Posted a few more pics from Mexico - San Miguel de Allende, Guadalajara, Chichen Itza and Cozumel. Also started uploading the ones from Cuba, but the upload function on this blog seems to have gone awry which means I’ve to upload everything twice … arghh!!!
More to follow!
OK, so this wasn’t exactly the convertible I had in mind when Lou suggested we hire a car and see some of the island!
But you couldn’t really argue with the price … US$35 for a day ain’t half bad - and seeing as the max speed limit on the island is only 60km/hr, it wasn’t as if it couldn’t keep up with the rest of the traffic!!
Exploring the island took a couple of hours - and the side of the island away from the main town is definitely the best place to be if you want to get some beach to yourself. Away from the “all-inclusives”, you could just pick a spot on the beach here and there wouldn’t be anyone within a couple of 100m of you. That said, whilst the beaches were nice - the sea wasn’t, with only a couple of places nice enough for swim.
Diving in Cozumel wasn’t all it was cracked up to be - I did 4 dives with “Dive with Martin” which was recommended to me by Larry (who was running the Tamarind B&B at the time) and they were fine, but the dive sites were no more than ok-ish. For my money, Thailand is still top of the list for diving.
Went back to the hospital yesterday to see the orthopaedic surgeon - and the good news is that “all” Lou needs to do now is rest up for a couple of weeks (with the cast!). Obviously that means diving is off limits - originally we were going to do our advanced diving course here, but we’ve shelved those plans for the time being. I’ll probably go out a couple of times for regular dives instead.
We’re going to stay put here for another week (or so) - and if Lou’s ankle heals a bit over the next couple of days, will book our flights to Cuba for Monday/Tuesday next week. Its quite a small island, so we’ll probably hire a car for a day or two so at least Lou can see something apart from the B&B! Looks like she’ll be spending her b’day in a cast though!
Should get some more photos of Mexico up over the next day or so ….
And it was all going so well! Lou’s had a bit of a mishap - we were just leaving the hotel at Chichen Itza to go get the bus when she slipped with her rucksack ….. and sprained her ankle pretty well. We made it to Cozumel (1 3.5 hour bus ride and 1 ferry ride later) regardless and checked into a lovely B&B here.
Got Lou checked out a local clinic today … and good news is that she hasn’t fractured her ankle, its just badly sprained. The bad news is that it cost US$550 to get it checked and get a cast put on it (US$100 for the x-ray, the rest on the cast!). On top of that, they wanted another US$76 for crutches even though we have to go back on Monday (the specialist wasn’t available today) ….. f*cking leeches. Needless to say, we didn’t get the crutches … and when we were speaking to the couple who are running the B&B, they managed to find a pair of crutches in the house ….. didn’t I say it was a lovely place! Here’s hoping the insurance company will cough up!
Obviously thats pushed our plans for the diving back a bit - and its looking unlikely that Lou will be able to do her advanced diving course here. I’ll still probably do it and hopefully Lou can get a dive or 2 in before we go …. we’ll decide all that next week.
2 taxis, 2 flights and one 3 hour bus ride later we’re here! We decided that since Cozumel is about 4 hours in total from Chichen Itza (incl. the ferry ride) we’d “pop in” and see it on the way from Guadalajara and stop for a night there as opposed to trying to do it in a day trip. Of course, we then found out that there was a light and sound show on in the evening based at “el Castillo” - which sounded pretty cool (it wasn’t, but more on that later!) - so that meant that we not only had to get to Chichen Itza in one day - we also had to make it before 8pm!
That meant an early start from Guadalajara to catch a flight to Mexico City and then onwards to Merida. We flew with Aeromexico because they were the earliest to arrive in to Merida - and that left us with a 45 minute transfer time at Mexico City Airport! Thankfully the airport authorities have got their head screwed on pretty well and Aeromexico uses the new T2 which is nice and efficient, with staff pointing out the right direction from the time we got off the plane. BAA take note! Suppose it didn’t hurt that we flew business class either! 
Hey, it was only a few dollars more!!
The only slightly worrying part was when we were sitting on the plane and the crew were doing their final checks and Lou noticed that our luggage (and only ours!) was outside the plane with the baggage handlers looking at our bags, to the plane, to the bags, to the plane ……. luckily, they made it on board with us!
Thankfully the airport at Merida is nice and small so we the bags were at the carousel just as quick as were. We picked up the bus tickets to Chichen Itza at the airport thinking it would save time the bus the terminal … it didn’t, the girl at the airport sold us the wrong tickets so we had to go and exchange them for the correct ones at the bus terminus. That would be the 2nd bus terminus we went to …. seemingly there are a few in Merida, all located around the corner/across the street from one another!!
