Tennet's Travels: Isla Mujeres

It´s happened! It took a whole ten days, but then it happened.... I got ill.

On the day that Ollie left (last Saturday) I ate some very dodgy street food in Cancun, and while I´m feeling a lot better now, the intervening days have been.... interesting.

Isla Mujeres - perfect blue sea

As much as I´d like to place the blame elsewhere, I have to admit this was largely my own doing. I missed breakfast because we had to leave early for Ollie´s flight and by the time I got back to the city centre it was past 1pm and I was starving. The first food stand I came to was manned by a wrinkly, old woman and offered a choice of random meat baguettes or cheese and sour cream empanadas. I had two of each. I watched my chef prepare the food: no obvious cleansing to speak of before preparation, and rather grimy hands digging out the mystery meat from it's uncovered container. Disconcerting. Still, I thought, this is authentic Mexico - I have to get into the ´real´ street food sooner rather than later, and the grassroots local stuff always tastes the best. It didn´t. It tasted awful. I´m not sure if ´soggy´ qualifies as a flavour, but that´s all my tastebuds were getting. If I hadn´t been so ravenously hungry, and if there had been other food options in sight, I would have discreetly dumped it and gone elsewhere to eat. But there wasn´t. So I ate it (or half of it - as much as I could bear).

More beautiful blue sea!

I pretty much accepted whilst eating that I would get a little bit ill from this culinary adventure, but convinced myself that this could actually be a good thing: It's not a bad idea to get your gut used to the proper local cuisine early on in the trip; if you´re ill at the start you´re less likely to get ill further down the road. This is exactly what happened on my last trip: I was appallingly sick for the first few days in Nepal, but then never again for the next seven months - my iron stomach could take anything!

I was less convinced by my own foolish logic two days later, stuck in the toilet on Isla Mujeres. While I wasn´t as elaborately ill as in Nepal, I still had very painful stomach cramps and decided a quick trip to the pharmacy would be a good idea. The guy behind the counter could speak reasonable English and was very helpful, but he couldn´t really help me until I´d had a consultation with the resident doctor. So, I waited upstairs until the very young medical consultant called me in:

"Hablas ingles?", I asked hopefully. "No", she replied. "No hay problema. Hablo espanol!" I said confidently (while not-so-confidently rummaging for my Spanish language bible and quickly searching for the ´health´chapter).

My lengthy prescription note

I was in the consultation for a good 1/2 hour, using my phrasebook-assisted pigeon Spanish to stammer out various symptoms, accompanied by extravagant miming. It was during one of these elaborate dramatisations (I think with a reference to ´diarrea´ - which doesn´t need translating...) that I noticed the following wording on the back cover of my phrasebook: "Chat with the locals and discover their culture - a guaranteed way to enrich your travel experience". Amongst the chaos this struck me as very funny - I don´t think this was the kind of ´enrichment´ the publishers had in mind!

During the moments that the doctor wasn´t laughing at me, she said a few things I understood, a lot of things I didn´t, measured my weight, height and temperature (through a thermometer clamped inelegantly beneath my armpit) and asked my age (one of the few questions I understood first time!)

My prescribed drugs

At the end of our extended exchange, she started to write a prescription... and kept writing... and kept writing... until the whole A5 sheet of paper was filled with a list of various medications and detailed instructions on how to take them (all different and all in Spanish). It's highly possible that I got into the whole illness translation and elaborate symptom charades thing a bit too much and the consultant came to the conclusion that I was at death´s door. Either way, when I presented the list to the pharmacist, he looked a little shocked at first and then spent five minutes gathering together a vast selection of drugs - 1 antibiotic, 1 painkiller, 1 long-term stomach protection thing, 1 rehydration drink, and 2 others I´m still not really sure of their function - all in vivid, pretty colours. I´ve been feeling remarkably better since taking them all (sometimes much, much better and sometimes a bit ´floaty´).

