Maya Luna, Chacchoben, and Laguna Bacalar (Mexico - Part 4)

Friday, 30 December 2011

Our home for 4 nights.

Our first day at Maya Luna was actually the only day that I snorkeled.  The beach we’re at is “protected” by a reef that is about ¼ mile out, so although it was a bit windy, we were still able to snorkel in the waters between.  It’s not very deep and most of the bottom is covered with sea grass, so it was a bit difficult to see any creatures in the water until we actually got to the reef.  In the morning we actually tried to swim out to the reef, but I was feeling a bit tired and wasn’t sure about being able to swim back to shore, so we headed back to have some lunch and pick up some kayaks.  With the kayaks we made much better time and tried to actually go to the outside of the reef – until the waves started tossing us around too much.  So we came back to the inside and Jeff tied the kayaks to his shorts and we snorkeled around until we started getting chilly.  There were lots of sea fans and different types of corals.  We saw all sorts of fish, big and small, colorful and shiny.  Snorkeling is one of my favorite things to do – especially on a bright sunny day in crystal clear waters.  We had a mostly sunny day and mostly clear waters, so not a bad day in paradise!  We also saw an octopus!  It was about plate-sized (including tentacles).  We watched it move from one large piece of coral to another, then disappear beneath it.  So cool!

The view from our roof-top terrace.  Note the red water (explained below).

The water on this beach is interesting.  We’re downwind from a small river that pours out of a mangrove swamp.  The water in that river is literally blood red from the mangroves, so that redness/orangeness flows into sea water.  Our beach actually looks like there’s been an oil spill, but it’s just from the mangroves.  When Jeff and I were snorkeling near shore, we couldn’t even see one another from just a few feet away because the water was so dark from this mangrove water.  Kind of cool, kind of creepy.  Carolien told us she learned that the mangrove water is actually really good for the skin.  Possibly helps reduce skin cancer.  So hopefully my time out in the sun this week will be compensated for by this colorful water.

We visited the “town” of Mahahual a few times to get some different meals and to see what the locals were hawking.  I say “town” because this area wouldn’t really exist as a tourist center except for the cruise ship port that was recently installed (within the last ten years or so).  While we were here there were at least 4 giant (and I mean giant – floating cities bigger than many cities on the Caribbean coast of Mexico) cruise ships docked.  So an insta-town sprung up to cater to tourists – trying to feed them, give them massages, sell them anything, and most importantly, get them drunk.  There’s a really nice beach walkway (called the Malecon) that runs for about 2 km.  We ate at a couple of different restaurants there, enjoying the sea view and the people watching.  Seeing people getting massages on the beach was somewhat entertaining.  People of different sizes and ages with much of their bodies on display – come to think of it, I guess that’s not much different than seeing people of different sizes and ages in bathing suits.

The beach in Mahahual.  In the distance is one of the many very large cruise ships we saw.

On our third afternoon Jeff talked me into going for a late afternoon kayak off the beach at Maya Luna, before the sunset. As we got out to the reef, the sky looked impressively black off to the east. We couldn’t really figure out which way the storms were moving, and thought we’d be safe from that one. Three minutes later, we were getting dumped on. Luckily no lightning, and the rain was warm. Once back to shore, we actually went up to our terrace, stood in the rain holding each other, and watched the rain come down over the sea. It was excellent.

Our last full day in this area was spent checking out some local ruins at Chacchoben – another Mayan archeological site that is really cool and should be on everybody’s must-see list – and swimming in a cenote (see Jeff’s next post) and swimming in a large freshwater lake.  Chacchoben is a very small site, and had very few visitors.  It’s still covered in jungle with a few structures cleaned up for viewing.  It seemed so wild and so much more like finding a site (Indiana Jones-style) than Chichen Itza did.  While we were there, for the first time, I tried fresh coconut milk – we watched the guy use a machete to cut off the end so he could stick a straw in it.  It was delicious!  I don’t usually like coconut (both the flavor and the texture), but I guess that’s because I wasn’t tasting the real/fresh thing. 

One of the temples at Chacchoben.

The palm trees were huge!

We only got to climb part way up this ruin.

Man with a machete and a coconut.

Fresh coconut milk is surprisingly refreshing and yummy!

Cenote Azul was interesting, but as Jeff explains in his post, he liked it a lot more than I did.  I guess I just couldn’t get over the fact that there was 300 feet of water below me.  It was beautiful, though.

We only spent a few minutes at Laguna Bacalar.  We walked out on a dilapidated old pier and jumped into about 4 feet of fairly warm freshwater.  Turns out it was not nearly as clean as the water at the cenote.  The sun was setting by now, so we stayed in long enough to get wet and watch the sun go behind the trees.  Then it was time to head back to Maya Luna.

The waters of Laguna Bacalar as the sun sets.

