At a border - again

How easy it is to get used to all of this again, all the things we come here for to escape the northern climes: heat, green, blossoms, fragrances. But it's not only that, it's much, much more: the sound of Spanish voices, people sitting outside in front of their houses right next to the curb, visiting, looking up when we pass with a friendly 'Hola', or 'Buenos Días', children and dogs everywhere, music blaring from every little storefront, the auto repair shop, somebody's backyard, bougainvilleas spilling over broken walls, crews cleaning streets with brooms and dust pans, mothers walking arm in arm with their almost adolescent children, having animated conversations, mothers and fathers out for a walk, each carrying a sleeping toddler – much more common than strollers, for some reason -, an old man riding a bike, his wife sitting in the box in front of him ... Coming back to all that has been wonderful!

We are now in Chetumal, a city of about 150,000 on the east coast of the Yucatán peninsula, very close to the border to Belize. From here we are going to take the bus to Orange Walk, a much smaller town in Belize, about an hour's drive from here.

'Hostel Manik', where we stayed last night, is very close to the ADO bus station, just across the street, not the most inspiring part of town but convenient when you carry a heavy backpack. For just one night a clean room with air condition, a hot shower and wifi is totally sufficient, even if it's small. It's no comparison, however, to the place where we stayed the first couple of nights in Playa del Carmen. We had been looking for a hotel away from the holidaying crowds, and I found the Casa Ejido more or less by chance when I checked out booking.com. 

 

Colonia Ejidal

We arrived in Cancun early Sunday morning, took the bus to Playa del Carmen and, with a whole day ahead of us, decided we could walk to our hotel; 2.5 km seemed not too far. The bus depot where we arrived was pretty close to the beach, right at the edge of the city centre, quite opposite from where we needed to be. On our way along the main thoroughfare, Benito Juarez, we saw few tourists at that time of day (obviously no cruise ship had arrived recently), but many of the little shops and restaurants were open. We stopped at one of them for breakfast, the first test of ordering something in Spanish. I had been hopeful that my recent exposure to more of Michel Thomas's Spanish lessons would miraculously make things easy for me now, or at least easier, but on this first occasion, fresh from the plane after a sleepless night, with a cold muddling my ability to think straight, I failed rather miserably. Thanks to a patient cook and an illustrated menu, however, we didn't have to go hungry, and the 'huevos revueltos' – scrambled eggs – with onion, tomato, rice and refried beans, plus three different kinds of 'salsa picante' tasted great. Since then my confidence has returned, and I see now that I do understand more than last time. It helps that I learned something about verb conjugation; I don't feel like quite such an idiot anymore, even if I still make lots of mistakes.

We found the Casa Ejido hotel without trouble, and to our relief we were told we could move in pretty much right away, even if it was still more than two hours before the official check-in time. We would, however, not live in the main hotel but in an 'apart hotel' a few blocks away. An employee picked us up with one of those bicycles with a carrier in the front which, loaded with our backpacks, Johann helped her push. A front gate had to be unlocked, we crossed a shady yard where a black iguana-like lizard lazily blinked at us, climbed two sets of stairs, and were overwhelmed when we opened the door to our 'room'. For Can. $40/night we had not expected something like this! 

The room was huge, at least four by eight metres, with a king and a queen size bed, a fully equipped kitchen, a neat bathroom and even a little balcony with a table and chairs and a hammock, perfect to have breakfast and sit at night, watching the moon rise between the palm and avocado trees. Emerald-green parakeets with orange heads, their plumage glittering in the sunshine, announced their arrival in nearby trees with a lot of noise, swallows dipped and rose during the day, bats darted by in the evenings. We couldn't have asked for a better place to get acclimatized.

On the first afternoon we walked to the beach, had a drink in one of the beach-side bars, enjoyed the cool breeze, warm water and white sands, but not the crowds and noise. On the second day we picked up our great-niece Lara from Switzerland at the language school where she is taking a course right now and spent a nice afternoon at our place with her.

Yesterday's bus ride, about four and a half hours, was pleasant, leading by all the big beach-side hotels between Playa del Carmen and Tulum, with a short stop in Tulum to let off most of the passengers. Close to Chetumal we passed through an area we decided to keep in mind if we had lots of time on our hands at the end of our trip: Balacar Lake looked like a beautiful place to spend some time. I looked it up later: it is the second largest freshwater lake in Mexico, about 45 km long and less than 2 km wide, with a very deep Cenote with underwater caves just to the south of it.

It rained every once in a while, but once we arrived here the sun was shining again, and it was as hot as ever. Now it's time to pack up: checkout is in twenty minutes, and the bus leaves in a couple of hours.