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Back March 2009 Mexico Trip

by Greg Vandiver

This adventure was to visit various Maya ruin sites in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The adventure covered the Mexican States of Quintana Roo, Yucatan, and Campeche. Seven people went on the trip: Dwayne Shreve from Maryland, myself from South Carolina, John "Skip" Caldwell from Colorado, Dieter Richter and Raul Noriega from Guatemala, Gaye Greenwald from New Jersey, and Louis Gravel from Vermont. It was a good trip with some old friends, as well as new. Also, I was very happy to show Skip Caldwell the majority of the Yucatan Peninsula, since he had never been there before and I had previously visited the area twenty three times myself.

Day 1 - I flew into Cancun and caught the next available ADO bus from the airport to Playa del Carmen for $90 MP (90 Mexican Pesos). Checked into the Holiday Inn Express and wandered around town to see what had changed since my last visit there. I did notice that the scuba shop on 5th Avenue, which I originally got my scuba diving certification through had relocated to one of the side streets (and downsized). I am fairly sure they did so because of the world economy being as it is right now. Also, I saw where Mambo Cafe had been re-opened, which made me happy. I went by and talked with my tattoo guy there (Rene' Vanilla), to see how he was doing these days. He was very depressed and had not sold a tattoo to anyone in the previous five days.

I did try out one of the local restaurants on 30th Avenue, which I did not find to be very good at all, so I won't mention the name of the restaurant here due to that reason. I went back to the hotel and waited for my traveling companion to arrive, since he had a late flight from Guatemala City via Panama City, which would arrive to Cancun. At 10:15 p.m., Skip Caldwell knocked on my hotel room door and we talked for a few hours before calling it a night.

Day 2 - Skip and I walked into town where we ate a nice buffet-style breakfast at one of the restaurants on 5th Avenue, for $79 MP. Afterwards, I showed him around town a bit. We walked back to the hotel and gathered our bags and caught a taxi to the North ADO bus station. Once there, I waited with our bags while Skip walked down to Fonda Yucateca Restaurant on 20th Avenue for buying a whole grilled chicken for $80 MP. The chicken was for the two other people who would be meeting us there, and who would be going by bus with us to Chetumal. While Skip was gone, Dwayne Shreve and Gaye Greenwald (AKA Sweet Pea) walked right by me, without noticing I was sitting on one of the benches there. We all bought our one-way first class bus tickets to Chetumal for $204 MP.

The 4 1/2 hour bus ride was nice. I pointed out to the others along the way, several Maya ruin sites alongside Highway 307 during the trip (Tankah, Xelha, and Limones), while we watched two movies "Man On Fire" and "Spiderman 3". Once we arrived to the main bus station in Chetumal, Skip and I split off from the others to catch a taxi to the Holiday Inn where I had made our reservations for the night. Dwayne and Gaye went on the next available bus to Xpujil. Skip and I settled into our hotel room and had a taxi take us to a very good restaurant which seems to be a favorite of the locals. It was "Arrechera de Don Jose Restaurant" on the Bay of Chetumal. The food and atmosphere was very good. Also, the prices there were very reasonable as well. We had ten beers and two very large dinners for a total of $35 USD. The dinner I had was advertised to be for two persons. It consisted of pork, chicken, steak, sausage, and all the fixings. While we were eating, there was a small parade of cars with teenagers hanging out of the windows. Most of them were in cars, but some of them were standing in the back of trucks. I took it to be some sort of graduation parade for school. They did not throw any candy at us when they went by, like they do where I come from. So, I threw a couple pieces of mint at them, which the waiter had left for us when they brought our bill. I bet they were all thinking to themselves: "What the crap is this guy doing"?

Day 3 - Skip and I ate a good breakfast at the hotel restaurant before heading out for the day. We talked with a taxi driver and he agreed to take us to the Maya Ruins of Dzibanche', Kinichna', and Kohunlich, then onward to the small town of Nicholas Bravo for $1,000 MP. The driver's original price was $1,500 MP, but dropped the price because I told him in Spanish that it was too expensive. He also waited for us to visit the various sites during the trip. Once we arrived to Nicholas Bravo, I paid another taxi driver there $220 MP for taking us onward to the town of Xpujil. I calculated the entire trip that day, due to the low exchange rate from Mexican Pesos to U.S. Dollars, to have cost each of us $56 USD. That was a very good deal in my opinion.

