PENINSULA YUCUTAN - MEXICO

Still suffering considerable damage after my food related problems in Palenque, I dragged my weary body off to Cancun on another pretty rough overnight (second class) bus. Traversing the incredibly windy road (along the same lines as the Gillies highway) it appeared the bus driver rated himself somewhat as a bit of a rally driver and I found that I was constantly smashing my head up against the window. Still, I arrived safe and sound in Cancun and managed to find a hostel without too much trouble. I spent my only full day in Cancun, just chilling out and sorting out a few things before heading down to the famous ´Zona Hotellera´ where the literally thousands of massive resort hotels were situated on the white sandy beaches of the Carribean.

The beaches I must admit were very nice, especially the turquoise colour generated through a combination of the white sand and blue water. It was somewhat surprising to realise that the sand was in fact quite different to that in Australia in that it had been formed (I imagine) from the continual erosion of limestone (prevalent in the area) and therefore was much more coarse than anything I had seen previously. Also, it was nice to marvel at the sheer size of the hotels located along the beach... there must have been hundreds of them ! All in all however, the location wasn´t anything that special and only worth a short look really.

On my second day in Cancun I travelled by boat to the nearby Isla Mujeres, which again presented some lovely beaches but was really too touristy for my liking. After walking around parts of the island for a few hours and being hassled by every man and his dog, asking if I wanted to go snorkelling or hire a moped, bike, golf cart or whatever else, I eventually found a nice place to just chill out on the beach and get some nice photos. However, after a short while the ridiculous heat once again forced me to get out of the sun and so I returned to Cancun and took a bus to Tulum, further south along the coast.

Tulum was quite an interesting place. Firstly, it is the only location in Mexico in which there are Mayan ruins located on the coast. The combination of the beautiful turquoise ocean, white sandy beaches and archaeological ruins certainly set up an amazing location and I made sure to get many really great photos whilst I was there. After visiting the ruins on the morning of my first day in Tulum, I spent a little time relaxing on the beach before just having a bit of a look around the town (there wasn´t very much to see) and just playing cards and generally relaxing with a few of the other guys at the hostel.

My second day was equally as relaxed, for after a morning adventure walking the ´20 minutes´ (which turned out to be an hour) to one of the local cenotes, we just took an afternoon nap and once again played some cards. The cenotes were very interesting, not only because of how they were formed (because the geology of the Yucutan peninsula is primarily limestone, there is essentially no surface water and as such all water ends up in underground waterways linked through cave and cenote systems) but also because of just how clean the water was. In some places it was incredible to see that the cenotes were up to 15 metres deep and yet the bottom was still easily visible. It would have been amazing to engage in some snorkelling or better still, diving in some of these cenotes, but swimming around in the crystal clear water was still very enjoyable.

My last destination in the Yucutan Peninsula was the archaeological site of Chichen Itza, which I visited as a day trip on my way to Merida. Although not quite as spectacular as the ruins in Palenque, the Chichen Itza site was still very interesting and despite the heat in the middle of the day, I really enjoyed wandering around and exploring various buildings scattered over a large area. Apart from the very imposing pyramid located in the main ´plaza´ area, the various temples, 1000 columns and other smaller pyramids all provided opportunities to take some impressive photos.

I think that the Yucutan Peninsula has thus far provided me with some of the most interesting travel experiences and destinations of my time in Mexico. I really enjoyed hanging out with various travellers, playing football with the locals in Tulum and visiting some amazingly beautiful beaches and great archaeological ruins. This is one area of the country that I would definately recommend to any visitor making their way to Mexico.

Photos 1&2: Massive hotels in ´Zona Hotellera´ in Cancun.
Photos 3-6: Various photos from Isla Mujeres.
Photos 7-11: Coastline and Mayan ruins in Tulum.
Photos 12&13: Cenotes just outside Tulum.
Photos 14-: Archaeological site of Chichen Itza.