Incidentally, when leaving Guadalajara our hold luggage was hand searched before we checked in. Only happened on domestic flights and only for the hold luggage - they weren’t interested in our hand luggage! Not too sure what exactly she was looking for - the only thing she asked us was if we had any Tequila (we didn’t), seemingly you’re only allowed to bring 1/4 of a litre out of Guadalajara with you (Guadalajara is the Tequila capital of Mexico, Tequila town itself - where they manufacture it, is only 50km from Guadalajara and like champagne, anything outside that region isn’t Tequila, its Mezcal). She wasn’t too worried about the beer I had or anything else (seemingly!) ….. interesting!
So Chichen Itza … worth the trip? Chichen Itza itself is … though personally I found Teotihuacan just as interesting and more fun because you climb up the monuments where as at Chichen Itza, you can’t climb up any of the monuments any more. The pyramid at Teotihuacan is also bigger than at Chichen Itza (yes, size matters!). The setting of Chichen Itza is probably nicer though mainly because it has more vegetation and trees around it whereas Teotihuacan is in quite an arid setting. I think I would have slightly disappointed if I had come all the way from Mexico City to see it specially, but the fact that we were on our way to Cozumel made it worthwhile.
What wasn’t worthwhile however, was the “light and sound show” in the evening. Maybe because it was such a long trek to get there (from Guadalajara) or maybe it was because it was p*ssing down with rain … or maybe because it was they didn’t have lights on for half the time, but which ever way - I wasn’t bowled over by it. Maybe on a fine night where you can just chill and relax, it would have been different - but the lights consisted of lighting up a few of the ruins in different colours at different times as they told the history of Chichen Itza … which was in Spanish and because of the rain, we couldn’t get the headphones for a translation!
We opted to spend the night at a small hotel about 3kms from Chichen Itza … highly recommend to do this. As well as being quite a nice hotel/motel with 2 pools (one a natural formed pool), they also drop you off at the ruins at 8.30 in the morning, which means you have a good hour to see the sights before the hordes of day tripppers from Cancun and Playa del Carmen arrive (and I do mean hordes).
Stayed at: Dolores Alba Hotel
Price: US$55
Pros: Good location,great swimming pool
Cons: Not the friendliest staff (but were really good when Lou sprained her ankle leaving there)
OK, so it took us a little longer to get to Guadalajara than we expected due to our bus having mechanical difficulties on the way (seemingly the dash lit up like a christmas tree which made the driver ever so reluctant to continue!). Luckily there was room on the next bus, so we managed to get to Guadalajara just a couple of hours later than planned - which meant is was more 12am, then 10pm!
Our stay there started in the same wobbly fashion as our journey there - the first room we were in (we booked a studio @ La Ruina) was kinda nice …. expect for the outdoor (tiny) bathroom (as in you had to go outside and then back in to the bathroom) and the fact that there were more insects in there than you could kill ….. though Lou did try spending the remaining half of the night doing just that!
Luckily the next morning we met the owner and managed to get a smaller room at another of his guesthouses (he has 2 a couple of blocks apart). In the end it worked out - we got a cheaper room (though this wasn’t immediately forthcoming) and the bathroom was actually attached to it this time!!
So what about Guadalajara? I liked Guadalajara alot and its a place I would have liked to spend a bit more time in - it has quite a few plazas where you can just sit and watch the world go by … though these are starting to look a little past their best by date. Seemingly all the money is going into the ‘burbs where the rich people are living, leaving the inner city to go …. well, just like any other inner city! But feature pieces like the dominating cathedral surrounded by plazas still have a certain “wow” factor - and it has a nice buzzy vibe to it.
Its the 2nd largest city next to Mexico City, with a population of 5 million and several distinct suburbs (like most ‘burbs they used to be separate towns but just grew into one another over time). Its also home to the Mariachis (though the ones we’ve seen have probably seen better days!) and also Tequila - Tequila is manufactured about 50km from Guadalajara, so needless to say you can get pretty much any type you want here! There is a tourist train out to Tequila and also a couple of local buses, but since neither of us are big Tequila fans, we passed them up!
We had hoped to get out to a couple of suburbs ourselves when we there, but a sudden bout of a 12hr bug brought a swift halt to that - Lou and myself actually came down with it at the same time (well, 1 hours apart!) which meant we were playing tag with the bathroom for half a day - ah, the joys of travelling, no?!! Luckily it cleared itself up pretty quickly, but it was still enough for us to have lost a day. We did manage to go out to one briefly .. though this was mainly track down a english bookstore so we could pick up a book on Cuba.
All in all, I think a couple of days more here wouldn’t have gone amiss … probably spend both of those visiting a different suburb each day. As it was, we’ve just booked our ticket to Merida from where we hope to get to Chichen Itza …. from one side of the county to the other in one day - this is going to be fun!
Stayed at: Las Sabillas (La Ruina first)
Price: US$38
Pros: Good location, cheap - shared kitchen available
Cons: Rocky start, abit grotty in places
and that’s not in a good way! 
