We didn't have time for a great deal of sightseeing during our brief stopover in Campeche, Mexico, but one thing we did do was visit a portion of the old city wall that is open to tourists.  The entire centro area of the city was walled in the past, but today only a few portions of the wall remain.  

This was where we passed through on our way from the bus stop when walking to our hotel the day before.  The largest gate is called "Puerta de Tierra", and an attendant collects a small fee to allow you to go up the stairs to the top, where excellent views of the city can be found.  He tells you to ring the bell when you want to come back out as he locks the gate during your self-guided tour.  There was only one other man and his son who were on the wall when we went up.

It was fascinating seeing the tops of the colonial buildings.  The hotel across the street had a lovely rooftop deck, and a huge tree growing from the courtyard.  

Walking along the top of the wall, there was a big contrast between centro historico to the right and the modern city to the left.  

Something that was fascinating to us was the discovery that some of the buildings in centro were truly just facades with ruins, trees, and foliage behind -- not actually habitable spaces in their current states.  They look pretty from street level, but it's a bit deceptive!

These are a little more well-maintained...

I loved this technique of using small rocks to shore up the mortar...or is it only decorative?  I'm not sure, but I liked it!

Looking out to the "modern" part of the city from the wall, we could see the local buses (not the ADO buses we've been taking on our travels from city to city) lining up to take people on their way to different parts of the city.  The ADO station was quite a long walk from here.  We'd be heading there a little later on this day.

Once we'd seen it all, it was time to ring the bell.  Fun!

The following display was built into the wall, as were the restrooms.  A bit mysterious!

This morning we were off to our next destination, Campeche, in the like-named Campeche state of Mexico.  We chose to stay there on the way to Palenque to visit the ruins mostly to break up the trip into manageable-length bus segments, not because we had any burning desire to visit the city.  And that was too bad, as it turned out to be a really, really nice place, and we only had one night to enjoy it.  (We would later have another night there on our return trip, but we hadn't planned that all out at the time.)

Larry, our host at La Casa Lorenzo, gave us a ride to the ADO bus terminal in Merida as he was heading downtown to a hardware store that morning.  The ride was helpful as we knew we had a fairly long walk to the hotel from the Campeche ADO station, and the less we have to walk with our heavy packs, the better.  

On this leg of the trip we noticed how similar the Mexican highways look to US interstates in places, right down to the blue service signs.  We had great seats right in the front of the bus, so Barry was able to get some good shots out the window.  We really enjoyed being able to see where we were going.

And there is the little matter of traffic stops.  These exist when leaving one state and entering another, and sometimes at other places in between.  The buses always seemed to get sent right through, but there were indeed police with machine guns at the stops.

Entering Campeche town...

And here we are at the bus station. 

I went ahead and bought our tickets for the next day.  One thing we found is that very few if any of the ADO employees spoke any English, but I had figured out in advance how to order tickets (boletos) in Spanish.  And they had me type in our names so there would be no confusion or spelling errors.

We had a long (approximately 2 mile) walk from the bus station to Campeche centro, where our hotel was.  It was a hot day and rather windy, so I had to hold onto my hat!

Below is a large store we saw in several cities in Mexico.  Turns out they are affiliated with Wal-Mart.  Also note the VW Beetle nearby, not in very good shape.  By the way, a reader informed me after a previous mention of the ubiquitous "Bugs" in Mexico that there was actually one last remaining VW Beetle manufacturing plant in Mexico.  However, this article indicates that production stopped there in 2003.  Still, they were produced in Mexico for much longer than elsewhere, so there's no wonder we saw so many!

Several segments of the wall around the centro historico portion of the city remain -- I believe this is the longest portion.  We had to walk a ways to the east to find a way to cut through the wall into centro.

Once on the other side of the wall, I wondered if we had suddenly entered Disneyland!  Campeche centro was so colorful, clean, and tidy, it almost didn't look real.  Apparently the government has really put a lot of time and effort into restoration and beautifying the colonial buildings, at least the facades.  I loved all the pretty colors!

