Around the Yucatan

On our clockwise circle around Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, we will visit a small fishing village near Belize, attend a festival for the Virgin of Guadalupe, explore ancient Mayan ruins, visit the seaside city of Campeche (a world heritage site!), explore more Mayan ruins, hang out in our favorite Yucatan city of Merida and enjoy its weekly music festival, and explore more Mayan ruins. 

We will start our trip in the small fishing village of Xcalak, way down near the Belize border.  I was told years ago that this area, although not all that far from Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel, is like 'Old Mexico'.  There are very few hotels, few tourists and the villages are tiny.  There are nice beaches, great snorkeling, diving and fishing.  Seafood is what to eat here.  What's not to like?

Mayan ruins are everywhere around the Yucatan, like Calakmul, above.  This ancient civilization, which flourished from around 300 BC to around 900 AD left many wonderful cities to explore.   Archeaologists say around 900 AD the Mayans mysteriously left their cities and disappeared.  Of course, they didn't disappear, the Mayan people are everywhere here. Just look at the local folks and they look just like the Mayan inscriptions on the ruins.  Many of these ancient cities are off the beaten track and are little visited, so it's possible to be the only tourists there.  Many of the sites have been well excavated and studied by archeaologists.  Others are still under the jungle and you feel like Indiana Jones when visiting them.  At the best sites, unlike Chichen Itza (which is beautiful, but crowded, clean, groomed and boring) you can climb all over the ruins and have a great time.  We'll be visiting quite a few of these, as we'll have a car for a few days.  Once we get ruin fatigue, we'll stop.  Or maybe not.

Campeche is a town we heard was nice to visit, but we never made it on our last trip to the Yucatan.  It is located on the Gulf of Mexico, so there should be some good seafood restaurants.  Looking forward to one of my favorite dishes, conche in garlic sauce!  This is also the area where they make the local version of the Panama hat.

Our last stop will be the beautiful town of Merida.  This was one of my favorite spots on our last trip here, as they close most of downtown from Thursday through Sunday for a music/culture festival.  Every little square in the city has a band playing great traditional music.  There are streetside restaurants with local musicians and the food and drink are great!  The music here is Cuban influenced, so there is lots of good Mexican/Cuban jazz from the 1930/40s and of course, Danzon!

Although we have an itinerary and kind of know where we're going, we expect lots of suprises along the way.  Isn't that what travel is all about?  So please check out our blog every once in a while. Hopefully we will be able to find an internet cafe from time to time, although we will often be out in the Mexican boonies.