Rolo on Tour

On Thursday I wanted to launch my second attempt to get to Chichen Itza and indeed, this time I managed to go there. Well first I did some laundry and enjoyed the most luxurious breakfast I have had so far (big bonus for that hostel). Then I got onto a bus to Chichen Itza, where I had some guided tour. I learned, that the Mayans seemed to have all sorts of ¨magic numbers¨, each of which had some meanings. The guide would point at all sort of formations and tell us to count for example the number of steps. As there were also some cases where this did not lead to a magic number, I believe that some of the cases where there was magic just have to be coincidences.
Well, returning from that trip, it was nice to welcome Jeremy and Anastasia to my dorm. And the 3 of us had a really great time in Mérida. As it would take some time to write about everything, I just concentrate on the highlights ;-):

This cute tiny cat, the main reason, why I went to Hostel Zocalo in the first place (Dominik had told me about it). Jeremy called her Nacho Libre.

On Friday I managed to lose my sunglasses while we were walking around town. This did not surprise me, as I had only needed one week to become a complete dumbass. I would forget everything, especially towels and keys I always left somewhere. Any recommendations on how to avoid that??

During this walk, Anastasia looked for some bag in a shop. Luckily I saw some colorful balls lying around in this shop, so I started juggling with them. One thing led to another and Jeremy started shooting videos. I was very ambitioned to get all my tricks done, so it took us 19 tries until I was satisfied. As it turned out, this is also the amount of time needed to buy a bag 😉 Moreover it turned out that Jeremy liked the ones, where I failed, more. Afterwards I kind of felt obliged to buy those balls, but this little extra weight was nothing compared to Jeremy’s, who bought a hammock that day:

At night, there was a halloween party and Jeremy happened to have some costumes in his bag (The pirate and the canadian hockey player). So the rest of the day was devoted to finding a halloween costume for Anastasia and I think the result was kind of impressive, as we just used some sheets, ropes and leaves and there she was: a greek goddess!

No, that is not how I got my blue eye.

The party was really fun, but also as a result, we did not do much for the rest of the time we spent in Mérida. Well, we visited some traditional mexican market for several times. Although half of that market consisted of shoes, Anastasia could not make a choice. Also there was all kind of action in the streets, as day of the dead (2nd of November) was arriving.
Interestingly enough we met Rob and Claire on Sunday. We later had some great tortas (bread with meat and salsa) on the street and Claire ordered a „Crepe solo nutella muchos“ for dessert.

On Monday, we finally did something. We got by a colectivo (A colectivo is a bus, which departs, when there are a certain amount of passengers.) to a place called Cozama, where you could visit some Cenotes. But the way to get to these Cenotes was kind of unusual: There was a track, on which you were transported in some small cart pulled by a horse. Sometimes, especially uphill, it got really hard for the horse, so Jeremy and me would assist from time to time ;-).

Also, as there was only one track for both directions, there were lots of opportunities to play the Chicken Game.

Here we were the chickens 🙁

The trip was great and I recommend to anybody who happens to be in Mérida, to try it.

In the evening, unfortunately I had to rush (due to some misbooking) to catch my nightbus to Palenque, so there was little time to say goodbye to Jeremy and Anastasia at the restaurant we were at. 5 great days in Mérida were behind me and I could only hope meeting more such great people on my future paths.

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When I arrived in Tulum in the Weary Traveler Hostel, the first persons I saw where fellow travellers, whom I had met in Playa del Carmen. Luckily, as I arrived relatively early that day, I could still get some breakfast, the only problem was that I had to prepare it myself. So I got some pancakes and it turned out to be a complete desaster, but at least I was the only person having to eat that ;-). Afterwards I went to the internet cafe next to the hostel in order to write my last blog entry. Well, while I was there, I got surprised by Dominik and Jeremy, so we were back together again. We decided to see the Maya ruins of Tulum, so I went back to the hostel to grab my stuff and ran into Rob and Claire, the australian couple we had played cards with the other day. It seemed like almost the whole Hostel had moved from Playa del Carmen to Tulum!
At the ruins we asked some information guide about the ruins and he said something like: „You have two options to see the ruins. First option: You get there by bus, an informative guide will tell you anything about those ruins and later you will get back by bus. Or you can walk there, just see some rocks and go back.“ Of course we were totally into rocks ;-).