Since our hotel was still quite a bit farther, almost all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, we stopped off for a late lunch.  More on that in the food post, but in the meantime, I liked this photo Barry took of our packs.  Yes, we traveled with just this for sixteen days!  We did have to wash out a few things, of course -- thus is the beauty of quick-dry clothing.

We finally located our hotel, and it was absolutely charming.  Although I had booked it based on Tripadvisor reviews, I couldn't remember what it looked like so was delighted to see how lovely it was.  One of my very favorite colors too!

Here are some inside views.  So incredibly pretty!

Stay tuned for much more from Campeche!

Unfortunately, the elegant Palacio Cantón, which houses the Regional Museum of the Yucatan, was closed for renovation.  It was the gem of the Paseo to our eyes.

At the south end of the Paseo was this entry to a hotel and restaurant, and park area decorated festively for Christmas.  We had fun playing around and taking some photos here.

Another very cool Paseo happening occurs each and every Sunday morning, where the street is closed off to motorists and open to cyclists and pedestrians.  But we'll save that for another post.  Stay tuned!

In yesterday's post we'd just arrived at our bed and breakfast for the next three nights, La Casa Lorenzo.  It's a beautiful colonial home in Merida's Centro district, in the St. Ana neighborhood.  I have been fascinated by the colonial architecture of Merida since seeing a couple of episodes of House Hunters International.  While plain at the street-side, the wonders that often lurk behind the doors can be breathtaking, so I was excited to be staying in one of these beautiful homes.

Larry, the host and owner, recently bought and remodeled the home into a bed and breakfast, adding lovely guest rooms furnished in antiques and with colorful Mexican tiles.  Our room was charming and comfortable, and we happened to be the only guests staying for the three nights we were there, so it was really quiet and private -- perfect.

There's an outdoor bar/kitchen area for guests' use with a fridge, microwave, and sink.  Larry made and served us a welcome margarita that was very welcome indeed!  He also provided maps and lots of good information on places to see, things to do, and good restaurants to try during our visit to Merida.  Very helpful!

The enclosed courtyard is perfectly private and has plants, a couple of fruit trees, a seating area, and a great little pool.  I did go in once, but it was pretty chilly this time of year.

Our room, room 5, was the closest to the bar and courtyard area.  Depending on the number of guests there at the time, this might be a noisier room, but since we had the place to ourselves, it was just fine.

Heading back into Larry's part of the home, here's his personal dining room.  I love the pasta floor tiles in here -- wish I'd thought to have Barry take a close-up.

Here's Larry's well-equipped kitchen...

and the parlour with amazingly high ceilings, lovely pasta tiles, and a computer for use by guests.

The simple exterior belies what lies behind the doors...

See, I told you I made it into the pool, not much deeper than this, though!

Heading out to eat one night -- we bought these Panama hats in Merida.

Being a little silly...

Stay tuned for much more on the beautiful and fascinating city of Merida as we venture outside of Casa Lorenzo!

After two full days and three nights, it was time to hit the road again, heading north to Merida from Tulum.  We'd be traveling to a different Mexican state today, from Quintana Roo to Yucatan.  

We've neglected to include a map of our travels so far, so here is a map showing our route through Merida.  We'll continue updating it as we travel along.

After breakfast, we headed to the Tulum ADO bus station, a very short walk.

Today's journey was to be made on a "luxury class" bus called an ADO gl, which is pronounced, we found out from watching ads on the DVDs in the bus, like "ADO hell".  Ha!  It was much closer to heavenly than hellish, however.  A very comfortable ride indeed.  We were given free bottles of water, earbuds for listening to audio, and there were multiple DVD players playing American movies that were dubbed in Spanish.  We discovered that with most movies, even speaking  just a bit of Spanish, we were able to figure out enough of what was going on from the video to follow along.

Unfortunately, this was to be our only ADO gl bus of the trip, though we didn't know it at the time.  They just don't run that many routes, and most of them seem to run near Cancun.  For the most part we were on regular first-class ADO buses from this point on, but they were still plenty nice, and a bit cheaper than the gl buses.  There is a bus even more luxurious than the gl called the ADO Platinum, but we never even saw one that I recall.  Wonder if they serve champagne and caviar?