We left Maya Luna this morning and made the long drive back to Cancun.  Jeff swam in the Gran Cenote (see his post), while I watched and took pictures.  (I especially don’t like the idea of swimming in anything resembling a cave, so I didn’t even go in – what can I say, I’m a wimp who has a few phobias). 

It’s been a great babymoon.  I’m sad to be leaving, but as always, I’m also looking forward to being home.  I don’t think Jeff or I got much sun – I was hoping to get back to Mass with my skin sun-kissed.  But we were diligent about sunscreen, and I suspect that the December sun is a bit weaker than the summer sun.

One of three small sting rays we saw - this one was about the size of a salad plate.

Another one of the three sting rays we saw - this one was about the size of a dinner plate.  His tail made me a bit nervous being in the water.

Bees enjoying the flowers of a palm tree.

Jeff watching as two brown pelicans slam into the water, another gets ready to dive, and the fourth flies over looking for fishy food.

Good morning Caribbean.

Saying farewell to Maya Luna.

Cheating Winter (Mexico - Part 1)

Ah, cheating winter. It feels good. There hasn’t been that much winter either in Massachusetts, Colorado, or Michigan yet this year (at least while we were in any of those places), so it’s not like we're fleeing from the frozen depths of February, but it was plenty gray and gloomy when we left Detroit on the shortest day of the year. Four hours and a few thousand gallons of jet fuel later, we touched down in Cancun, Mexico.

The Cancun airport is nice and modern, bathrooms clean, and Hertz rent-a-car was no problems. Folks were friendly and generally helpful So far so good.

First stop: fuel and food. We were so hungry that we couldn’t handle spending time finding local food, so (sadly) ended up at McDonald’s. It’s always interesting seeing the local spin on America’s export – in this case, they gave little packets of spicy jalepeno death as well as standard ketchup.  Good times.

The gas station attendant tried to hustle me – I paid 400 pesos (cash) for 390 pesos worth of gas. I was going to give him a decidedly unearned 10 peso (about $1) tip. Instead he tried to scam me, hiding one of my 200 peso notes and replacing it with a 20 peso note. He tried to demand the “rest” of the bill. Too bad for him I had just been to the ATM and knew that I only had 200s, and there was no way I had given him a 20. I just shook my head and walked away, and he didn’t push it. I should have reported him, but I didn’t know how, didn’t have any proof, and didn’t feel like spending the first several hours of my vacation dealing with police bureaucracy. No matter – locals trying to hustle gringo for an extra buck should be expected, and they weren’t going to harsh my vacation mood.

We set out down the nicely-maintained highway towards Playa del Carmen and Tulum, our destination for the evening. Two uneventful hours later, we arrived in the town of Tulum just after dark. It was loud and traffic-heavy, but there was a music festival going on and there seemed to be quite a few nice tourist shops/restaurants, without it being overwhelming or terribly Gringo-ized. We found a dive shop to purchase a mask and snorkel, which we had foolishly forgotten back in Massachusetts. It was only another 10 miles or so to our bed for the night, but it took longer than expected.

First we had an easy cruise to the hotel zone along the beach (our first beach sighting!), which ended at the border of Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, a Mexican National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site (yet another for our list). We paid our 150 pesos for 3 days admission and thought we were almost there.  Only 2.5 miles left, but what a 2.5 miles!

The dirt road had more potholes than road (our pictures just don't do it justice). Whenever I took the econo-rental car out of first gear it was a mistake. Too fast! I found myself  weaving left, right, back center, back right, trying to find a path through the craters.   Thankfully our cheap Chevy has been trustworthy thus far (hopefully it will get us down the path once more). Recent rains left some of the potholes full of rain, making them much more difficult to judge depth and likelihood of suspension-crushing peril.  

Finally, we arrived at CESiak – the Centro Ecologico Sian Ka’an, (www.cesiak.org) an eco-lodge and education center that runs tours and hosts scientific researchers. The reserve itself is the largest preserve on the Mexican Caribbean, and has lots of wildlife in the jungles, lagoons, dunes, and coast. There are 336 bird species found here, more than in all of Europe, for instance.

Our Cesiak lodging was a cabana perched on stilts above the primary dune of this peninsula (ecologically speaking, it would be better sited further from the ocean).  There is a wooden platform with thatched roof, and then a frame canvas tent is built inside, providing protection from mosquitoes, rain (mostly), and most importantly, wind. Oh man is it windy here. Inside we had a proper queen sized bed and two candle lanterns with proper hurricane lamp covers (I didn’t know that the shape of the glass had a function, but Shannon informed me of this. They work – it was so windy, even with most of the windows zipped shut that I worked thorough 6 matches trying to light them, but they stayed faithfully burning for hours after that.) There is no power or plumbing in the cabana, but there is 24 hour power (solar and wind powered, all off the grid) in the office, and composting toilets a short spider-filled walk away. (Did you know: if you hold a flashlight near your eyes and shine it toward the ground in the dark, you will often see little sparkling jewels all through the woods. These “jewels” are usually the eyes of spiders, shining back at you. Shannon does not like this at all.) Our bed had been decorated with a swan made out of our beach towels – it felt like a pretty damn classy tent!

