We got off a bus at 6am arriving from Palenque. The ride had been quite long due to our seat positions. Right at the back which is usually not a problem, this time though it was a little disgusting. The toilets on the buses are usually kept pretty clean and smell fine – however, the number of ill looking mainly French travelers on the bus had obviously left the bus in need of some care and attention. The toilets really needed a thorough clean. Lucky us to be sat by them… So the putrid stench of filthy toilets didn’t give us much chance of sleeping too well and on arrival in Chetumal Jen and I gasped for fresh air before collapsing on a bench. We’d heard about a little place off the beaten track called Xcalak and wanted to go there. The bus trip left from Chetumal – 12 minutes later as we then found out. The bus was a little less luxurious and drove through the still sleeping town into the sunrise and a scorching hot day. The mist over the bay and mangroves was beautiful and we bounced along, too tired to think about taking photo’s. The road turned from large to small and then quite sandy, the landscape becoming more and more mangrove forest. There was a lot of hurricane damage for much of the peninsula and vast swathes of the forest lay dead and apparently have been for the past 4 years. The returning signs of life were there, as was the stupidity of the local population who use open space to dump things, any rubbish it seemed was fine for the landscape.
The forest then came back into being and our bus driver detoured slightly to pick up his kids and lunch from home, then onwards to Xcalak. We were excited as we’d heard it was a great little sleepy place which was lovely. I don’t think we’ve seen a quieter or deader town. We learned later than it had been THE place to be until in 1951 it was devastated by a hurricane. The village has a lot of potential but the area is lacking in investment. It really shocked us that there was so much debris and decay in the area, but locals who only earn money in the high season from sport anglers and diving from the posh resorts in the area (very few).
We found a cheap place to stay called Hotel El Caracol. They offer very basic rooms and we negotiated a third off the price. This bit of Mexico- the Yucatan coast is very expensive compared to the Pacific and central parts. The large amounts of tourists paying premiums mean that the cost of living for the locals is higher too so even the cheap places were significantly more than we expected. However, it still only cost around 300 pesos for the night and the room was ok. The town is tiny and we’d walked around it extensively, spoken to some diving places and decided it was too expensive for what it was and how to best move on. We had read about getting to San Pedro (Caye Ambergis, Belize- La Isla Bonita that Madonna sang about) by boat and on the map it is within spitting distance. The dive shops offered a staggering $250 per boat which we declined to pay. Part of the sales patter had been we even do your VISA work for you. As Brits we don’t need a visa and decided they were talking crap. We did pay 200 pesos leaving Mexico to the Harbour Master/Port Authority who have to prepare paperwork allowing a boat to transfer us. We found our captain and boat in a bar/restaurant which was called “disco” but was well tended and very nice! We negotiated briefly and came to a price that allowed them to make a little money but was fair to us too. 1700 Pesos… still a fair whack! The boat ride was great fun and was a superb start to our next stage the Caribbean adventure!
Xcalak… it is lovely, visit it, go fishing, diving is great too, don’t expect cheap holidays though! The locals are super friendly and happy to talk- they have one thing most holiday makers don’t have. Time. Take the boat to San Pedro, pay between 1700-2000 pesos in total.. the trip is 2 hours roughly and absolutely stunning, going along the coastline and then inland through a turquoise lagoon! MT
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