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Chris and Em's Adventure

a travel blog by Chris Pagett

My Girlfriend Emily and I have embarked on a Central American Adventure. We are traveling to from Cranbrook, B.C., Canada to Cancun, Mexico. After we land we get the hell out of there and head down through southern Mexico to Guatemala then to Belize. Side trips to be determined. It's a six week trip where I'll be posting our adventures about once a week. I hope you enjoy and are inspired to travel.
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First day of the commute

Calgary, Canada

We stay over night in at the Sandman near the airport. We ate at Moxie`s and I ended up being sick in the middle of the night from a Quesadilla. Irony or foreshadowing? I guess i`ll see.

permalink written by   Chris Pagett on February 15, 2009 from Calgary, Canada
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It was a long trip

Cancun, Mexico


Heading for Isla Mujeres
We made it! After 10 hours of travelling through two airports and a very close connecting flight in Salt Lake we landed in Cancun at 3 pm.
At the airport we had to navigate ourselves through the Cancun public transit system to the port. Unexpectedly we were a great team right off the bat and nailed it with the help of the locals who were more than willing to help us with directions. It was pretty amazing. We made it to the port and caught the ferry taking us to Isla Mujeres, a little island across the Caribbean sea from Cancun. We are staying here for 3 nights. Our hostel Poc-na is beautiful. It is very clean, inexpensive and backs onto the beach with as it so happens has a beach bar that opens at 11pm nightly.
After checking into the the hostel we walked around for a bit had a bite to eat and crashed, nothing to exciting. Today we plan on hitting the beach for the day, soaking up the sun and figuring out what to see on the island. Temp is around 15-20 degrees. Our trip has started out great.

permalink written by   Chris Pagett on February 16, 2009 from Cancun, Mexico
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Three days on Isla Mujeres

Isla Mujeres, Mexico


Going to the beach in Isla Mujeres
The Isla is beautiful.
The hostel as I said is great. It is run by very nice people some of whom are volunteers from around the world (they get free room and board). The rooms are very clean and the food they serve is delicious and inexpensive as far as prices on the island go. Good thing we brought earplugs because the party goes all night here. Em and I very rarely made it past 12am before going to sleep and never made it to the beach bar. We keep calling ourselves losers.
The island gets a lot of day tripper from the resorts in Cancun but still does not feel over run by tourists. There are many beaches and great snorkling opportunities.
Our first day we just wanted to relax and get a feel for the island. We walked around and checked out the a lot of the little shops on the island but found that most of them sold the same things. I bought a sarong. We looked at menus of restaurants. Everything is priced between $15-$40 a little expensive for us. A lot of seafood and chicken on the menus. We then lied on the beach for a couple hours and jumped in to the sea. All in all a great first day.

This place is fun

permalink written by   Chris Pagett on February 17, 2009 from Isla Mujeres, Mexico
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Touring the Island

Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Today we rented a Moped and cruised the island. It is a very small island so we were able to do two loops.
We hit the eastern most point of the island and climbed a lighthouse, went to a turtle farm which was pretty neat and snuck into a beach resort to do a little snorkelling.
That last one didn`t work out. We didn`t get kicked out, we left because it sucked. The water was shallow with a lot of seaweed in it and the beach was tiny. Definetly the public beaches are better than that one.We had lunch at a roadside restaurant. We had a burger and fries (very authentic cusine) and then kinda zig zaged back to the city to catch a glimpes of how the locals live.
I really should have put more suntan lotion on. When your riding a bike you really don`t realize how hot it is and how much your burning. I`ll know for next time but in the meantime my neck is on fire.
We finished the night with dinner and me destroying Em at both crib and gin rummy. I think i`m going to have to let her win tomorrow night.
We head for Medira on Thursday for 5 days.
Peace

permalink written by   Chris Pagett on February 18, 2009 from Isla Mujeres, Mexico
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What a long travel day

Merida, Mexico


Turtle in Isla Mujeres
Today is a travel day to Merida. Only about 350 km from Cancun but by bus it took a long time.
We ended up getting a later start than we had hoped for but figured we would still get to Merida before sunset. We were able to catch the 12:00pm bus from Cancun. The sales guy had asked if we want first class but we are going on the cheap and said no as well it was 11:55am and we just wanted to make the bus. In retrospect we should have ask what first class meant.
Our bus ride took 7 hours...that´s not a misprint. We stopped in every single little town from Cancun to Merida. during the trip we figured that first class meant a different bus with a more direct route to Merida.
We started getting hungry only a couple hours into the trip since all we had for breakfast was two piece of toast at 8:30am and then on walked a guy selling fruit! Perfect. By the way the fruit here is amazing. We got some with sprinkled chili powder and sqeezed lime over top. Other people walked on throughout the trip selling sandwiches and pop.
We got in at 7:00pm walked to the first hotel we saw (it is also recommended in our travel guide) right beside the bus station and got a room. It´s turns out to be a really nice place with very helpful staff.
We were so hungry after we checked in we walked around to find something to eat. We couldn´t find any kind of restaurant so we grabbed a couple slices of pizza. Unfortunately they sold us the last of the pizza and I was still hungry and we just wanted to get back to the hotel so we stopped at KFC got some popcorn chicken. Brutal I know, I go to Mexico on a backpacking trip and four days in I´m eating KFC. I don´t even eat that crap at home.
That is the jist of our travel day. I guess the moral is no matter how rushed you are if someone offers you first class ask what it gets you.

