After arriving at five am in Merida, I killed a few hours in a cafe whilst the city woke up and then rather lazily took an unmemorable open bus tour round the city…that will be my last bus tour. Midday I boarded another bus to Valladolid, and had a lazy afternoon and evening. Valladolid is a pretty town, but after Oaxaca and San Cristobal it was a little underwhelming. One of the main reasons I stayed in Valladolid was that its only 45 minutes away from Chichen Itza, Mexico’s most famous Mayan ruins. So what I should have done the next day is get up moderately early to ensure I was at the ruins by 8.30am….what I did was get up a little late and move like a snail ensuring I arrived when all the huge tour buses from Cancun did! On the plus side I also bumped into two mates. If I’m honest I was a little “Ruined-out” by this stage….the place was heaving with people, and unlike Palenque which was set in the jungle, there was no shade here and quite dry and due to a woman falling to her death in 2006 you cannot climb any of the ruins. It was still impressive, but to say we breezed through it may be an understatement.

That afternoon we went to our first Cenote in the centre of the town. The Yucatan region is full of these underground pools of freshwater, some are completely underground and others have large openings up to the sky. The one we visited first was half open and half in a cave. We didn’t realise you could swim in this one, but the boys went in anyway whilst I held phones and cash as I didn’t fancy jumping in my undies! That gave us the appetite for a full day of cenotes the next day. We headed out on bikes and had a brilliant time, we managed three cenotes on a thirty km round trip…we would have squeezed in a another but had a flat tyre on the way back. The first one was wide open to the sky and had rope swing which was awesome fun. The second one was completely underground save a small circle of sunlight coming through, it was lit with different coloured lights and although a little touristy and the most expensive one was really beautiful. We had a delicious cheap lunch at a restaurant on the side of the road run by a family of three generations and the grandmother attempted to show me how to make tortillas. We headed to our final cenote, which I don’t think many people least of all tourists go to. It was in a small village, and they were a little surprised we wanted to visit it, the guy warned us it was quite dark…..after opening the gated entrance which was on the small plaza he locked us in and we descended a flight of stone stairs in near pitch black. We were all bricking it! At the bottom our eyes adjusted to the little natural light that was coming from the small opening in the cavern. It was so surreal, but very cool at the same time. After we left one if the guys had a flat tyre, we managed to hitch a ride on a pickup with all three bikes to the next village where there was a bike repair shop, for fifty pence the chap repaired the puncture and we set off really pleased with ourselves….only for the same tyre to deflate again thirty seconds later… We managed to hitch another lift on a second pickup truck and were probably back at the hostel earlier than if we had cycled all the back anyway.

The following day we headed upto Cancun. Originally I had zero intention of going to Cancun but one of the guys convinced us if we were passing through we should spend one day there…it being spring break n all! So on the bus journey up, we all separately listened to to some pumped up tunes to psyche ourselves up for some high intensity partying with US college students. We headed to the beach on the main hotel strip to see get an eye full or spring breakers drinking and dancing. Unfortunately it was a really overcast day so there were not so many of them out and about, but we did come across one outside DJ encouraging the girls to “shake their arses” to win a free t-shirt. It was all pretty amusing, and we had a few beers watching the freak show. We were staying in a hostal downtown, the hotel strip is completely separate to the town of Cancun, and you don’t feel like you are in Mexico at all there. The ocean was stunning though, so so blue! We had a swim and the temperature was divine!

That night we headed back up to the main strip to one of the mega clubs, we paid 55$US for club entry which included drinks all night, one of our more expensive nights out so we took full advantage of the drinks we’d paid for. Having gone with very low expectations, we all ended up having a very decent night, and between us probably behaved a little worse than the twenty summin college spring breakers! We paid the consequences by being a little too tipsy to properly establish a taxi price back to the hostal and getting ripped off and the next mornings hangover from cheap spirits kicked us all for six….age catches up with you at some point!

In our quiet sullen hangover mood we left Cancun-glad we came, saw, experienced but no desire to repeat- and took the twenty minute ferry to Isla Mujeres. The sun was out and the aqua marine water was stunning, hardly a difference between the sky and ocean in colour. We had three nights on the tiny island, and other than a short snorkel trip it was pretty much three days of white sand, hammocks, sunsets, swimming in the ocean which was as flat a lake and one more night back on the rum. A lot of travellers get a bit stuck here….and you can see why! I had a real cliche moment of lying in a hammock, looking at the ocean listening to Bob Marley.