Lots of pretty colours

I was initially disappointed that I´d no longer be able to indulge at the beach bar - a fear that was confirmed when the doctor said, "No alcohol. No tequila, no rum, no whisky, no vodka, no mescal". Fair enough, I thought, I have to prioritise my health.... But then she finished: "Cervaza (beer) es OK!" :-)
(I have to admit this victory was shortlived, though - I followed the doctors orders and indulged on plenty of cervazas during my first drugged-up night: a unique drunken experience, but I felt so rough the next day that I´ve decided to abstain until I´ve finished the course of medication).

My ´office´ for the week (red building)

With all this excitement, I´ve not achieved a great deal else since the last blog. I have returned to, and remained on, the beautiful Isla Mujeres and have established a fairly productive daily routine: get up in time for breakfast at 10.30am, 2 hours proofreading work at a nearby internet cafe (note - this is the only productive part), back to the hostel for a quick workout, cheap lunch from the supermarket, and then to the beach until sunset, after which I fit in a couple of hours volleyball before dinner, and then head down to the (now sober) beach bar until the early hours. I could easily live like this for a very long time, but I am forcing myself to leave tomorrow (Friday) and get on with the ´proper travelling´. Next stop is Merida, and then I´ll continue heading inland across Mexico before dropping down into Guatemala.

Until the next (hopefully fully healthy) entry.....

(more pictures below)

Health and safety issues...?

My favourite Isla Mujeres picture so far (apart from the sunset ones below!)

Over a week since the first entry and we´ve packed an incredible amount into the last few days - exploring new towns, visiting Mayan ruins, kicking back on white-sand/turquoise-sea Caribbean beaches and drinking lots of Tequila.

Uno Iguana

The single activity that has occupied the largest proportion of my time since our arrival though, has been my attempts to learn the language (this is exclusive to myself - ´Little Brother Ollie´ insists there is "no point" in him "wasting his time", he is after all "only here for a few days"!). Spanish is the primary language throughout Central and South America (except Brazil, where Portuguese is the standard) so I am determined to gain a general understanding as soon as possible, and hopefully become quite proficient by the time the trip ends.

Dos Iguanas

I wasn't completely unprepared for this - I've been listening to many hours of Spanish-learning CD's over the last few months, but the reality of actually speaking Spanish out-loud to a native Spanish speaker is quite different to listening to someone repeat phrases on a tape. I've never been much of a linguist and viewed language lessons at school as a pointless chore - everyone speaks English anyway, right!? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who had this attitude at school (and some, like 'Little Brother Ollie', remain faithful to this viewpoint long after school has finished for them) and it is actually based on sound logic. It does seem like everybody speaks English - one of the most fascinating things is seeing two people from very different countries with their own proud languages (e.g. Norway and Israel, Holland and China) communicate through the only language everyone seems to share; English. Ironically, this is proving to be one of the main obstacles in my attempts to learn Spanish.

Tulum hostel communal area

I am under no illusions about how obviously a foreigner (or 'Gringo') I look and, as a result, most local people I approach will automatically address me in English. Even if I try to start a conversation in Spanish, they will often just reply in English. They are obviously doing this for my benefit, and 'Little Brother Ollie' is very happy with this arrangement, but it can be a little frustrating for me as someone actually wanting to speak Spanish.

On the occasions that this first hurdle is overcome, the main thing I learn is the meaning of the English phrase 'be careful what you wish for' rather than any new Spanish vocab. Everyone seems to speak at a hundred miles an hour - although, in reality they are probably just speaking as fast as I do in English - and even if I know the words they are saying, by the time my brain has worked out one word in English, I've missed the next five.

Trying to learn!!