San Miguel is known for alot of Americans going there and retiring, so it we always knew it was going to be slightly “americancised” (is that a word?!)- I just wasn’t prepared for quite how much though! It maybe only 1 hour away from Guanajuato, buts its much further than that in atmosphere. Around the main square in San Miguel, you heard more american voices than you did spanish, all the menus were in english and spanish and the waiting staff would speak to you in English first! And everyone thought that if you spoke English here, you were American. Not that I’m anti-american (honest!) - its just I’m in Mexico for Gods sake, not the US!
That said, San Miguel was a nice town once you escaped the hordes - not quite as pretty as Guanajuato, but that had alot to do with the fact that (a) its not in valley and (b) the traffic is not routed via tunnels, so there was more traffic on the roads - alot more and alot of ATVs (quad bikes) as well. They used ATVs in lieu of cars - and had every variation available on the streets. For me, it lacked the beauty of Guanajuato (and definitely the atmosphere) - but I think if we had visited San Miguel before Guanajuato, we would have enjoyed it much more.
The only time when San Miguel one me over was at night - the main plaza was packed full of people (mostly Mexicans now -yippee!) and there was a nice atmosphere in the air with musicians, stalls, balloon sellers etc. all adding to it. The main cathedral is also lit up at night, so a great chance for some nice photos…
We also happened to be there for the festival of the “locos” (mad people!) - which was a huge parade - taking about 2.5/3 hours to snake to go past which was great fun for the kids. It’s only on once a year, so of course we had to stop by and take a few photos!
All in all, San Miguel isn’t a place I would revisit in a hurry - nice, but no prizes- if you are going to see it, then see it before you get to Guanajuato!!
They say all good things must come to an end and so it was with Guanajuato. 9 days later, we figured that we’d best move on see what else Mexico has to offer. Alot of people have recommended that we visit Oaxaco, so it looks likely that we’ll try and add that in to our itinerary. I think there is a certain amount of rivalry between Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende - most locals we spoke to said it was “full of old americanS”, “expensive” and “not a real Mexico experience”. Time will tell if we agree with them or not (certainly the accomodation is more expensive - goes up from US$50 to US$80 - though that does include breakfast).
Guanajuato was a great place just to wander around and enjoy the atmosphere, as well as being incredibly photogenic - see some photos here - and it was easy on the pocket. It was possible to pick up corridas (3/4 course meals) from about US$3/4 during the day. Beer in bars were about US$1.50 - and half that if you bought them in the shop. The fact that a fifth of the population (20,000 people) are students at the University of Guanajuato gives it a relaxed buzzy vibe. Interestingly the Universities here are free - which is obviously great for education and in Guanajuato, if a person dies and doesn’t have a will, their estate goes directly to the university and not the next of kin! Needless to say, the university owns alot of property around town.
We spent most of our days wandering around the pedestrianised callejons or side streets, chilling on the roof terrace of our hotel or just grabbing a coffee and watching the world go by.
Music seemed to play a big part in the town - and on Thursday/Friday/Saturday nights processions of muscians would lead groups of people through the town telling them stories of Guanajuato and singing etc. We much preferred the students from the different colleges rather than the considerably more tourist orientated callejoneadas. For a sample sound bite, click here.
If the music wasn’t coming from the estudiantes or callejoneadas then it was coming from the various mariachi/singers who would play outside restaurants or in parks … albeit for a small fee!
One thing struck me as strange - being such a historic town Guanajuato has narrow cobbled streets which were great for walking around, especially since most of the traffic was channeled through 20 odd tunnels beneathe the city streets. So one would have assumed that for public transport they would choose small buses which would fit easily along the tunnels and through the windy streets, right? Wrong! They use the same buses as they do elsewhere, which are big beasts - and watching them inch their way down a narrow street, sometimes having to reverse to make a turn, or to see them just fitting into a tunnel is a sight in itself!
Guanajuato was a real gem - I think we were fortunate enough to arrive in an off peak time (July and August are peak months) so we weren’t surrounded by hordes of tourists and got a chance to speak to the locals. One such person was Arturo who owns El Corcho de Baco near the Plaza de San Fernando - a place we frequented many a night to enjoy a glass (or two!) of wine and watch the world go by. On our last night we ended up sharing a bottle of wine with himself and a friend of his - Maria - who owned a charming house next door with a roof terrace over looking the plaza. The quintessential Guanajuato experience and the a perfect end to a fantastic stay!
Next stop - San Miguel de Allende….
Stayed at: El Zopilote Mojado
Price: US$50
Pros: Great location, friendly staff, fantastic roof terrace and use of a “sitting/living” room which is shared between 2 bedrooms
Cons: Weird room layout, no fridge/kettle
Recent Comments