After three nights we again boarded the ferry back to the main land and travelled down to Tulum. Again super white sand beaches and that crazy blue water! One day we hired bikes and headed out to the ruins, again failing to beat the crowds and arrived at eleven with the rest of the world….the location of the ruins right on the coast is breathtaking but the ruins themselves compared to the size of some others I’d been are slightly diminutive. Our last full day there we took a trip to another cenote. The guys were scuba diving in them and I was snorkelling. The Tulum cenotes are connected by underground rivers, our guide had travelled as far as four km underground once. The cenote we went to “Dos Ojos” was three inter-connecting caves, two of which were quite open to the sky, and “Bat cave” which was nearly pitch black. In between the guy’s two scuba dives the guide took me through to bat cave, the pass through only just has enough of a gap of air between the water and the roof of the cave to snorkel whilst navigating hanging stalactites. Not for the first time on my trip I wish I had a waterproof camera! The rock formations were so fine, and unlike anything I’ve seen prior. At one point I was snorkelling in the larger cave on my own when I saw the guys diving below me, the guide beckoned me down as he had a second breathing mask. And I had my first experience of scuba diving for two minutes for free! Can’t wait to get to Honduras to do my course now…

And then it was our last night in Tulum, and our last night in Mexico. I’m sure I’ve heavily indicated just how much I’ve enjoyed Mexico. For some reason I didn’t have many expectations from Mexico, and it was not one of the countries in my trip that I was super excited about getting to, honestly I’ve been blown away by the place. The diversity in every aspect, from the people, the nature, geology, food, the old ways of life alongside the new, modern DF to places like San Cristobal, both the Pacific and Caribbean coast lines. And the people have been incredibly hospitable, something I will try to take home with me…but I’m sure will fail! I’ve also met some great travelling buddies off and on in Mexico, but time to move on again solo for the time being.

After four perfect days of blue skies and sun in Pucòn the weather Gods reminded me of what I’m missing back home, namely wind, rain and cold! So the last four days have been pretty uneventful as I’ve dodged the rain staying inside a bit and not got up to an awful lot! The bus from
Pucòn took me to Puerto Montt. Its a pretty dour port town, and I only spent two hours here for a quick wonder to check the drunks out on the seafront, have lunch before getting a bus over to Isla Grande-Chiloe, which included a ferry connection. I arrived in Ancud, just before nightfall and went out for food, got back at eleven to a very quiet hostel. The average age of travellers on Chiloe was a little nearer sixty, as I think bird watching is probably one of the main attractions. And I do mean of the feathered variety. In the morning I woke to a pretty cold miserable weather, I also realised I’d slightly made a mistake with my itinerary for the next week and had lost a day. Apparently there are only thirty days in November..who knew?! That meant I only had two nights on Chiloe instead of three. I went for a walk out if the town a long the coast. I hardly saw another soul for a few hours. I headed back into town and checked out the fish market and had lunch at a fish market restaurant, the portion was ridiculous and I have no idea what it was, it was a white fish covered in a sauce of clams, muscles, urchins and other shellfish… But it was very tasty!

I took a bus later that afternoon to Castro which is the largest town on the island. If you google image Chiloe you’ll get lots of photos of colourful houses on stilts by the water, this is the place they all are. They are called Palafito houses, and my hostel was one such property. On a nice sunny evening it high tide it would have been pretty nice to sit on the terrace overlooking the estuary, but when I was there it was very grey and the tide was low so just mudflats! That evening I met up with a Dutch couple (thank you facebook) who I’d met previously in San Juan. They are travelling for one year in their BMW motorbikes from Miami, to Alaska, all down the West coast of America, through central and south, they will finish in Brazil in March. Pretty amazing trip!!! We had a very convivial dinner and it was really fun to meet up with them again.

The Friday morning I had planned to go for a hike but it didn’t stop lashing it down till gone midday. I had a few hours to wander round the town, market and port area in the afternoon. Lunch was very fresh salmon ceviche that was delicious! Caught and prepared on the dock. Chiloe is a very strange and different place to the rest of the places I’ve been to. There is a lot of mythology on the island of Chiloe of Trolls, whitches and mermaids. Unfortunately I didn’t really have the time to explore very much, but I was gutted I didn’t see a mermaid as November is high season for spotting them. I think the best viewing point was on the west coast.

I took the last bus out of Castro, and back to the mainland arriving in Puerto Varas late evening. After a couple of quiet days on Chiloe I fancied a bit of life, on asking the girl who was working at the hostel of any decent bars she told me that it was a really quiet and unfriendly town, and everyone keeps to themselves and it’s not very social. Filled with hope I set off to the little down town area and found a perfectly nice and friendly bar for a snack and a drink. It then transpired (thank you facebook) that a girl I’d hung out with in Pucòn was also in town so we had a few more drinks and agreed to hire bikes and go for a cycle along the lake the next day. The next day was even more miserable, rain and wind and bikes or anything outdoors was out of the question. It also transpired (thank you facebook) that the British guy I’d travelled a bit with in Cordoba and Mendoza was in town. So a bunch of us met up and took over the upstairs of a Pizza cafe to watch Wales loose and England do quite a bit better in the Rugby. That evening the British couple I’d been with the previous week arrived and we all went out for some final drinks. Getting up the next morning for my bus to Bariloche not so easy!

So a fairly uneventful couple of days, and I know I can’t complain about the weather as back home there has been flooding etc. But it was a bit of a shame that I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the places I’d visited. I still had a great time hanging out with friends, and it’s impossible to have an “amazing” time all the time!