were panting puppies in comparison with the flair and stamina of our new Mexican amigos.

Our hour of hard-core exercise was self-congratulated with a cool cerveza, then another one. And after a few margaritas later that night, we sampled some fine Guacamole and tortillas and another few cervezas in the
local Reggae bar - where a booming band was inpromptly interrupted by a fire-dancer setting accidentally setting alight the bar itself!

We made amigos with some Swiss guys and they invited me back to the Poc-Na hostel, dubbed the "best hostel in Mexico" by the ever faithful bible that is Lonely Planet. I went for a few cervezas with them, it was a party dancing atmosphere, and quite bizarre in the middle of a tropical playa. All in all a chilled end to a extraordinary beginning.

The next day, we tumbled out of bed to hire a bicycle (in this heat we were comptemplating that we were going a bit ´loco´indeed!). Instead of the yankey-doodly option of golf carts, we pumped iron on the bikes and made our way 7km to the south point and turtle farm, where we said hello to Isla Mujeres´iguanas, turtles and drugged-up tourist sharks population. The other stop that LP suggested was the Hacienda de Mundaca. A little tip - DONT go there!!UNLESS you enjoy being eaten alive by bugs and watching agitated caged monkeys, scary and slippery iguanas, and a docile (and quite frankly boring) jaguar.

We had a very overdue 5 hour siesta that afternoon, with
a unusual midnight restaurant meal. I rejoined the Swiss guys for a final night of a few cervezas and a interesting and innovatively named club called "The Kokonut Klub" (!),and retired to bed.

Exhausting most of Isla Mujeres, and exhausting most of our sunburnt skin, we challenged the Mexican bus system today to a new town, called Valladoid. One boat, a attempted rip-off taxi, and a mistaken bus timetable later, we finally arrived at a rainy Valladoid this afternoon. After finding our hotel with the tallest American guy I have ever seen (he must have been 8 foot), we went for a dip in the ceneto´-a magnificent freshwater lake amongst caves and stagamites and stagalites. Apart from the scary swooping bats and annoying buy-my-postcard-or-i-will-make-u-feel-guilty-for-the-rest-of-your-life children, it was great! Our new somberos really played the part of Indiana Jones in the rocky caves.

Tonight we have strolled the plaza and had a plato tipico Mexicano meal (to which Í have discovered my brother has previously and delightfully referred to the re-fired beans as ´babysick´). We watched a sombre crowd quitely clap a sad bongo drummer, and now we shall go back, watch some Spanish MTV before catching another bus to the Mayan ruins
of Chichen Itza tomorrow, as well as watching a Spanish version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tomorrow evening!

What can I say, so far its lived up to all I want it to be, and theres still so many cool things to come.....hope you like the photos (if they work!).

Lucian
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