The swan towel that welcomed us to our tent/cabin.

Even with the ocean-facing screen window mostly zipped shut, our little tent rocked and rolled in the wind all night. Occasionally, the wind would shift and the tent wall would slam into the headboard of our bed and shake us awake. Shannon eventually resorted to earplugs over the din, but I rather liked the roar of the wind and crashing surf. The real estate is hard to beat. We wouldn’t enjoy the color of the turquiose water until the next morning, but I did enjoy the dark dark sky, probably the darkest I’ve ever seen at sea level.  (Science note: There is much more humidity here than in the mountains or desert, obscuring the stars somewhat, but the removal from civilization was pretty good here. Cesiak has also kept outdoor lights to a minimum. This is mostly because of their power restrictions from being off-grid, but also aids with sea turtle conservation. When baby sea turtles hatch, they orient to the sea by finding the brightest thing around and flippering like mad across the sand to this. Naturally, the crashing surf is brighter than the forest on land. Unfortunately, human outdoor lights screw them up, leading many baby turtles to head the wrong way when they hatch. Also, for reasons I don’t fully understand, bright shore lights discourage female turtles from both coming ashore to nest or from actually laying eggs if they do come ashore).

The spray off the waves was driven into the tent a little, even through the screen, so that it was a bit damp in the tent by morning. No matter. It’s gorgeous, and it’s almost all to our selves. There are only probably 30 people staying here, plus a similar number coming for day tours. The fine sand beaches are ours to play on.

Our first day we didn’t go anywhere. We got up and had a tasty breakfast at the Cesiak restaurant, then played in the surf for a few hours. It was much too rough to use that snorkel we’d bought, but the waves were fun to jump in. Once in a while I successfully body surfed. The water is so warm (82 F or 27C, roughly, based on a satellite image I found). It is much warmer than the Red Sea was last winter (my life is so hard…). The dry air in Egypt combined with slightly cooler water meant that after snorkeling in Egypt (with a thin wet suit) I was shivering uncontrollably. Here, I could play for hours and still feel comfortable. Awesome.

The view outside our tent.

On a whim, I spent an hour or so before sunset picking up trash. I don’t think any of it was local – it had all spent many weeks or years riding the tides. Plastic never dies it seems, it just washes ashore somewhere. Mostly I picked up plastic bottle caps and bits of bottles. I wish that in the hour I fully cleaned up my little piece of paradise, but alas, the task was greater than I. Oh well. Just trying to leave things a little bit better.  Maybe I’ll try to do something good for every place we visit, to ease my travel/carbon guilt just a smidge.

Today we had a busier day. We got up early (by vacation standards) to head into Tulum to visit the Mayan ruins before the tour buses arrived. We didn’t quite beat the crowd, but it was still a great visit. It is a beautiful site, right on the coast. The town of Tulum was occupied later than the bigger/fancier places like Chichen Itza, and had Mayan inhabitants much later, even after Spanish contact. We didn’t bother taking the time or spending the money for a guide, so mostly we just wandered around and looked at 700 year old temples and oohed/aahed at the views.

See the face in the corner?

The beautiful Caribbean Sea and part of the Tulum ruins behind us.

After that we headed back down the bumpy road (take-out taco + speed bumps = lunch disaster) to Cesiak for an afternoon kayak tour in the lagoon. We spent 3 hours paddling, sometimes in very still water next to the mangroves and other times battling some stiff chop in the heavy wind in the open water. It was great for birding, but we didn’t see the expected crocodiles (I think I’m OK with that…felt a little exposed in the kayak for that kind of wildlife encounter). We paddled out to a few islets made entirely of mangroves that are used as bird nesting grounds.

An osprey nest in a mangrove.  You can see two osprey on the left.

Each islet had different birds. Birds seen: cormorants (2-3 kinds), rosy spoonbill (look kind of like flamingoes), great blue heron, egret, vireo, pelican, frigate bird, and probably more that I forgot. There were a few puffer fish by the dock, and Shannon spotted a small sting ray in the silty water. The late afternoon warm light was lovely on the mangroves, water, and birds. “Sian Ka’an” is transliterated Mayan for “Where the sky is born” and our trip on the lagoon had indeed had some great sky views. Our guide, Fernando, learned Mayan as his first language, Spanish in school, and now also guides in English, French, and Italian - talented guy.

We finished off our day by splashing in the surf again once we got back to camp, and then inhaled some tasty chicken fajitas. I tried a few dabs of habanero salsa, which was a mistake. The burn lasted quite a while. I think Shannon has already passed out cold.  

Tomorrow we’ll leave the coast and head to Chichen Itza. It will be our second consecutive pyramid for Christmas (last year we were in Cairo). It’s good to be us. 

The beach at Cesiak.  It's good to be us.