La Ruta Maya

After spending a weekend in Oaxaca and visiting the Zapotec ruined city of Monte Alban it was time to go to probably the world´s most talked about city in recent weeks, Mexico D.F. Only one night there, in a very nice hotel out in the suburbs across the road from Parque Mexico, and managed to secure a 90% discount as well, allegedly due to a ´Barrack Obama visits Mexico special.´

Despite giving him the name, street and district where the hotel was located, our taxi driver drove round in circles and eventually stopped to ask a colleague for help. After consulting a little black book he returned to announce, emphatically ´this hotel does not exist.´We got out to look for ourselves and promptly found it.

There were very few face masks in sight and no real evidence of anything out of the ordinary...people were too busy on their laptops outside Starbucks or one of the numerous sushi bars instead. The only thing strange about the airport was that we had our temperature taken before boarding.

Having decided to hire a car for a few days to explore the Mayan sites and Caribbean beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula, I checked the confirmation email after arriving in Merida. When booking the day before, I´d selected Merida downtown as the pickup location. So why was the full address a ´Estacion de Renfe?´That sounded a bit European. And why was their booking partner a Spanish company? Because we´d been given a location in Merida, Spain, not Mexico. Another car was hastily booked for the following morning and a refund quickly requested (and received).

On one day we visited Uxmal, Kabah and a few other sites along the ´Ruta Puuc.´Then we left Merida and headed for Chichen Itza which was as spectacular as I´d imagined, particularly the main pyramid which dominates the site. The flu had obviously kept the crowds away - not many people at Chichen Itza and virtually nobody at all at the other sites.

The only downside was it meant we were clearer targets for the numerous souvenir vendors. Kind of expect it at the ruins themselves but at a nearby village we slowed down to go over a speed bump and a man ran at the car, brandishing wooden face masks and frantically chased us down the road.

Finally there followed a couple of blissful days camping by the beach in Tulum, about 180km south of Cancun on the Caribbean coast. It was all the Caribbean should be...warm, turquoise water, soft white sand...and with the addition of a Maya ruin perched on the cliff above the sea.

After a long drive back to Merida, we returned to the hostel we´d stayed previously...and found a chilli eating contest being filmed. The result was a group of very red faced and pained looking Germans!