Once Skip and I arrived to Xpujil, and after being checked at two different military checkpoints along the way on Highway 186, we were happy to check into our hotel room at Hotel Calakmul for $600 MP per night. Once we settled in, Skip and I met the others in the group, which included: Dwayne, Gaye, Dieter Richter, Raul Noriega, and Louis Gravel. We talked for a bit and decided to venture into town for a pleasant dinner at a restaurant which is located across the road from the bus station in town. I did not write down the name of the restaurant, but the food was good.

Day 4 - We all ate a early breakfast and loaded up in the van, for going on the reserved trip for the day through Fernando Sastre of Servidores Turísticos Calakmul. We visited the Maya ruin site of Calakmul first, and on the way there, saw forty seven ocellated turkeys and three currasows. I also saw two black howler monkeys as well as one toucan along the way. After Calakmul we ate a quick lunch at Fernando's restaurant, which was decent food for the price ($65 MP). Once we had lunch we went onward to the Maya ruins of Balamku. We all went back to the Hotel Calakmul for showers and had had dinner at a very good restaurant in Xpujil called "Asadero El Pollo Restaurant". We got four pieces of grilled chicken as well as standard sides of pickled onions, rice, tortillas, and homemade salsa for $50 MP, to the best of my memory. The restaurant does not serve beer, but one can go directly across the road for buying some, and could then bring them back over for enjoying with their meal.

After dinner, Dwayne and Raul decided to walk up the hill to a cantina for some cervesas. So, Skip and I joined them a few minutes later. Once we arrived there, I noticed there was a table where at least eight Mexicans were sitting. They were all laughing and having a good time. One of them showed us a small bag of cocaine, and asked us all if we had a problem with it. We told him it was not a problem to us, for I figured they could do as they wished, since we were in their country and all. I watched one of them snort a line of cocaine and then one of them got brave and challenged me to a beer guzzling contest. Now, I know this guy was all messed up when he challenged little ol' me to a beer guzzling contest, using my favorite beer in the entire world (Sol), but he did not know what he had gotten himself into. I have been known to beat everyone I have ever competed against, while drinking that particular beer and during my past travels to Mexico.

I beat him pretty bad on the the first round, and he immediately went to the bar and bought two more beers, for he wanted another try at me. I never had a guy supply me with a beer for his own demise in a beer guzzling contest, but this guy did. I was quite a bit taller than he was, as I usually am most people. So, when he brought over the beer for me, he stood in a chair right beside me and put his arm around me. One of his buddies counted to three and we had at it. He had nearly half of a bottle left when I extended my bottle out in front of me, which was empty and in the horizontal position. His friends were laughing like everything! I swear I get into some strange predicaments at times, during my travels. Everybody always wants to pick on the big guy in a group.

The guy could not believe it and shook my hand. He also hugged my neck. Keep in mind he was still standing beside me in a chair. He told me that I was the King or "El Rey" in Spanish. My friend Skip Caldwell got a picture of it all. We walked back to the hotel for the night and sat around and talked, while we had a few more drinks together. As we sat and talked, a Swiss guy (Thomas) walked up and asked us if were going to Calakmul the next day. We told him we had already seen the site, but since he was alone, he would be more than welcome to join us for the next day while we visited some other sites in the area. He decided to do so and Dieter even gave him his personal alarm clock, so he could get up early the next morning for joining us.

Day 5 - After a quick breakfast, which most of us had bought the night before (donuts and pies), we went with Fernando to visit the Maya ruins of Rio Bec. There were at least twenty different groups of structures at Rio Bec, but we only saw A, B, C, D, and N while there. The structures were phenominal. At the best group there (Group B), we saw two falcons perched high on the top of the crest, as well as a community of nests for one of my favorite birds to listen to in all of Mesoamerica....the "Montezuma Oropendola". I took photos of all the birds we saw there, of which one was called a "Laughing Falcon". It was absolutely stunning and it sounded like somebody laughing! Also, we saw a fox cross the road in front of the van, along the way. After visiting the site of Rio Bec, we went onward to the Maya ruin site of Ramonal. The structure there was very nice and we noticed we had a lot of ticks crawling up our pants leg, after wandering around the site and back at the truck. We enjoyed a ice-cold beer while there, as well as a bag of teriyaki-flavored beef jerky which I had brought along.

