The Beach Goes On

A week in Tulum was enough for now but I will be back. I've been hanging at Hotel El Caracol on Isla Mujeres for a week and the time is approaching to head back to the coast of Oaxaca. The island is over the top picturesque but there will be no pictures as the new Canon has already been destroyed. I want my bad luck with cameras to stop now. I suppose I could easily make that happen by just not buying another one.


I rented a clunker of an old ten speed from Papaya Playa and ventured further down the beach away from the ruins. Hotels block access to the beach all the way down with their "Accessar Prohibido" signs. Somebody told me those signs don't apply to tourists. That's probably true as none of them are in English. It's a bit of a raw deal for the locals. Whose beach is it anyways?


Eventually I trespassed and nobody stopped me. Wow. That beach went on forever. I wanted to see how far it would go so I rode that bike on the relatively hard wet sand through the thin waves on the shore and found myself way beyond any hotels in no man's land. If you could find your way in off the road and had enough supplies, it would make the world's best camping destination.

The all inclusive/gorge on food and beverage day at Xhela

A few people warned me that XelHa was not much more than a tourist trap but I didn't listen. And I'm glad. Considering that 11 bucks bought me a tiny omelette on two pieces of Bimbo white bread with a flavorless cup of coffee and no refills on the beach where I was staying, I made the admission price back on the all inclusive food and beverage I consumed. High end stuff. Smoked salmon for breakfast. Steak for lunch. It might have lacked rugged backpacker cool but I enjoyed a day of luxury with no shame.



Lots of cenotes to check out. Mostly, it was all about the snorkelling.

I've never had very good luck snorkeling before and I chalked it up to all the years of heavy smoking destroying my lung capacity. I could never get enough air through that straw called a snorkel. Inevitably I'd get a mouthful of water and panic - "Ah! I'm drowning. Get me out of here!"- yanking my head out of the water, ripping the mask out of my way. That all changed after Xhela when an American lady taught me the secret. "Just bite down on the snorkel. I don't know why it works but it does. It sort of focuses your breathing." By golly, it worked. I ended up spending hours out there on the lake. Snorkelling is such a blast and it works up a great appetite for the buffet. I got to keep the snorkel as a souvenir. I think I'll invest in a pair of flippers since I'll be spending a year in Beachland.
I wonder why no one told me this before. Did they have poor communication skills or was I just not listening? This woman changed my life. I returned the favor by warning her about the moray eel I'd seen poking it's snout out from under a rock in the Mayan cave. You can see it for yourself in the video.

It was a park alright but it still had authentic underwater wildlife and the "Don't touch the fish" signs should be the order of the day; not just for the sake of the fish but yourself. For example, I wouldn't have dreamed of touching the stingray on the sandy lake bottom. It's not like these are tamed domestic sea critters.





I still had the waterproof camera bag from Carribean Bay in Korea and put it to good use, snapping pictures of everything. I couldn't see much through the view finder but a lot of pictures turned out very well. I kept seeing so much incredible stuff long after the batteries died.

Tulum. Brought to you by....

Everyone takes the same pictures at all the major vacation destinations like Tulum. These are mine.




Check out this vandalized banner outside the entrance for a big corporate whore house in Playa del Carmen. Either somebody felt morally affronted by the sleazery or a local competitor wanted to lower the profile.

There were giant "Welcome to Tulum" signs with bigger than life pictures of Dos Equis beer and none of the ruins. How does a brewery fit in here? Anybody?


I don't get quite as excited about ruins as some people. I like beaches and my favorite thing about the ruins of Tulum is that they come with a nice sandy cove.



Here's the beach on the west side of the ruins, about 3 km long, way better than the one by Hotel Papaya Playa.


The cabanas were more upscale and in much better shape. Guess what? They were all cheaper too at 200 pesos instead of 300. Ignore that guy at the bus station and ask the taxi driver to take you to Diamante or Azul Kim or grab a tourist map and pick a place at a random. You'll probably do better than I did.

