The first of three 4.30 am starts
was last Friday, as Robbie and I got up to head to the ferry port to make our
way to the mainland, and San Pedro Sula. After meeting Lisa and Olivia, and
Ellie and Bryony, we went to the City Mall (as we always do in San Pedro) and
then caught up on all the stories we each had from the last two months.
The next morning was another 4.30
am start, as we took a bus from the terminal to Flores, a city in the north of
Guatemala, more or less half way to Playa del Carmen, our destination in
Mexico. The first bus was about five hours, mostly spent sleeping, before we
got to a service station to change buses. Now, after paying 700 lempiras (35
dollars) for the bus, and any volunteer will know it is very hard to part with
that amount of money, we got on to our second bus of the day. With all the
seats taken, us six had to sit on the floor for a good two hours before people
started to get off. Feeling every gear change and every bump in the road, it
was a very long two hours before we eventually got three seats between the six
of us and made that work, all of us somehow squished in! We got to Flores late
at night, it was a shame to only see it in the dark because it seems like a
beautiful city, but we got some good food and headed to bed.
The last 4.30 am start came on
Sunday morning as we got a direct bus to Belize City. To save money, Robbie has
said at the start of the day that he wouldn’t eat until we got to Mexico (which
would be at about 4 pm). I was thinking that’ll never happen. But, after being
shoved on to a bus in Belize City, we arrived at the Mexico border still
without any food. We made our way in to Mexico and on to the next bus and it
was more or less 6 pm before we ate that day. Safe to say we had quite a big
dinner to fill ourselves up! We stayed at a hostel called Hostel Playa (in
Playa del Carmen) which was most probably the best we’ve stayed in all year.
They had free breakfast (including Nutella on toast!!) great staff and we got
ourselves a private room!
The next morning we spent
exploring the town/city of Playa del Carmen, it was pretty big. We headed to 5th
Avenue which is a really long street with loads of shops – really Western so
nice to have a few home comforts for a while. We spend the afternoon chilling
on the beach which was really beautiful before cooking ourselves noodles
(typical travelling meal) for dinner.
On the Tuesday (my last day in
Mexico) we headed to Chichen Itza, one of the seven wonders of the modern
world. First of all we went to a Cenote which is a big underground cave filled
with water, where we swam and kicked out any remaining hangover from the night
before! Then we headed on to the ruins at Chichen Itza. Very impressive! A huge
main temple surrounded by lots of little buildings, we learnt a lot about the
history of the place which was really nice. It was a really good day, and thank
goodness for the bus journey back where we all slept like babies!
Then on the Tuesday night at
11.40 I had to catch a bus, and say goodbye to the group, just over 48 hours
after arriving in Mexico. So I got a direct (arctic) bus to Belize City where I
then jumped on a chicken bus (old American school bus) for 6 hours or so to
Punta Gorda in the south. Being absolutely shattered this part of the journey
can only be described as hell. Got myself on to a boat with some Nicaraguan
bloke to Puerto Barrios in Guatemala where he asked me all sorts of questions
about British history which I couldn’t answer. After spending a night there I
got a couple of buses to make it to San Pedro Sula where I wanted to get a bus
back to La Ceiba to get the boat. But…because it was the day before Good
Friday, all the buses had stopped at about 11.30, so I had to get a very
expensive taxi all the way to Ceiba with three other guys. Well, 30 dollars for
a 3 ½ hour taxi ride isn’t that bad I guess. After quite possible the worst
crossing back to Roatan ever (I threw up very badly) I made it back to Punta
Gorda for one of Mary Lou’s famous meals!
As you can tell by the amount
I’ve written about each part of the week, travelling seemed to take up much
more time that actually being in Mexico, which is very true. On reflection it
probably wasn’t the most sensible idea money-wise to travel two days to spend
two days in Mexico then travel another two days back. But oh well, I had a good
time and enjoyed spending time with the travelling group, and I had to renew my
VISA, and I can now say that I’ve been to Mexico so yeah all is good.
Oh, and my family come tomorrow,
so I am one very excited boy!
Actually now I'm posting this my family is already here so another blog will be coming soon about their visit!
Hasta Luego,
Sam xx
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