We went back to the Maya village of "Veinte de Noviembre" where we ate a boiled chicken lunch, which was prepared and served by a Maya family whose last name was "Ka'awich". What a name! Once we left there, I had mentioned about having the time to visit the Maya ruin site of Hormiguero. Fernando had earlier told Dwayne that for us to visit this site, we would have to walk over a hour each way. I had told Dwayne that I had visited the site by taxi before, and could not understand what Fernando was referring to. So, Fernando took us to the site, which I was the only one in the group to have visited before, and it was as magnificent as the last time I was there. After a much needed shower, we all decided to eat once again at the wonderful "Asadero El Pollo Restaurant" for dinner. Keep in mind, I absolutely love to try new restaurants while on trips, but when I find a restaurant that I like pretty good, I usually stick with it.

Day 6 - We checked out of Hotel Calakmul and headed north from Xpujil with Fernando to visit some Chenes-style Maya ruin sites, near Hopelchen. By the way, the Swiss man (Thomas) went with us as well. Along the way, we stopped mid-morning to eat at a restaurant in town which had no name on the front of the building, We all had scrambled eggs with bacon and tortillas. The price of the food was reasonable as well. We visited the sites of Dzibilnocac, Hochob, Tabasqueño, and Santa Rosa Xtampak. I must say, all of the sites were nice, but none were as large and beautiful as Santa Rosa Xtampak. That particular city must have been the dominant one in the immediate area, for it was much larger than all of the rest. Santa Rosa Xtampak is not that far at all from the Puuc sites just north of there and could easily be seen while staying in the town of Ticul.

After visiting the last site for the day, we headed onward to the city of Campeche, to check into our rooms for the evening. Skip and I had decided to stay at Hotel del Paseo for $44 USD a night, while the others in the group all stayed at the Hostel La Parroquoia near the city square. We all met at the La Parroquoia Restaurant for dinner. The food was good and the price was decent as well. Skip and I walked six blocks back to our hotel afterwards.

Day 7 - After a quick breakfast, Dieter headed back to Flores, Guatemala by bus, while the others in the group all went to visit the Maya ruins of Edzna. The site was 48 kms. from Campeche and we enjoyed the site very much for about forty five minutes, after arriving there. After leaving there, and once back into the city, we dropped Louis Gravel off at the ADO bus station so he could catch the next available bus back to Guatemala. The rest of us visited the Museum of the Stelae and also the Museum at the Fort of San Miguel. Both were nice to visit, but the one at San Miguel was one of the best I had ever seen before. Once back into the city, Raul and I ate lunch at Burger King and it was good to change my diet from strictly Mexican style food, at least for one meal. Also, I always enjoy seeing the magnificent twin-towered Cathedral of Campeche there in the main plaza.

After leaving there, Raul, Gaye and I all walked around town to look around. We found a pretty neat art gallery with old photos of the city, which I found to be interesting. That evening, Gaye and Raul decided to move to the same hotel where Skip and I were staying at. We all went out that evening for dinner at La Parrilla Restaurant across the road from the ocean. The food was great and we had a lot of fun. There was even two girls advertising Sol beer, who gave one person at each table a chance to put a puzzle together, and if they did so, the girls would give them a Sol t-shirt. Raul put the puzzle together with ease and offered to give me the t-shirt. The t-shirt was a size "Large", so I told Raul to keep it instead, since I normally wear a size "XXLarge".

Day 8 - Gaye caught the early bus to Valladolid via Merida, while Skip, Raul and I caught the 9:15 a.m. ADO bus to Merida for $136 MP each. After 2 1/4 hours, we arrived to Merida at Terminal "CAME", and walked across the street to the Terminal "Unica" and bought a one-way ticket to Ticul for $44 MP. While we waited for our 1:00 p.m. Mayab bus, we all ate a quick lunch at a Church's Chicken there at the terminal. The 1 1/2 hour bus ride to Ticul was nice, and once we arrived into town, we immediately walked two blocks to check into Hotel Plaza, where I had made our reservations for the evening. We paid $460 MP for a suite with three beds, tv, a/c, and private shower. The room was much larger than I had expected it to be and the a/c worked extremely well. After we all settled in, we decided to walk around to see what was going on in the town square. Come to find out, they were having a parade.

