Throwback to Mexico - How I wandered around the Yucatan Peninsula

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January 2014

It is almost a year now since Klara and me had that idea of leaving the poor winter behind and chase the migrating birds somewhere warmer.  I've heard awesome stories from people going to Cancún and how this is the place you wanna be at while going for your winter vacation.  So all revved up we couldn't wait for celebrating the New Years Eve on the beautiful beaches that we knew from pictures online that lure you to visit the party capital of Mexico - Cancún.

We didn't spend a single day in Cancún. It kinda threw the same party atmosphere on us that you see anywhere else in the 'western' world.  Drunk Brits, party American teenagers and occasional confused German tourists.  Nothing new to us.  So we rented a sweet ride and set off for the adventure down south.  Playa del Carmen, same stuff but smaller - there's not even any public beach there. So we carried on in our southbound expedition.

Yucatan is the centre of Maya civilisation and that's why there's so much more to being there than drinking the same tequila as you get anywhere else, and siting beside the pool and playing it cool. Places like Tulum, although it's also on the verge of being devoured by tourism, Mahahual and the magical Mosquitero peninsula, and west from there Chetumal, Calakmul and plenty of other places that we didn't manage to visit in the ten days we spent there. 

By meeting very generous locals that seemingly didn't have much to offer, yet were extremely rich in having the freedom of not being "consumed" , finding white-sand beaches, where we didn't meet a single person for days, we again realised it doesn't take much effort to discover a paradise.  Swimming with turtles in cenotes, the mysterious bottomless holes that Mayas worshiped and that kept them alive by supplying fresh water, enjoying local cuisine in family restaurants so good it gives you diarrhoea, camping far away from the civilisation, somewhere in the middle of a vast green ocean of jungle, seeing a flock of real wild parrots - that's the real Mexican experience, alas, not discovered and it even seems like avoided by many.