The ride from Tulum to Merida was approximately three and half hours.  The first thing we noticed when pulling into the  Merida bus terminal was how huge it was.  Merida is a much bigger city than Tulum; we felt like we had just arrived in New York City!

Even though we had a good Merida map in hand, we found ourselves a bit disoriented as we hit the city streets until we figured out the street numbering.  Odd-numbered streets run east and west, and even-numbered streets run north and south.  Streets are marked on each corner, making the Centro portion of Merida easy to negotiate once you know where are!  And one thing was for sure -- we were not in Belize any more!  

We gradually got ourselves oriented and pointed in the direction of the bed and breakfast where we'd be staying for the next three nights.  It was about a two-mile hike north (though stil in the historic "Centro" area of Merida), but we'd be stopping for lunch part way to rest our shoulders.  Carrying my pack definitely got a bit tiring, but catching a taxi takes all the adventure out of the journey, right!?

There were many parks along the way, so we stopped here for a rest and drink of water.  All of Merida's parks are wi-fi enabled (though we didn't know it at the time), as well as many of the parks in other cities in Mexico.  Very cool!

We didn't know where we'd stop for lunch, but a friendly man speaking English lured us into this cute "Margaritas Time" restaurant along the way with the promises of cold cervasas and good food at good prices, so we succumbed.  The restaurant was pretty empty as Mexicans tend to eat lunch much later than Americans, and dinner too.

The lunch special of the day was just 50 pesos (approximately $4 US), which couldn't be beat, so that's what we had.  Chicken, rice, and dessert were all included.  The beers would cost us extra...but not much.

The friendly waiter took our photo.

These sauces were yummy -- spicy habenero and mild garlic cream.

The Pollo Pibil was delicious -- falling off the bone.  This is a very popular dish in the Yucatan (for pork as well as chicken) and is traditionally cooked in banana leaves. 

Creme Caramel for dessert - yum.  All this (plus chips and dipping sauces) for $4 is just crazy!  But in a good way, for us.  

Well-fortified, we were able to continue on our way to La Casa Lorenzo, a bit north of downtown and on a quiet residential street.  Perfect!

Stay tuned for much, much more on La Casa Lorenzo and Merida in the days to come!

The rest of these photos didn't really fit into any of our previous blog posts on Tulum, so this is just a miscellaneous round-up of sights seen around town to finish out our 2.5 days in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico.  As you'll probably notice in these photos, town itself was not crowded at all while we were there the first week in December.  When we passed back through at the end of our trip for one night, it was filled to the brim with tourists there for Christmas and/or the end of the Mayan calendar.  Big difference!

Stay tuned as next your intrepid travelers head to Merida, Mexico!

On our second and last full day in Tulum, we decided to rent cruiser bikes in town and ride to the beach.  At first we thought we might be disappointed as the rental place requires that you leave a photo ID with them, and all I had was my passport, which I would not leave anywhere.  I had not bothered to bring my North Carolina driver's license along on the trip as I had no plans to drive.  Fortunately, Barry had his, and although he was reluctant to leave it, he ended up doing so so that our day's plans wouldn't be dashed.  Yay Barry! 

Once suited up with our new steeds, we rode on the back roads over to the bike path that runs over to the beach.  It is flat and nicely paved so a nice easy ride.

Before we knew it, we were at the intersection with the beach road and hung a right to continue alongside the beach and the resorts along the coastline.  We passed the excellent restaurant where we'd eaten lunch the day before, Puro Corazon, and were soon rewarded with some stunning views.  Here is where we stopped to take photos.

And here's why we stopped.  Can you blame us?

As we rode south, glimpses of the beach became few and far between as fenced resorts lined the shore, along with lots and lots of tropical foliage.  It was very lush and green, and the foliage and trees provided occasional shade on a very sunny, warm day.