The parade did not have any cars in it, but instead had tricycle taxis decorated with balloons, flowers, and ribbons like they were a home-coming parade float or something similar. The children were all around six years old and were wearing full-bodied suits, pertaining to the movies "The Lion King" and "Tarzan". They were dressed as zebras, lions, mermaids, crabs, etc.. I took the best photos I could, considering I could only get so close to all of the action. Once we all showered, we had a taxi driver take us to the "Restaurant Los Almendros" for dinner. The Yucatec Maya restaurant was once considered to be the best in town. Raul had Poc-Chuc and Skip and I each had Combinado Yucateca. The beer was good, but the food there was just not like it used to be, in my opinion anyway.

Day 9 - (A very long day) For breakfast, we all walked down to the city market for eating scrambled eggs with chaya, which is Maya spinach. To eat such a meal there scares most tourists, but I was not worried about it. We watched the man prepare everything and he was very clean while doing so. I don't remember what we paid for the meals, but I recall that it was fairly cheap. We walked back to the hotel and checked out of our hotel room. The lady at the front desk was very nice and allowed us to store our bags for the day, up under the stairwell in the hotel lobby. We only had to wait for a few more minutes, before our private driver arrived to take us all on the Ruta Puuc tour at 8:00 a.m.. The driver (Carlos) was arranged for us through Hotel Plaza, and only cost us $1,000 MP to take us to the Maya ruins of Uxmal, Kabah, Labna, Sayil, and Xlapak and return to Ticul. Considering the currency exchange rate at that time, I figured it to only cost all three of us $74 USD for the tour.

I had previously been to all five of the sites, but Skip and Raul had not been to any of them. Since Raul is a Guatemalan architect who has worked at the sites of Yaxha, Nakum, Naranjo, El Pilar, and Tzikintzakan for the past 20 years, I knew he would enjoying seeing the wonderful architecture at the Maya ruins of Uxmal. That particular site was the first one we visited for the day and I could see that Raul was very excited about being there. He told me that the place was magnificent on two different occasions and that it was his favorite site in all of Mexico, due to the beautiful architecture there. I did take a few photos of a turquoise-browed motmot (bird), while there. Of course the iguanas were in abundance there as well. As the large tour buses from Merida were arriving at around 10:00 a.m., we left to go to the nearby sites of Kabah, Labna, Sayil, and Xlapak.

Once we arrived back into town, we were hungry and went nearby to "Pizzeria Gondola", but it was closed. It seemed there were only two restaurants at the time which were still open at that particular time of the day and we decided to eat at the "Restaurant Carmelita" across the road from Hotel Plaza. This restaurant has very good service and the food is great. For every round of beer you buy, they will keep bringing more botañas (snacks). The botañas were buffalo wings, cheese and ham cubes, some kind of squash dish, refried beans and chips, fried potato patties, baked potato cubes, etc.. If a person were to order three or four beers in there, they probably would not be hungry at all after eating all of the botañas. Also, the prices were very reasonable as well.

We caught the 3:40 p.m. Mayab bus back to Merida and a old blind man was singing while playing his guitar along the way. A few people on the bus gave him some money for doing so, and to help him out. Once we arrived back to Terminal "Unica" in Merida, Raul, Skip, and I crossed the road for buying our ADO bus tickets as needed at Terminal "CAME". Skip and I were to buy our one-way bus tickets to Valladolid, while Raul bought his ADO bus ticket to Francisco Escarcega. Even though we had arrived there at the ticket counter at 5:20 p.m., we could not buy our tickets for 5:45 p.m. to Valladolid, due to that particular bus being already sold out. So, we bought our tickets for $128 MP for the 7:30 p.m. departure instead. Since Raul was to leave for Francisco Escarcega at 9:00 p.m., we all walked around the corner to a restaurant nearby to drink a few beers and talk.

