Author archive
20 August 2011
Above: Not a very successful day. Swimming or snorkelling with the whale-sharks is one of the most highly-rated adventures in Isla Mujeres. We reported at 0800 to Sea Hawk dive centre and as soon as they had a confirmed location for the sharks (by radio from a spotter craft), we set off. It was a 40km […]
19 August 2011
Having had a good run with the ADO buses in Mexico, we were rather surprised that our final ride, from Merida to Cancun was 2 hours later than the scheduled time of 0925. The bus had originated in Mexico City some 24 hours ago and it must have had various delays along the way. We […]
18 August 2011
Many travellers try to do everything themselves. I take a balanced approach … today’s excursion to Chichen Itza cost MXP350 (NZD35) which sounds expensive. It would have cost MXP240 do it by public transport. The difference is easily justified by the inclusions (eg. big buffet lunch, good guide, transport to a swimming hole) and of […]
17 August 2011
We arrived in Merida late yesterday afternoon after an all-day bus ride from Villahermosa, departing at 0750 and getting here at 1625. There isn’t actually that much to see in Merida itself but the atmosphere is lovely. We devoted the day to relaxing and absorbing the ambience. We took a peek at the cathedral and […]
15 August 2011
Villahermosa isn’t a touristy place but more of an oil city. It is quite nice to be in a place where locals are being themselves … actually none of our previous cities are dominated by tourism, but this is even less touristy. Because it is less touristy, we had trouble changing money at the bank. They […]
14 August 2011
Today’s the hardest day in our Mexican adventure, in terms of road travel anyway. It was a 13h scheduled ride from Oaxaca at 0900 to Villhermosa, arriving at 2200. Fortunately it was a very comfortable bus, again with Grupo ADO. The alternative was a 6h journey bus-ride (or short flight) to Mexico City to connect […]
13 August 2011
We toured the countryside today through a travel agent as it would be impossible to cover so much ground in one day by public transport. And it wasn’t expensive at about MXP200 (about EUR10) for 9 hours excluding admission tickets and lunch. First stop was the town of Tule to see the fattest tree in […]
12 August 2011
Today we opted not to visit Monte Alban near here … they’re ruins of pyramids. Having just seen Teotihuacan and also going to others later, I thought it would be “too much”. Instead we’d do some things around town today and do a non-pyramidal excursion out of town tomorrow. It proved to be the right […]
11 August 2011
Mexico’s highly-dangerous Taxi Libre We needed to get to the long-distance bus terminal and didn’t feel like negotiating the steps with our luggage. The alternative was to go by taxi. Radio-taxis ordered by the hotel are very expensive (about EUR5 for a little bit around the corner). So we decided to hail a taxi libre […]
10 August 2011
Because a couple of museums/sights were closed two days ago (Monday), we had quite a bit we wanted to do today in the megacity. I didn’t think we could do it all. I wanted to go to have a ride around town, go see the ruins at Templo Mayor, see the Palacio Nacional and cruise […]