Time for a water break...

We finally made it down as far as we could go on the road.  At the very end is a Biosphere/park that looked quite interesting.  Maybe on our next visit we'll check it out, but today we decided to give it a pass as we hadn't brought binoculars for birding and were more into pedaling off some calories.

Barry ventured inside just a short ways to snap this photo looking towards the road we'd just biked down.

Here's Barry on his red bike.  He's always smiling on a bicycle!

Time to turn around and head back the way we came....

Back in Tulum, we had to ride through construction rubble on the access roads adjacent to the main highway through town.  Looks like they had just laid some new drainage and were having to replace the cobblestones.

We both declared that these bikes were less comfortable than our cruiser bikes back home on Ambergris Caye, which we've customized with different saddles and handlebars.  We would not be hanging onto these bikes until 7 pm, the deadline for returning them to the shop, as our bodies couldn't take too much more.  But we still had a blast, and Barry calculated that we rode about 16 miles -- not bad!

We went ahead and turned them back in upon our return to town.  Time for lunch!

Stay tuned for Tulum food Part 2 and more photos from the town itself....

After our first day trip to Mexico and the problems we had leaving the country, I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to return, but time has a way of mellowing out our memories, and we knew that there were many wonderful things about our neighbor country that we really wanted to see.  It's just too close to Belize not to check out, and we'd been studying Spanish (via Pimsleur audio course) off and on over the past year, and wanted to have a chance to try out our rudimentary skills.  Plus, by staying over a week, we knew the exit fee was expected and not a scam.  So, we planned a bus trip that would have us staying in five different cities over a two-week period and venturing west from the Yucatan Peninsula up into the dry highlands of Chiapas.  We'd hoped to make it to Oaxaca as well, but the long bus rides there and back would have lengthened our trip by too much, so we'll have to save that one for another time.

We'd bought our tickets for the 8 am ferry to Chetumal and taken Paisley to the Pampered Paws for boarding the day before, as we wouldn't be able to get her there before the ferry departed.  We had to catch a very early Coastal Express water taxi from the Grand Caribe dock the day of our travels, which left us plenty of time to walk over to Water Jets International and to wait for them to officially open so that we could go through immigration to check out of Belize.  Fortunately, the security guy let us wait on this bench on the lagoon side of the island by the dock.  We were the first ones there.

Here was our ferry to Chetumal.

In addition to the usual $7.50 BZ Belize port fee, there is a new $30 BZ ($15 US) exit tax that must be paid by all non-residents when leaving Belize by boat since the last time we went to Chetumal.  Grumble.
 
Fortunately, the boat wasn't very full, so it was a comfortable ride over to Mexico.  We had taken the competing ferry line last time, and this one, while a bit more expensive ($75 US per person), had a few more luxuries.  Better (padded) seats, a complimentary cookie and glass of juice, and even a DVD movie!  

Note:  Currently the two ferry companies alternate days going to Chetumal, and we found out on returning that that alternation is not just a slow-season thing (as we'd assumed) but will continue indefinitely.  Something important to know when planning a trip for a certain date, you have to know which company will be running that day, especially since the other company's dock is on the sea-side.  You don't want to end up at the wrong dock without enough time to get to the other if need be!

Once we arrived at the Chetumal dock, we had to go through the drill of having our bags checked by the drug-sniffing dog, accompanied by the Mexican police with machine guns.  It's a bit intimidating since there's certainly no such procedure when arriving in Belize, but we had nothing to hide.  Still, we joked about how the dog smelled something in Barry's pack last time, so its contents had to be inspected; and believe it or not, out of all the bags from passengers on our boat, the same thing happened again this time!  This time it was his waist pack containing all his toiletries, and the police paid verrrrrry close attention to a bottle of OTC melatonin, but fortunately, they found nothing suspicious and finally let us go on our way through customs and immigration.  We were advised of the exit fee on our way in this time, a process improvement since our last visit, and it was the same $25 US (or approximately $300 MX) as the time we only spent a few hours on Mexican soil.