Poster in Merida

permalink written by   Chris Pagett on February 19, 2009 from Merida, Mexico
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Caranavel 2009

Merida, Mexico

Caranaval was pretty cool. We saw a parade with pretty cool floats. The theme this year was cartoon movies so there was a Nemo float, Batman float and many more.
The Caranaval is sponpsered by Corona so their floats were amazing!!
At this time I have no pic uploaded. but I will soon.
The party after the parade was crazy. They had 4 of 5 stages set up for performances each about a block apart. The main stage featured rave music, more house music than anything else with deep, deep bass. The other stages featured more tradition music with traditional dancing to accompying it.
There is still stuff going on until the 25th. It actually reminded me of the Fringe Festival in Edmonton with all the people in a small area, live performances and lots and lots of food and beer.
We were a little tired so we went back to the hotel early. Unfortunatly the party went all night all throughout the city so our sleep that night was minimum.
Oh well, sleep is overrated anyway.

permalink written by   Chris Pagett on February 21, 2009 from Merida, Mexico
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Day tour to Celestun

Celestun, Mexico


Wading Flamigos
On Sunday we embarked on a tour to Celestun. A little place on the East Coast that is famous for the migration of flamingos. They come to the shallow waters of this area to feed. They are a different kind of bird to watch and seeing them take flight is cool but after awhile they get boring.

Taking off

Celestun is about 200 km from Merida, it was a 1h 45min bus ride. Once there we got on to a small power boat where we went down this inlet to see the flamingos. We stayed there watching them for a about 5-10 minutes then were taken to this cool canal inbetween Mangroove trees.

Mangrove canal
This was cool. The driver of the boat sped through this narrow passage into the canal( a little scary but excilerating). We then docked and walked through a maze of fresh water springs, one of which you could swim. We were told there are over 150 different spieces of fish through these springs and in the salt water confines of the inlet. Did I mention there are also Crocodiles in the inlet? I didn´t see any though.
We then board the boat which took us back to the mainland where we were treated to a great lunch of a salad or shrimp/octopus cocktail for an appeitizer and fried or bread white fish for our entree.
After lunch we lay on the beach for about an hour before we had to board the bus back to Merida. The Gulf of Mexico is nothing like the Caribbean. The water there was brown and murky. I put on the snorkling gear but couldn´t even see my hand in front of my face. I stayed in there for 5 minutes, it was pretty gross.
All and all the tour was worth it.

permalink written by   Chris Pagett on February 22, 2009 from Celestun, Mexico
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My Birthday Dinner

Merida, Mexico


Joe Cool
Em took me to a nice little restaurant a couple hours after the tour. There was a live band and a nice atmosphere with a table looking out onto the street. The food was great but to much for us to finish. We basically had a huge plate of meat with different sauces some onion and lettuce which we wrapped with tortillas.

Beautiful

permalink written by   Chris Pagett on February 23, 2009 from Merida, Mexico
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Last day in Merida

Merida, Mexico

Today was Em´s B-day. It was a pretty low key day. We had planned on going to Progresso but found out from these travellers we had met at our hotel from Chile that is wasn´t worth the trip. We took their advice. They gave us an alternate plan to go check out the Cenotes (big holes created by meteores that are filled with crystal clear water) but we were worried about not being able to find them. We plan on going snorkling in them on our way back to the Yauctan. At night we went for Salbutes (Shredded Turkey with lettuce, tomato onion and Guacamole on a fried tortilla) her new favorite dish and we then took in another night at Carnaval.

All in all I enjoyed Merida but both Em and I agreed we spend one to many days there.


permalink written by   Chris Pagett on February 23, 2009 from Merida, Mexico
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Bad luck. Should have checked first.

Campeche, Mexico

This morning we thought we would get an early start but not to early. We left the hotel at 9am went and got breakfast and made it to the bus station by 9:45 fully expecting a 7 hour bus trip to Palenque. Turns out the bus left at 8:30am and there wasn´t another one until 9pm. What to do? We were not going to spend another day in Merida so We got a ticket to Campeche.
Campeche, on the East coast bordering the Gulf of Mexico, was beuatiful. It is what you think of when you picture small Mexican cities with very colourful Stone buildings. It has a population of 300,000 and a bloody history with pirates. At one time because of the constant looting by pirates the city erected walls to defend the city.

Defense

They have since been torn down but the Stone was still used for buildings and other walls that flank the city centre. The city is also a Unesco world heritage site. Both Em and I were happy we went to Campeche.

We didn´t stay overnight though. we though it would be best to get to Palenque that night so we didn´t miss a day. We got the first bus at 10pm and arrived in Palenque at 4am.

permalink written by   Chris Pagett on February 24, 2009 from Campeche, Mexico
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