Crossing the Mexican Border
Trip Start
Aug 26, 2005
1
112
126
Trip End
May 26, 2008
Tulum,
Mexico
Friday, April 4, 2008
The border crossing was interesting. A filthy river separates Guatemala and Mexico. The bus took me across a bridge and dumped me at the Immigrations post. I had to complete a form and march toward a traffic light... but for people. You hit the button and if it flashes red, you are searched, a green light gives you the go ahead to slip into Mexico without being searched. A German guy infront of me got the red light. I hit the button and it was green, thank you very much. I waited for my German buddy to be īsearchedī. it took all of 5 seconds, they looked at him and said yeah good enough, go on through.
The bus was waiting on the other side and we jumped in an continued our journey towards Tulum.
The bus pulled into a really nice terminal, with signs everywhere and no stench of human filth. This was all the reassurance i needed that i was out of central america. They have a long way to go to catchup with mexico, which has even further to go to catchup with the rest of the modern world.
I found a hostel called the weary traveler which suited me fine. I paid 100 pesos / $5 for a 6 bed dorm room and showered the filth of central america off my skin then set out to explore the town and more importantly find some food.
Across the road was a chicken place, sweet, $3 for a bbq chicken plate with rice and beans. My real motive for searching around the town this late at night was that i wanted to organise some diving in the Cenotes and caves that this area is so famous for.
I found a place called Mayadiving http://www.mayadiving.com/ who offered 2 dives for $100. I booked myself in for 2 days time and returned to the hostel to find some friends.
A bunch of english/aussie and mexicans were searching for a few more players for a game of texas holdīem and that saw me finish the night, in third place i might add, which, for a buy in of $2 was good entertainment for the night.
The next day i headed to the beach. The hostel put on a free bus, so a few of us jumped in and drove 20 minutes to an insanely white white sand beach. It was super hot, so we found a palm tree to sit under, keeping in mind the coconuts that looked ready to drop from above, we stayed away from the trunk. A barrier reef about 100 m out from the shore offers protection and some nice swimming. The water was as warm as the air and was far from refreshing, although it was wet, which was something, until the wind picked up and blew the fine sand, which was more like a poweder all over us and we packed it in and decided to sneak around the rocks and visit the Mayan ruins. Being backpackers, the $4 entry fee scared us away from paying and entering like the rest ofthe tourists and there is always a backdoor to these things.
Yo the token dutchie, Adam the english, Ofir the Israeli and myself scampered around the headland and bashed through the dry bush until we came to the wall of the ruins. sweet, we made it. But upon climbing onto the wall, we caught the attentino of a rather feisty security guard who came running toward us. We didnt stay to findout what he was about to do, but we did see him get on his radio and inform the rest of them that we were trying to sneak in. We ran through the bush and along the wall until we found another openening and tried our luck. Ofir, being an Israeli had just come out of the army and was a paratrooper instructor. He said with his army training he would be able to sneak us in. He was a fair tosser, like most other israelis and as soon as he poked his head into the ruins, he was spotted and we got yelled at again.
We cut our losses and bashed through the bush to the road. I decided i had come this far and i might as well pay $4 to see these old stones, the others werent so keen and returned to the beach..
The Mayan ruins of Tulum.
Apart from offering a nice view, the ruins were a complete ripoff and after 10 minutes wandering around the inside of the complex, teh highlight was finding the security guard who had initially spotted us. He approached me and i flashed him a grin, then my ticket. He wasnt too happy.
That night we had a bbq at the hostel and some salsa girls dancing around for entertainment.
Diving The Cenotes
The main reason for me to visit Tulum was to dive the cenotes. All around this part of Mexico are spectacular underground caverns with rivers inside called cenotes.
I had a good chat with the instructor in maya diving and he suggested i visit Angelita and Grande Cenote.
I was picked up from the hostel at 8am and taken to Angelita.