The next morning I decided to be on the safe side and not try pancakes again. Afterwards I got ready for a snorkeling tour, which was offered in the hostel. Unfortunately my expectations for that did not get fulfilled at all: We spent approximately 1,5 hours in preparation for getting to the sea to see some turtles just to find out, that you are not allowed to go in there,  so we were heading back to snorkle in so called cenotes. Cenotes are caves filled with water, where you can swim, snorkel or even dive. The problem was that my fins sucked and I also had problems with my mask, so I could not really enjoy it. Afterwards we were shooting some pictures and I hope I will be able to post one of them, which turned out to be a great shot, really soon here.

(Pic)

Edit (9.4.11.): Well, I never received that pic, too bad…

When we were diving in the cenotes, we met an underwater fotographer, who was shooting some pictures of us. Afterwards he was trying to sell his pictures by showing us the pictures he made on his laptop. Well one french guy decided that he would rather make photos of the laptop showing photos with his own camera. But what amazed me the most was the fact that the had absolutely no understanding that the thing he did there was clearly wrong.

After getting back from the snorkeling tour I ran into Anastasia, a Journalist from Sweden, who had witnessed my pancake cooking skills the other day. As we all had the same plans, we went to the beautiful beach of Tulum with Rob and Claire.  When we were there, I noticed some big wooden sticks on the beach and I was very eager to get a good picture there with us:

Most Credits here go to Rob, who pushed the self-timer of the camera and managed to climb up there in 10 seconds (and look totally relaxed!).

The next morning it was time for me to say goodbye to Tulum, so I went to catch my bus to Mérida. After some boring 4 hours of not seeing anything remotely interesting on the road I arrived there and went to Hostel Zocalo, where I was planning to stay. And again the first persons I met were Moni and Ingo, whom I had met in Cancún. After I was done getting a haircut we went out to grab some tacos (as I have done nearly every day so far). Later I was shooting some christmas pictures for them on the big square in front of the hostel where I also happened to witness probably the worst clowns I have ever seen in my life.

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Cancún:

Luckily I got accostumed pretty fast to that air conditioning problem and have not had any problems since the first night.  I spent two afternoons at the beach, which was quite empty – quite surprising as it was a beautiful sandy beach and the water had the perfect color.

Most of the evenings were spent in the hostel, drinking some beer on the roof. On Wednesday I also went out to a club called Señor Frogs with Moni and Ingo, a german couple. On the way there suddenly I was wondering „WTF, why is there a lion on the sidewalk???“. And indeed there was a guy with a baby lion on his chain. The lion was really angry and was trying to break out. While we walked by, he asked „You wanna buy a lion?“, at least that is what I heard. The german couple later told me that he actually said: „Wanna take a picture with the lion?“. Well anyway as a „good citizen“ I was walking by and not supporting that act of animal cruelty.

The club was really lame (some kind of stupid single party for middle-aged american people), but I could not convice the others to go to another club, so I was sitting at the nearby lagoon for some time. There I was talking to a girl who was working there. Her job was to walk around the club and ask everybody if they wanted to buy cigarettes. She spoke only spanish and I think she was happy that she could finally talk to somebody. We talked for a while and when I got home I felt kind of bad, that I can go on a 1-year-trip around the world, while she had to take on such a job.

The next morning I planned to visit Chichen Itza, a famous Maya site nearby. Well, my alarm clock didn’t agree and fell on the floor at night and therefore did not ring in the morning. The time safed hereby I used for sleeping, grabbing some tacos and deciding where to go next. Finally I decided to book a tour with a company called Bamba Experience, where you are are travelling on a given route and are participating in some activities (More Infos within the next weeks), but you can decide when to go, where to stay etc. So Friday in the morning I got breakfast, packed my things and went to Playa del Carmen.

