After soaking up the sun and ensuring Dani had had her fill of cheap seafood it was time to leave Belize and head to Mexico. Having done the research earlier, we knew it was going to be cheaper (and longer) to head back to Belize City and then take the bus from there to Chetumal (the first town in Mexico) rather than take the quicker but much more expensive ferry that went via San Pedro directly to Chetumal and only took 90 minutes. We jumped on the 7.30am ferry to Belize City (having had one last Jenny Special fry jack) and were soon back on the mainland and heading to the bus station. At the bus station the only person who seemed to know about buses to Mexico was the man at the ADO store who wanted to book us on the very expensive 11am bus to Chetumal and as it was only 9am this didn’t really appeal. I had read a blog that said the Chetumal bus left from the furthest gate in the station so that’s where we planted ourselves. It was lucky that I had read this because at 9.10am up pulled a bus to Chetumal (14 BZD/$7 USD/9.20 AUD) and people were stampeding to get on it, as the next bus wasn’t for another hour. Quickly seeing the stampede we used our backpacks to block people and secure our places on the bus as everyone tried to scramble in front of us (we had officially adjusted to the Latin American way of just pushing instead of the British ‘form an orderly queue’ mentality). Once on we settled into the journey that we believed should only take a few hours in total, however we didn’t even arrive at the border until just after midday. The Belizean border was quick and efficient and after paying our $20 USD (40 BZD/$26.35 AUD) exit fee we jumped back on the bus to head to the Mexican border. Upon arrival, we alighted with our bags and headed inside the building, only to discover there was only one customs officer working and an annoyingly long queue of people snaked around the room. By the time we got through immigration, nearly an hour after arriving, our bus had left. It turned out that this was not common practice as there were enough Belizeans on board, who had clearly done this journey before, were irritated as the bus is definitely supposed to wait for all of us to clear immigration and then continue on to Chetumal. After having our bags scanned (not something we are used to having to do at a land border) we were told that we would have to wait for the next bus to come through. Dreading the thought of having the wait for the bus that was scheduled for an hour later than ours and having to wait for its passengers to clear customs we were pleasantly surprised when a bus pulled up 15 minutes later to take us to our final stop for the day. Figuring we would be pulling up to a real bus station we hadn’t worried when we missed the opportunity to change money at the Belizean border nor when there were no money changers at the Mexican border. Going into a relatively developed country and a big enough city we figured ATMs would be plentiful and easily accessible. When we pulled up to a glorified car park with a snack shack in the middle of what appeared to be the middle of nowhere we started to feel mild concern regarding our lack of useful money. We asked if anyone would change money for us or if there was an ATM nearby…everyone said no and told us that the nearest ATM was a taxi-ride away but not to worry as it would be very cheap. This would have been a fine solution had the source of the need for an ATM in the first place been a total lack of appropriate money! They also said that the best chance for accommodation was about 2km away and if we couldn’t take a taxi we’d have to walk. Knowing that we had to return to the same car park in the morning to take the colectivo to Tulum we didn’t really want to end up so far away. Both of us tiring and starting to despair we made the decision that I would do a quick scout around to see if there was any accommodation near by. Only 2 minutes down the road I found what felt like a little oasis…Posada Costa Azul. It was a roadside hotel and not only did they have rooms (550MX/$37.56 AUD/28.95 USD for a double room with aircon and ensuite) they also said they’d accept American dollars (and it turned out also card). Running back to Dani with my discovery it wasn’t long before we were settled into our room and able to go out and find an ATM without bags. We set off to find the Walmart that was on my map as we had been told at the bus station that this was where the closest ATM was. Only about 100m into our walk, just past the gas station on the main road visible from the bus station was an ATM. How had no one at the bus station known about this ATM?! Knowledge of this would have prevented huge amounts of stress and a concerning spike in my wife’s blood pressure! Money swiftly procured, we continued our journey on to Walmart (as we hadn’t seen a western supermarket in months) to get some food and stock up on some of those comfort items we hadn’t seen in a while! It’s odd the things you realise you miss when you’ve been on the road for a long time. After a really good night’s sleep we got up the next morning and crossed the road back to the bus station. It was here we needed to take our first colectivo to Carillo (90 MX/$6.15 AUD/4.75 USD) and we were on our way within 10 minutes of arriving. In Carillo we were dropped off in a different location to where the colectivos to Tulum were leaving from. Once out of the minivan we were ushered into a taxi to take us to the other station. Surprisingly, it seemed that a taxi to the right station was included in the cost of the colectivo as none of us (including the Mexican passengers) paid the taxi driver when we were