A 10 minute drive from the town, then a little jungle trail. Its unlike anything i have ever seen before, so used to diving in the ocean and off boats, it was bizarre to be hiking through the jungle to go for a dive. My dive buddy was a 40 year old Swedish guy a DM, who was on a diving holiday, living in luxury.When i told him about the hostel i was staying in, with 6 beds and a communcal shower he was a little puzzled that i could splurge on diving and live in such a horrendous place. If he only knew. The instructor was Mike, a Kiwi and experienced cave diver and our DM was David, an old englishman, who had just completed his DM.
From the surface, Angelita is a big round sink hole, almost like the blue hole in Belize, but this one is in the middle of the jungle.
The water is a beautiful deep blue, super calm, reflecting the trees surrounding it andthe roots were soaking in the clear water. A small alligator was resting on a nearby rock, not bothered at all by our presence.
I took a runup and jumped in, creating ripples arcoss the whole pund and frightening the alligator who disapeared into the water. Great! haha the others werent all that impressed with having an aligator swimming around.
We checked our buoyancy which is a littel different in fresh water. I only needed 6 pounds compared with the 11 i normally take in salt water. (with a full wetsuit)
It was time to go down.at first amazing visibility. Tree roots poking our of the limestone walls and beautiful water.
Then at about 18m/60ft i began to see what allthe fuss was about with this dive site.
A a strange wispy bottom appearing below with a few ghostly, bare limbed tree trunks and branches sticking out. As it becomes clearer you begin to feel the first effects of narcosis at the same time as you see an expanse of wispy fog below. At the top of the cloud you stop and look around, everything appears surreal and a spooky feeling takes over amplified by the effects of the nitrogen in your brain.
I spent a few minutes playing aroudn with the effect of the cloud, formed by the mixing of fresh and salt water and the decomposing vegetation.
Then it was time to descend through the cloud, for a minute I couldnt see anything except for the brownish glow of my light lights. The strong stench of sulfur penetrated through my mask. My throat was burning and with the zero visibility, narcosis and stench, it was a littel spooky.
A minute descending through the thick cloud and everything became clear again. I had popped out under the sulforous cloud, into the salt water.
I was at 40m, and looking down, there was stilla black abyss below. The light beam is swallowed up in blackness. Looking up was surreal, as if we were diving just under the clouds, with the murky glow fromthe sulfur cloud above ourheads.
After a few minutes freaking out at the effect, it was time to ascend. Slowly through the clouds and the stench again and the circling around the great hole, finally a swimthrough and some nooks and crannies in the linestone wall and then the surface appears.
A 35 minute dive time, and still on the surface you can smell the sulfur. It had penetrated my wetsuit and was stuck to my skin. A horrible smell.
A short scramble up the slope with the help of a rope ladder and then a walk to the car and it was all over.
Next up - Grande Cenote
Within the hour we were back in the water, this time at Grande Cenote. While angelita is more of a sink hole, not a cenote, this one was a true cenote in every sense of the word. An underwater river had carved its way through the limestone and when the roof caved in, it gives us the cenote. We geared up and walked down a bunch of stairs, again in the jungle with trees and birds all around.
There were a bunch of snorkelers exploring the opening to the cenote and i jumped in and as soon as i put my head under the water, it became clear why these thinsg are so popular.
Light was filtering through the jungle canopy and the rock wall, creating fingers of sunlight through the crystal clear water.
Stalectites hung from the roof and columns held it up. The 40 minute dive followed a rope, laid out to stay within the light zone. This is a popular cenote for cave divers, There are 3 entrances to deep dark and menacing caves within this cenote and great big warning signs telling other divers to stay away unless you are cave certified. The underwarter freshwater cave network is huge here, with caves extending for many kms into the limestone.
There were a few littel fish around, but i had my eyes on the roof, with the formations and sunlight making it to most spectacular dive for me so far.
It was around 1pm when all the diving was over and i returned to the bus station and headed to Merida
