Playa Del Carmen

Arriving in Playa Del Carmen was a bit of a shock to the system. The place was crawling with foreign tourists, everyone spoke English and was trying to sell something to you, and the main street was full of bars, restaurants, souvenir shops and American chain stores. On the downside that meant getting harassed by hawkers anywhere we went ("Hey, Mr Whiskers, it's my turn now" "Hello Princess, massage?" "Coco Bongo, Coco Bong" etc. etc.), but on the plus side there were plenty of places to get a drink, albeit at USA type prices.

We stayed in an apartment away from the main tourist street, which gave us some room to breath. It also had a kitchen and a swimming pool which made life pretty chilled out. We ended up sticking around for about a week, managing to get in heaps of diving.

Cat on the Playa:

It was good that the beach wasn't covered in brown seaweed, which a lot of the Caribbean Coast beaches are at the moment.

We were there for Cat's birthday, so we made the most of it with plenty of margaritas (you could buy a litre of tequila from the supermarket for the same price as one beer from a bar on the main street) and some good food. When we went out for dinner it started pissing down (tail end of the rainy season) so we ducked into the first restaurant we came across and celebrated with some pretty tasty Italian.

Cat enjoying a lunchtime margarita:

We don't have many photos from Playa Del Carmen, as most of our time was spent underwater. We managed four dives in the ocean, seeing a huge array of fish, plenty of turtles, coral and eels etc. The diving was really fun with some reasonably swift currents meaning you could just drift over the sea life and observe without even needing to kick.

We planned to dive to see a ship wreck one day but the harbour was closed due to rough seas, so instead we travelled down the coast a little and went diving in a couple of cenotes (caves/caverns). We were a bit nervous about this as obviously the space is pretty confined and the light restricted (pitch black at times) compared to diving in the sea, but our buoyancy skills had improved quite a lot so we decided to give it a go.

The first cenote we dove in was relatively open to the light. We had torches to attract each others attention and that of our instructor, but barely needed them to see. The light effects in the cenote are really spectacular with green and blue tints coming down through the openings in the rocks. The water was brilliantly clear with visibility probably in the hundreds of metres and there were different layers of warm and cold fresh water, as well as salt water, which often gave the impression that we were flying above the water.

The second cenote was more spectacular than the first, but also spooky as we ended up a long way underground in absolute pitch black. There were also a lot of increases and decreases in depth which made it hard work equalising our ears all of the time, but it was fully worth it as the colours and stalagmites were breathtaking. We only had a couple of minor issues with buoyancy (Cat floating up into the roof of the cavern when she pressed the wrong button on her BCD) but otherwise made it out the other end in style, to celebrate with a beer.

I wish we had an underwater camera to take some photos, but we didn't so here is a link to some photos of what we saw.

And me getting ready to go into the first cenote. The water was cold so we needed to wear two wetsuits.

Merida

We arrived in Merida from San Cristobal and it was much hotter! It made for very pleasant evenings chilling out in the plaza outside our hostel, and watching the world go by.

We spent the first day heading to several cenotes (fresh water filled caverns) around the area. After busing for an hour, we were collected by a mototaxi (this time with the seats on the front on the motorbike) and shown four cenotes by the driver and his little brother. The clear, fresh water was perfect for cooling off in the heat. After the cenotes we were shown to a local restaurant for lunch where we had delicious chicken fajitas and were kept company by a couple of cute domestic (?) turkeys.

That evening we headed out for dinner at a very popular restaurant, serving traditional Yucatan food - popular with locals and tourists alike. Paul I shared a tasting plate allowing us to try a few different dishes. One of the local dishes was turkey in a black sauce. Turkey seemed to be the meat of choice here (maybe those turkeys earlier today weren't pets...).

The next day we headed to Chichen Itza, probably the most famous of the Mayan ruins in Mexico, operating from around 600AD. It was an amazing set if ruins surrounded by jungle. I think the photos will show it better than I can describe...

From Chichen Itza we headed onwards to the coast.

San Cristobal de las Casas

We made our way back away from the coast to San Cristobal de las Casas, a small city surrounded by hills. We only had a one night stay here as we were keen to head over to the Caribbean Coast before the end of our trip.

We spent the first day wandering the streets and markets, and walked up a couple of little hills. The streets are really quaint and there is a pedestrian mall through the centre of the town which makes it easy to walk.

Hill and church No. 1:

The view from Hill No. 2:

While we were demolishing some burgers at a restaurant (see below), a parade (possibly delayed Day of the Dead) made it's way past us. The costumes were hilarious with lots of kids dressed up in Halloween outfits with a few not so politically correct floats in tail.

A few of the outfits:

The Chiapas region is known for its good coffee, so we were sure to grab a couple of brews while we were in town:

The aforementioned burgers. These were awesome and enormous, and came with multiple sauces and jalapenos to add in, as well as wedges:

We also sampled some of the local chocolates, which were nicely marbled and also tasted really good:

A short stay but plenty of fun. We didn't manage to get out and explore the Chiapas region any further though, as we jumped straight onto our last overnight bus to Merida.