Papaya Playa

Life doesn't get much better than travelling and hanging out at beautiful beaches. Tulum was great but could have been better. I'm a little impulsive some days and screw things up a bit. With any luck, others will learn from my mistakes like picking up stranges object on tropical beaches after dark.

When I got off the bus in Tulum, a man was passing out pamphlets for Papaya Playa at the station. Fine. Into the cab. The place looked alright. There was a cabana available right on the beach for 300 pesos. I signed up for 7 nights only to find out very soon after that I could and should have done so much better. I was just too excited about the beach.

This is the cabana I had, basically a tree fort on the sand. I hadn't even bothered to check inside. The great location was enough. It was the shabbiest cabana they had. Maintenance at this place was almost non-existent. Two of those skinny logs were missing but they sent a maintenance guy to hammer a few more in for me. Papaya Playa is the sort of place where not much gets done unless a guests brings it up because these people just don't pay attention.


I doubt my bed sheets had been cleaned since the last guest or even after I left. They were covered in sand. I never saw any laundry being gathered. Maybe that sort of thing isn't done much in the low end backpacker end of Tulum. I was at a restaurant down the road a mile for lunch and eavesdropped on a couple of guests complaining to the manager that they'd just arrived the night before and found their sheets black with filth. My mosquito net was dark with old dead bugs. Kind of a moldy place.

I liked it better in the morning when the sunlight came pouring through the gaps of the logs. I convinced myself that I hadn't done too badly. By the middle of the week, I was cursing the place loudly. My cabana was closest to the damn bar and restaurant and we were the only place on the beach that had loud tasteless music blasting until lights went out. So much for the peaceful sound of gentle Carribean waves. How about trying to sleep with crappy monotonous club music pounding away with all the bass those speakers could deliver? As the hour got later, the music got louder. I walked out one night to glare at them. They had zero customers.



Compared to Papaya Playa, every other place seemed clean and serene. They seemed to be going for a dirty party hole atmosphere and it didn't always bring out the best in the guests. I was woken up after 6 hours of sleep by some retired Slovakians standing in a big group right outside my cabana talking at the top of their lungs.

"Hey, it's 6 o'clock in the morning!"

A snide old hag with Marge Simpson hair said it all. "Oh, is it?" In fact I was wrong. Make that 5:30. This wasn't a matter of forgetting their manners. They didn't have any. A shady looking old creep drained the last of a vodka bottle.

One of the most frustrating nights was when the power went down for a short while. It could have been so great, nothing but soft waves and moonlight, but their damn stereo had backup power. There were no lights for reading but, boys, we had loud low end music to spare.

Papaya Playa isn't located on the best stretch of beach either. It's a small part of the shoreline separated from the rest by coral cliffs so a whim to wander further means a trip down the road, not a welcome proposition after dark.

hermit crab

I´m staying in Tulum for at least a week at Papaya Playa. Electricity from a generator for only 5 hours a day. Even the coolers at the local store are stuffed with ice. No internet of any kind.


Had a scare last night. Picked up a curious round thing off the sand outside my cabana last night. It bit my thumb, drew blood and ran off. I could see another one moving slowly in the dark, a bit lighter colored than the first and thought it might be a small coiled snake. I can be a quick learner so I didn´t pick this one up. Went to the desk. The night manager and I checked it out together. It was a big hermit crab, non-poisonous but very strong. It clamped down with a steel grip on my key.


The little things that happen to you just when you´re getting ready for bed. In my excitement to determine whether or not I´d been fatally wounded and had poison tearing up my bloodstream, I lost my key. Turned out that the night manager had it all the time. He´s almost as absent-minded as I am. I thought I must have left it in my room and there are no spares at this place. No problem. I broke in so easily without having to kick down the walls. Flick. The latch for the window popped free. I was in. I knew it wasn´t a high-security structure. That´s the charm. It´s right on the beach and the early morning sun pours between the logs. Any security is just an illusion. Two logs were missing when I took it, leaving a gap big enough for a skinny person to just crawl through. I could almost do it but my rib cage was just a tad too wide. They replaced the logs.