Skip and I told Raul we hoped he had a good trip back to Guatemala and we both caught our bus to Valladolid. After the 2 1/4 hour ride, we arrived to the Valladolid bus terminal and I got mixed up on my bearings for a few moments, before realizing which direction we needed to go in for checking into the Hotel El Meson del Marques. We were surprised to have a note waiting for us at the front desk, which was from Gaye. The message she left for us told what room she was in. I went by her room at 10:05 p.m. and told her that we had arrived and our room number as well. I was starving and needed some food and a few beers, for I was starting to get a little ill and was tired. So, Skip and I walked over to the restaurant "Las Campanas", which was on the opposite side of the main plaza from our hotel.

The restaurant is one of the best in all of Valladolid and the two chefs (Geronimo Ciau and Jorge Dzib Camelo) make a wonderful assortment of dishes there. I had eaten there on two previous occasions during my travels, but this was Skip's first time there. Restaurant Las Campanas is also one of my good friend's (Scott Turner) favorite restaurant, probably in all of Mexico. After looking over the menu for a while, Skip and I decided to each have a filet of pork dinner, which was covered in mushrooms and cheese. The dish was amazingly delicious. A man there was singing and playing a guitar while we ate. After quite a few beers and enjoying the delicious food, I finally started to relax a bit. It had been a very long day for us and I had gotten a little tense I suppose.

Day 10 - Skip, Gaye, and I all bought a one-way Oriente ticket at the bus station in town, to take us to the Maya ruins of Chichen-Itza for $20 MP each. I did notice that the ADO bus which goes there as well, was $44 MP. I also noticed on the board posted in the bus station, that there were many buses available to the site, which were all early in the morning. We decided to catch the 7:15 a.m. bus instead of the 8:15 a.m. bus. Forty five minutes later, we arrived to the entrance to the site and paid our entrance fee of $110 MP each. Once we went inside, I noticed there were probably only around forty or fifty other people there as well. So, we were able to take a lot of good photos, without another tourist being in the shot. Since Chichen-Itza was the first Maya ruin site that I ever visited, it was good to go back to see an "old friend". For the eighth time I wandered around and admired it's size, as well as it's beauty. Also, I did notice that tourists can no longer walk near or through the 1,000 Columns or climb up on The Observatory as they could in the past. While there, I did manage to take a photo of a Yucatan Jay (bird).

Three hours later, we decided to leave the site as the large tour buses were arriving from Cancun and Playa del Carmen. I saw at the bus ticket counter in the bookstore there, that we could not possibly make the 11:35 a.m. Oriente bus back to Valladolid, so, I bought three tickets for us on the 12:35 p.m. bus instead. This would also give us time to grab a quick lunch in one of the restaurants at the site. After a good lunch and once back in Valladolid, we decided to go the the designated site in town for catching a taxi to visit the Maya ruins of Ek Balam. Just so others who read this know, there is a spot for taxis which is one block from the main plaza and before the bus station in Valladolid, which only takes people to Ek Balam all day. Just look for a small road sign erected on the sidewalk which is blue in color and says "Sitio de Taxi - Ek Balam". Roundtrip will cost a person(s) $200 MP, but does not include the fee for the driver to wait for you while you visit the site. We paid $240 MP for everything and got to enjoy the site for forty five minutes, even though the driver told us he would wait for up to one hour. I did take a photo of a flycatcher (bird) while there.

Once back in town, we showered and even watched some NCAA Final Four action on the tv, before going to dinner. Since the food at Las Campanas was so good the night before, we decided to go there again. I had the Pollo Almendrado dinner, which was a chicken dish covered in mushrooms, cheese, and slivers of almond. I also had a bowl of cream of chaya soup and fruit cocktail. Not only was the fruit cocktail very large, but it consisted of fresh watermelon, cantaloupe, and bananas as well. It was very good! After dinner, Skip and I went by the bus station to buy our 7:15 a.m. ADO bus tickets for $136 MP back to Cancun for the next morning. Our bus would arrive to the downtown Cancun bus station, where we would have to catch another ADO bus to the airport for $40 MP.

Photo Slide Show

Group photo taken by Skip Caldwell - Left to Right - Raul, Louis, Dieter, Gaye, Dwayne, and Me.