Puerto Escondido

After a few days partying in Oaxaca we decided to head down to Puerto Escondido on the Pacific Coast to relax (it's a hard life travelling...). The start to the trip unfortunately wasn't too relaxing thanks to a 7 hour van ride through a very windy and bumpy road. Paul and I coped OK, but the same can't be said for a few younger passengers in van who threw up on the floor. Good times.

We managed to find accommodation at a lovely resort right by the beach at half price. And on top of that we managed to get room upgrades every night. Winning! Needless to say we spent the next few days swimming at the pool and beach, drinking cocktails, reading and partaking in the free yoga sessions.

The pool.

Views from our room.

Views from our room.

Views from our room.

Some afternoon snacks and bevvys.

The beach.

The beach.

Oaxaca

From Mexico City we jumped on a bus down to Oaxaca, where we would be for the Dia De Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations. The landscape was pretty green and we caught a couple of thunderstorms on the way down.

The bus took a couple of hours longer than expected, which wasn't too bad, and then our taxi driver got lost about four times and it took us another half hour to get five minutes down the road. That was all alright, though, compared to the disaster we had with our accommodation. We'd booked a cheap apartment a couple of weeks in advance knowing that it was peak season in Oaxaca so we needed to be on to it. We rocked up to the address and couldn't find any sign of an apartment or hostel or hotel. No answer on the phone number either. Eventually our would-be Canadian neighbour came back and welcomed us into his place for a while and managed to get hold of the apartment owner. Turns out that the woman was useless and she had us double booked. We managed to stay one night there before we had to move to what turned out to be a really good value hostel. We were pretty lucky to find a bed at such short notice.

Dia De Muertos is traditionally celebrated on the 1st and 2nd of November, although these days the celebrations spill into October from around the 30th onward, and sometimes get mangled in with Halloween celebrations. The Mexicans believe that on the 1st and 2nd is when the dead and the living are closest to one another, and they celebrate (rather than commiserate) the dead.

The streets of Oaxaca were filled with impromptu parades from morning to night, with kids and adults alike dressed up in a mixture of skull paint and some Halloween costumes. Most of the parades were accompanied by endless firecrackers, brass bands and dancing.

We hit the Dia De Muertos markets for some lunch and to check out the decorations and breads on sale. We grabbed some tlayudas (like a quesadilla with beans and lettuce), taking the gambler's route and picking fillings which we didn't recognise by name. One of the tlayudas ended up being filled with chapulin (grasshoppers), which especially made Cat ecstatic. We had tried grasshoppers in Mexico City and figured they were probably best left in the very occasional part of the food pyramid. Anyway, we ate around half of the meal before deciding we were full.

Cat hoeing into a chapulin tlayuda:

The traditional bread, Pan Del Muerto (bread of the dead), eaten at this time of year:

We got some but found it to be pretty dry and sweet, but the locals seem to love it.

All over the city there were painted skull displays with marigolds and other flowers and candles. Amazing colours and they really made the city come to life:

Cat eating some Pan Del Muerto and chilling with a skeleton on the street:

Everywhere we went there were people of all ages dressed up and roaming the streets:

And skeletons trying to escape the buildings:

There were a huge number of street vendors out and about making the most of the peak season crowds in the city. We were well entertained by a couple of kids trying to sell me a moustache comb. This guy could barely stand on the ground with the number of helium balloons he had strung on:

There were also painted skulls and other souvenirs for sale everywhere:

A couple of days we were up early (11am or so..) and the deserted streets were really picturesque. A great time to wander around and grab a coffee:

Come nightfall and the streets were even more alive than the afternoons with awesome parades of kids dancing on stilts and all sorts else:

Some of the locals' outfits were awesomely intricate:

One of the many Dia De Muerto displays around town:

And another:

We caught up with our mate Cam, who we had met on the Inca Trail, and headed out for a couple of nights out with him and his mates. We managed to catch a local band one night, while another night we made it out to the suburbs to a full on club. Also in the mix, Cat had a go at bashing a piñata, and we managed to get eight people into a taxi.

The locals seem to welcome tourists into the Dia De Muertos spirit (although it is difficult to say if all of them feel this way) and so one night we painted our faces as skulls before we went out to check out the parades and graveyards. Artwork courtesy of Cat:

A club snap courtesy of Cam. Who's the creep in the striped t-shirt?

The locals spend large parts of the celebration in the cemeteries scattered around the city, celebrating with the dead. The graves were generally covered with flowers and candles, with family members and friends spending the evenings chatting by the graves, or often singing and playing instruments over a beer. The atmosphere in the cemeteries was completely unlike anything we had come across at home. We felt a little like intruders at first, but generally people welcomed us as it was a really festive atmosphere.

Some of the candles and flowers:

Locals with their faces painted and chatting at the cemetery:

What surprised us the most was the huge carnivals that were set up outside the cemeteries. The streets were lined with food stalls, fair games and rides for kids and adults. The carnivals were full of families out enjoying themselves every night that we were there.

When we weren't immersed in the celebrations, we spent a lot of time eating tacos and other food, relaxing over a couple of beers/tequilas/mezcals, and reading books. An awesome way to spend a few days.