Playa del Carmen:

I had a really great time in this place. When I got there I was looking for some hostel, in which I had decided to stay in, but i did not find it. So I ran into a place called Hostel Playa and just decided to stay there. The afternoon I spent (of course) at the beach, playing volleyball with some people which appeared to be mostly from Israel. Well honestly, most of them could not play at all, but it was nevertheless quite fun.
In the evening I had some beers with Arik (Beer-Sheva, Israel), Mike (New Jersey, USA), Dominik (Heidelberg, Germany) and Jeremy (Vancouver, Canada), as you can see here:

Later we went out for a walk and suddenly Dominik, Jeremy and I found ourselves in a beach club called Blue Parrott. It was quite fun, but at some point it got a little bit cold, as i was wearing my flip flops, so I decided to leave them alone at some point.

Saturday then was a really eventful day. The day started as usual with some tacos, hanging around and volleyball at the beach. This time Jeremy and me managed to get quite a good 3-on-3 game on with some girls from Chile, some american guy and Johnny, who is half mexican, half canadian. In the evening we started again with some beers in the hostel. Later when we were walking through the streets Dominik encountered the woman of his dreams, as he put it later, so I decided to be his wingman. Later he was kissing her sister ;-).

After staying at the Blue Parrot again until it got closed, we were sitting at the beach for some more time until the sun was rising. After finally having said goodbye to everybody Dominik, Jeremy, Johnny and me decided to go and take some breakfast. Johnny recommended chilaquiles, so I tried them and they tasted really nice. Dominik could not help himself but ordering some more beers .. At some point someone had the idea that everyone of us had to sing a song in his language. As that sounded kind of boring we decided to do that all at the same time which resulted in a quite epic video :-).  Finally at 9 AM we arrived at the hostel and were going to sleep while everybody else was just getting up.

On Sunday we did not really do much, partly because we had to get some sleep and partly because there was a storm coming – destroying all dreams of playing beach volleyball again. In the evening we decided to save some money and cook some pasta, which appeared to be quite ineffective as it resulted in us paying way more than we did the other days when going out for dinner ;-).

Afterwards we played some card games with a couple from Australia and got to bed relatively early.

So this morning I said goobye to everybody and went on to my next stop, which is going to be Tulum.

Saying goodbye to the quite funny receptionist

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Right now I am sitting in Cancún in the lobby of Hostel Quetzal, where I am staying for the first days . The last 24 hours have been kind of stressful:

The flight began as usual with me watching other passengers hurry to be first in a line to get quickly to a bus, which would bring them to the plane, where they would go to their preassigned seats. Congratulations to 30 more minutes of uncomfortable seating!

Well what do you do on a 12-hour-flight? Apart from filling out some visa forms, there is plenty of time to try to solve that for example:

The finger on that pic belongs to Marcos, a cook from Playa del Carmen, who had just visited his girlfriend in Germany. It was very nice talking to him and I could test my spanish a bit (and I realized I have to improve on that some more).

Arriving on the airport the main objective was to find the official counter, where the prices for the bus ticket into the city equaled those which where told to me in advance.

One sample conversation:

Me: I am looking for the .. ticket counter.

Him: … it is 156 Pesos.

Me:  No, it is 42 Pesos.

Him: …

Then he wanted to make me believe that the next bus would leave in 4 hours, because there where not enough tourists who wanted to drive to the city at that time :-).

But finally I found the official counter and got to the city and after one or another mistakenly followed direction eventually got to the hostel and was very happy to get a shower.

After hanging out on the roof of the hostel with the other guests for a while I decided to go sleeping. Unfortunately I could not realize this, as the air conditioning system was quite annoying. It was cold, windy and loud. At 6 o’clock I decided to ask at the reception for another blanket, which resulted in me at least having something like 1,5 hours of sleep. In the following months I definitely need to harden myself up against these air conditioners.

Well enough of that, I am now checking out the beach.

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