dropped off. It was a quick transition and we were soon on our way to Tulum (65 MX/$4.45 AUD/3.45 USD), which was to be our final destination for the next 4 days. Pulling into Tulum I’m not sure it was what either of us had been expecting. A total gringo town on the surface, but everyone was friendly and we had been travelling for 2 days so it would certainly do. Dani set off to find us somewhere to stay and came back quickly with a room for 400MX ($27.30 AUD/21.05 USD) at Hostel Riviera Maya which felt like an amazing deal considering it had a private bathroom and it was definitely peak season so there weren’t a lot of cheap deals to be had. Our first priority on arriving in Tulum was to find some good local food. We have both been looking forward to trying authentic Mexican food since we had started planning the Central American part of this trip and our time was finally here. After checking out a few places we stumbled across a BBQ chicken place that had some amazing looking food for Dani, so she ordered a plate and what arrived was huge. A massive plate of rice, beans, ¼ of a BBQ chicken, salad and the biggest stack of tortillas we’d ever seen. It all looked so good I ended up ordering a vegetarian version. This feast set us back a whole 75 MX ($5.10 AUD/3.95 USD), we were astounded! We had 2 activities that we wanted to do while we were in Tulum. One was to visit the ruins, which are the only Mayan ruins in Mexico located on a waterfront. We found out that you could catch one of the colectivos heading towards Playa del Carmen for 20 MX ($1.35 AUD/1.05 USD) and that they would drop you on the main road about 800m from the ruins, which was by far the cheapest way to get there (we decided to walk back to town but you can flag one of these down in reverse to get back and they will flash their lights at you and stop if they have space in the van). The ruins (70 MX/$4.80 AUD/3.70 USD) are gorgeous and very different to others in the area due to the beachside setting, but make sure you get there early because it becomes quite unpleasant when all the tour groups start arriving around 10.30am. Having spent a good 2 hours wandering around we decided we would walk back to town via the beach…this turned out to be a stupid move as not only was it VERY long but it also put us out in the midday sun walking back with no shade and thus very little reprieve from the heat. This meant that by the time we arrived at the supermarket (about 2.5km away from our hostel) we were knackered but they did have cold drinks and aircon, which was enough to give us the boost we needed to complete the journey back to our hotel. The second activity we had penciled in was a cooking course. Desperate to be able to take the secrets of Mexican cuisine away with us we eagerly signed up to the amazing sounding class run by Rivera Kitchen, despite it being quite expensive ($75 USD/97.20 AUD). We met at the owner’s son’s house in Tulum centre where we were picked up in a taxi and driven to her house about a 15-minute drive out of town. It definitely felt like a good home-style cooking class to begin with as we were warmly welcomed by Lily who asked us all about our previous Mexican food experiences and then told about the menu for the day. There were 4 other people doing the class that day and everyone seemed friendly. Unfortunately, we soon realised that almost all of the cooking was done by Lily and her son (throughout the duration of the 3 1/2hr class we chopped a tomato each, pressed some tortillas and rolled some flautas). Don’t get me wrong we had a really wonderful time getting to know the others in the class, drinking good beer and eventually eating the food that had been prepared but neither of us left feeling like we had a better grasp on Mexican cuisine than we had arrived with (although we do have recipes now) and for the cost of the course this was a real shame. Our last stop on this short visit to Mexico was in Cancun from where we would catch our flight to Cuba. Having checked out the ADO bus we realised it would be just as quick and cost a hell of a lot less to catch a collectivo to Playa del Carmen (40 MX/$2.75 AUD/2.10 USD) and then another colectivo to Cancun (40 MX/$2.75 AUD/2.10 USD). This was a really easy process as the Playa colectivos stop right next to the Cancun colectivos and the Cancun colectivos terminate opposite the ADO bus station. Having read that Cancun was a bit seedy and full of resorts we had decided to arrive the day before our flight and stay near the bus station, as we needed to take a really early ADO bus to the airport (78MX/$5.15AUD/$4.10USD). It turned out that we both kind of liked Cancun and outside of Zona Hotelera it really wasn’t that bad. We spent the afternoon wandering around and picking up last minute bits for Cuba (all about the preparation needed in our next blog) before stumbling upon a great food market near our hostel. This place had every Mexican street food snack you could have ever wanted and all really cheap, so knowing that we had almost 3 weeks in Cuba ahead of us we decided to gorge ourselves on tasty treats before we went. We rolled back to our hostel (Moloch Hostel: 240 MX/16.40 AUD/12.65 USD per night in an 8 bed female dorm) and into our room ready for our next adventure.
1 Comment
mick
21/4/2022 10:07:50 pm
Awesome experience, thanks for sharing. The cooking course experience was fun to read. I want to share a school that is specialized in cooking classes. "Trupp the Chef's Table". https://truppthechefstable.com They have courses suited both for beginners and advanced cooks on the kitchen. Once again, thanks!
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