I have also quickly realised there is a big difference between knowing a few useful phrases and actually being able to have a conversation - seems obvious, but this is one of the biggest challenges. Say I want to ask "Where is the beach?" ("¿Donde esta la playa?") "What time is the bus leaving?" ("¿A que hora sale al autobus?") or order four tacos ("¿Cuatro tacos, por favor") - I will have the correct phrase in my head, along with the most likely responses from the other party. This is all fine as long as their answer is simple and one I am expecting, but that doesn't happen very often (think how often the simplest, shortest response is used in English). There are a million other possible responses that I haven't learnt yet and if they use one of these I am stuck and often have to sheepishly explain that I don't speak much Spanish ("Hablo un poco Espanol") and/or ask them to repeat in English ("¿Puedes repetirlo en Inglese, por favor?"). Even the simple question "How are you?" ("¿Como esta?") can be a minefield if the other person isn't kind enough to just say "Fine, thank you" and end the conversation there. Quite counter-productive, but my vocab is slowly increasing and I have to reflect positively on the new words and phrases I have learnt at the end of each day.

Town square in Vallodolid

I'm also starting to speak in a slightly insane broken English accent whenever I converse in my own language, due to the fact that I'm trying to work out in my head how I would make the same statement in Spanish. Only a week in and I already seem to have broken my brain....

I'm trying to be patient with this, but still can't help feeling extremely envious whenever I overhear another 'gringo' converse effortlessly and competently in perfect Spanish. Like I say, it has only been a week so I need to be realistic. Once I get down into Guatemala (probably in another couple of weeks) I plan to enrol in a Spanish-learning school and live with a local family for 3/4 weeks in order to completely immerse myself in the language. Hopefully this will help and I shall report back on my Spanish-speaking progress soon.

Vallodolid Cathedral interior

Despite my lack of linguistic prowess, we have managed to achieve a great deal since my first blog. Our first day in Cancun was very much a chill-out, slightly jet-lagged day - we didn't get moving until late and headed straight to the beach, where we remained for the rest of the afternoon. The beaches all along the coast here really have to be seen to be believed - they are a cliché of paradise: powdery, bleach-white sand, carressed by a warm, clear sea that starts of a crisp, brilliant turquoise at the shore before gradually turning into deep blue ocean. The water is so inviting, it's impossible to even spend a few minutes at the shore without being lured in for at least one quick dip. The only catch in Cancun is that the seafront is dominated by high-rise, luxury resorts that release thousands of tourists onto the beach as soon as the sun comes up. Fortunately these developments disappear as you leave the bigger cities, but the picture-perfect beaches remain.

Ollie siesta

We wasted no time in exiting Cancun, and spent the next two nights 100km south at the much smaller coastal town of Tulum. Tulum is famous for its Mayan ruins - not the biggest or most impressive of these structures (which are found all over the region) but they can definitely boast the number one location. Set on a clifftop overlooking the ocean, you can visit the ruins in your swimsuit and use the beach that is hidden within the temple complex. Splashing about in the idyllic Caribbean Sea, with these ancient stone structures as a backdrop is a wonderfully surreal experience.

The hostel we stayed at in Tulum has been the most social and party-orientated of the trip so far - the combination of a big outdoor communal area, cheap beer on demand, and lots of young travellers created a couple of late, boozy nights and lazy starts the next day. Still, we met lots of cool people, had a fun time, and didn't completely waste our days in a drunken haze; we spent one of the afternoons on a short day trip 30km north to the town of Akumal.

Locals street-dancing in Vallodolid

Akumal is promoted as another resort town (although nowhere near the scale of Cancun) most famous for its coral reefs and giant sea turtles. Knowing this, we hired some snorkelling gear in Tulum and took it with us on the trip. The coral itself was a little disappointing; quite grey and sorry looking, most likely due to the level of tourism in the area. But we saw lots of colourful, tropical fish and were lucky enough to encounter a couple of giant turtles - very cool.

