Isla Cozumel, The (Ghost) Town

Like I said yes­ter­day, we are a bit out of our ele­ment here. Cozumel mostly caters to the “all inclu­sive” crowd and peo­ple tend to stay in their hotels where they lounge by the pool, drink and sleep.

Reverse Culture Shock in Isla Cozumel

For our last few days, we had the chance to book a nice hotel in Isla Cozumel, Mex­ico biggest island. We knew it was going to be a touris­tic place: the Cancún-Playa Del Carmen-Cozumel is a hot spot for North Amer­i­cans, espe­cially dur­ing the winter.

Beach Bumming in Tulum

For our last few days in Mex­ico, we decided to be beach-bum. An easy deci­sion to make con­sid­er­ing how great the coast­line is in Quin­tana Roo, and how cold it will be when we go back to Canada.

Valladolid, Cenote and More Ruinas

In a way, Val­ladolid reminded me of Are­quipa. A city stuck between tra­di­tion and moder­nity, a noble and proud place with a rich his­tory. Sun-drenched colour­ful walls, women wear­ing the tra­di­tional Yucatán dress, a zócalo cen­ter to the life of the peo­ple… in many aspects, Val­ladolid is your tra­di­tional Mex­i­can city.

Back to the Maya World: Chichén Itzá

Chichén Itzá is prob­a­bly the most famous and most vis­ited Maya arche­o­log­i­cal site. The main tem­ple is one of the icons of Mex­ico and it never fails to impress. We’ve been there three times and I’m still in awe!

Ambergris Caye, San Pedro and La Isla Bonita

Orig­i­nally, Caye Calker was the back­packer hang­out while Amber­gris Caye, more devel­oped and big­ger, catered to richer peo­ple. We shrugged the stereo­type off and hopped on the boat.

In The Chicken Bus

Take a chicken bus, one of these old U.S. school buses painted blue, pur­ple, red or any bright colour. Lis­ten to reg­gae music blast­ing through the loudspeakers—by the end of the trip, you will know the lyrics to every Bob Mar­ley songs, resis­tance is futile. Observe the peo­ple as the hail the bus on the side of the road or as they get off in the mid­dle of nowhere. That’s Belize for you.

Caye Calker

Some­times, going back to places you love isn’t such a good idea. It’s like see­ing an old crush again—you know you prob­a­bly changed, that he prob­a­bly changed, and that noth­ing good can come out of it.

Yet I was look­ing for­ward to our trip to Caye Calker, one of the small islands off the shore of Belize City.

Belize City

Belize City, like a lot of cities in Cen­tral Amer­ica, doesn’t have a good rep­u­ta­tion. It is much less laid-back than the rest of the coun­try and few find it charming.

Yet it changed.

Dangriga

The ride turned out to be sur­pris­ingly pleas­ant. Sure, my legs are always too long to fit com­fort­ably in buses orig­i­nally designed to shut­tle North Amer­i­can kids to and back from school, but the road was good and the scenery quite relax­ing. Reg­gae music blasted through the loud­speak­ers for the entire 2.5 hour long trip but this too was relaxing.