Canon Sumidero

New camera and all, I headed off to magnificent Canon Sumidero this morning. Too bad the battery died. You would have been astounded by this place. Maybe it was for the best. I took in the whole thing without filtering it all through the viewer screen. OK. There are a few shots but they're all before the canyon rises to 100 metres and the river narrows.

Here's a link to somebody else's shots.
http://www.chiapastravelandtours.com/touren2.php
I sat beside a young guy on the van who just wouldn't be impressed by anything. "They talk it up like it's one of the wonders of the world but..." I couldn't relate. This is my second time and it had an even bigger impact on me than the first. This samp even had the choice seat on the boat, elevated above the rest of us right beside the captain.


For some reason we were all given green wristbands to wear and we all had to raise our hands to this guy who made sure we all had them.


We saw three crocodiles! The captain pushed the boat right up against these reeds and I still couldn't see anything. He pushed even closer and that discarded car seat I'd noticed turned into a crocodile. That beast was huge. We pushed on. Those motionless logs seem to blend in so well. I could see myself stepping on one.
They may have been the reason for the wristbands, to identify which boat we fell out of when they analyze the crocodile poop.


Next stop was a charming colonial city, Chiapa de Corzo, I hadn't realized was part of the tour. Total bonus. The sulky boy wasn't impressed. "I was ready to leave in five minutes." He hadn't strayed far from the van.

I walked along and found myself down by another section of the river with a string of restaurants, all featuring marimba bands, wooden xylophones and snare drums. The place I stopped at had small indoor wading pool to keep the children happy while adults enjoyed a bit of down time. There was a miniature xylophone for a three foot four year old raring to go. They had a hard time getting him to hold back and wait for the rest to show up and start the gig. His sticks were poised and ready. He sang.

It was one of those clean, mellow Mexican cities that make you want to chill for a bit. I saw the local Cathedral and realized how much I love these rustic ancient structures. I would have taken a picture. They're not a case of "seen one you've seen 'em all" to me. I thought, "If only we could find a more relevant use for them, like switching ashtrays to candy or soap dishes." Well, here they're halfway there. The rear half, with a serene garden, is the the town museum. Now that's more like it. I think they would all make great museums or hotels or scary houses for Halloween. I realize I can be offensive at times. It's good to remember that I never mean to be and I realize my mistake now (too late) when I shared that thought back at the van with some other travellers who came from countries that call themselves democracies but are still essentially theocracies. Ah well. The best social progress always comes gradually and naturally.

I loved Chiapa de Corzo. It had music, architecture, ice cream and was full of happy people. Meanwhile Mr. Sampy Drawers worked on dimishing the day for everyone else on board. He had others agreeing the city had been a waste of time. He had stayed behind to convince the driver to cut our city stop short. Too bad for him the rest of us wandered off so fast. It must suck to be so cranky and hard to please. Anybody surprised that he wanted McCain to win?

I've been so impressed with Chiapas this year. Even the drives through the countryside to the main tour destinations have been incredible. I'll have to come back. It's time I relocated to a warmer climate where the cold doesn't drive me out of bed at 6:30 AM. I have a ticket to Tulum tomorrow afternoon. Time to hit the beach.

Mor photos of the Canon excursion courtesy of a very helpful and considerate lady I met on the Chiflon trip. Thank you, Erendira Griego Fernandez! Great pics!

Yay! New Camera

I'm a picture taking fool again. Picked up a new Canon at a reasonable to me price. Maybe it was marked up a bit but they threw in a camera case and a tripod. I am thrilled. It's the Canon PowerShot SD1100. I anticipate a lot of fun with this new toy and I'm determined not to lose it.
Pictures of beautiful San Cristobal. Maybe the political upset was still fresh last time I was here. It's so much cleaner and mellow than I remember. These days Oaxaca has more graffiti, not that it's a contest.







Look at that face. That's a happy guy.


I'm revisiting Canon Sumidero tomorrow and then I'll move to a warmer climate again.