Next port of call was a place called Vallodolid (pronounced 'bay-o-dolid) about 100km inland from Tulum. We broke up the journey by stopping en route to spend a couple of hours exploring more ancient Mayan temples at Coba. These ruins are spread over a much larger area than Tulum, and surrounded by lush, green forest rather than sparkling, blue sea. The main attraction here is the fact that you can climb to the top of the tallest structure (Nohoch Mul - at 42m high, only 3m below the tallest remaining temple on the Yucatan peninsula). The view from the top really is breathtaking; thick jungle fanning out in all directions as far as the eye can see, interrupted only by a couple of lagoons and interspersed with the tips of other nearby temples.

Me at Coba

Vallodolid is slightly off the main tourist trail (especially when compared to frenetic Cancun!). The city moves at a more 'Mexican' pace - locals will lounge for hours in the cool, shaded town plaza, and those who are on the move, saunter, slowly.... The streets themselves are laid out in a typical Spanish-colonial grid system ad lined with beautiful, small houses painted in a variety of soft pastel shades - everywhere you look the sun is reflecting off blocks of blue, red, yellow and green. It's a lovely place in which to just wander for a few hours, skipping between slices of shade to avoid the relentless sun overhead. When the heat got too much even for just walking around, we copied the locals and returned to the hostel for a couple of hours siesta in a hammock - there are worst ways to spend your days!

Coba ruins

Another reason to stay in Vallodolid is that the jewel in Mexico's Mayan crown is only 45 minutes up the road. Chichen Itza is one of the modern wonders of the world (along with other such must-see global attractions as the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China). The main structure here - El Castillo - is one of the best-restored in the country and therefore less of a 'ruin' than the sites we'd visited previously. It's also the most photographed and famous of all Mexico's tourist sights - you will most likely have seen a picture somewhere of this iconic pyramid; rising to 25 metres, with long stairways dissecting the 9 platforms on each of the four sides (the pyramid is actually a giant Maya calendar with each of the steps, terraces and panels adding up to a significant number relating to the Mayan year). The site is impressive enough even without this knowledge - especially if you arrive as early as we did and are lucky enough to gaze in awe at Chichen's grandeur without the annoyance of over-sized tour groups spoiling the view.

Tulum beach

We rose early again on our final morning in Vallodolid and hired bicycles to go and explore another nearby attraction - Cenote Dzitnup and Cenote Samula. Cenotes are natural, underground sinkholes - a uniquely Yucatean geological feature. In total there are about 3,000 across the peninsula; traditionally used by locals to gather fresh drinking water, but many now open for tourists to swim, snorkel and scuba dive inside. Some are fully exposed to the surface, while others can only be reached by tunneling down into the earth. The two we visited were of the latter variety, and both required a short descent down twisting, stone staircases. We weren't disappointed by what we found inside. The passageways widened slowly before suddenly opening into a vast, subterranean world - the cool, swimmable freshwater (already occupied by hundreds of fish) was irrestible after our 8km bike ride in the sticky, Mexican heat. Both caves were artificially lit by constantly-changing, coloured lights, which looked very nice, but I asked (in Spanish!) for them to be switched off. This allowed the cavernous space to be illuminated only by the shafts of sunlight that were piercing through the holes in the earth's surface overhead - creating a wonderfully, magical effect and a swimming environment like no other! I plan to visit more cenotes later in the trip.

Isla Mujeres

Our last two days have been spent on Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) just off the coast of Cancun. It's a very cool, chilled-out island where not much really happens, but that was just what we needed really after the non-stop travelling of the week before. We stayed in a hostel right on the beach with a big group of friendly travellers; days spent frolicking in the sea (astonishingly beautiful, again!), late afternoon volleyball games (gradually increasing in levels of competitiveness) and then cocktails at the beach bar way into the early hours - let's just say it was tolerable...

I've have returned to Cancun for one night after dropping Little Brother Ollie off at the airport for his flight home - which means I'm officially a solo traveller (for the first time ever!). A little bit disconcerting, but I'm heading straight back to Isla Mujeres tomorrow for a few more carefree days on the beach - I will stay strong!

Until next time.... (more photos below)