We grabbed a taxi ($50 MX, about $4 US) over to the bus station and bought our bus tickets to Tulum.  We ended up on a second-class Mayab bus. This was to be our only second-class bus of the trip, but we just wanted the next bus, and that happened to be what it was.  I got to use my Spanish right away as the ticket seller spoke no English.  Fortunately, we'd written up a little cheat sheet of common phrases that we might need for purchasing tickets, checking in at hotels, and ordering in restaurants, so I was able to do so without too much difficulty.  Plus, they show you the screen as you are buying your tickets, so you can point.  That always helps clarify things!

Despite being a second-class bus, the Mayab was far nicer than the "chicken buses" we're used to taking in Belize.  It was luxurious by comparison, with plus seats, air conditioning, and curtains on the windows.  Since it was a second-class bus, it stopped quite a few times, and in some cases, local vendors would enter the bus briefly to sell their wares.  

Being hungry for lunch, we bought this delicious pastry that ended up being filled with apples, cheese, and thinly sliced ham.  Let the eating begin!

And I bought this chicken salbute for Barry.  The pink pickled onions on top are very popular in Mexican cooking.

Both items were extremely cheap!  We were loving Mexican food already.

After a little over three-hour bus ride, we arrived at our first destination, Tulum, where we'd be spending our first three nights.  

It was only a few blocks walk over to our hotel for the next three nights, the Secret Garden.  It was a real oasis right in town with many beautiful trees creating a cooling garden setting even on a warm, sunny day.

We were greeted warmly by Maura and Joshua, both of whom spoke great English.  Joshua gave us lots of good information about Tulum, along with an excellent map of the area.  After a quick change of clothes, we wasted no time in setting out to start our explorations of this little beach town we'd heard so much about.

Stay tuned for much more on Tulum:  the ruins, the beautiful beach, the town, and (of course), the FOOD!

Did you miss us?  Last night your intrepid BeBelizers returned from sixteen days of exploring the country next door, Mexico, by bus.  What a blast!  We visited five cities and traveled through five states.  We were enchanted by the colors, the colonial architecture, the people, the fiestas, and the glorious spicy foods -- not to mention all the great Mexican beers we can't buy here in Belize  (it's true that prohibition does make the heart grow fonder!)  

With apologies to our readers who are here to learn more about Belize, we took a lot of photos and want to share many of them, along with our experiences, with our friends and family as well as record them for ourselves for posterity.  So, please indulge us as we veer away from the Belize-centric focus of this blog for awhile to recount our tales of Mexico.  It's gonna take quite a few posts to cover this one!

So stay tuned for "A Tale of Five Cities" (and some travel in between)!

The scenery on the trip north is gorgeous.  We managed to get a few decent shots out the windows of the bus (and a lot of bad ones, but won't subject you to 'em, of course!)

We'd told Heather and Lauren that we'd lead them through the streets of Belize City if they wanted to walk to the water taxi terminal with us rather than taking a taxi, and they did.  We'd all be taking the same ferry even though they were getting off at Caye Caulker, and we'd be staying on until the San Pedro terminus.

The ferry was especially crowded today with locals traveling since school is out and folks from all over Belize and other Central American countries coming to San Pedro for the annual Costa Maya festival.  There was a big group from El Salvador, judging from their t-shirts.  We had to ride right in the front since we were one of the last on.  We normally don't ride in front as it's a bouncier, less comfortable ride, but we had no choice this time.

After the ferry pulled into the dock at San Pedro, we walked over to pick up Paisley at Pampered Paws.  She was happy to see us and knows the drill now of walking back through the busy streets on her leash to wait at the Coastal Xpress water taxi dock to take us back north of town to our condo.  It was a hot day, but some shade and water helped.  She loves her time at Pampered Paws but is always happy to be back with us and at home.

Here are a couple of photos the staff took of Paisley hanging out at Pampered Paws.  She really seems to enjoy herself there, and as I've said before (several times), we're so glad they are there so we can leave her in a safe and fun place.  We can tell that she's become a lot more sociable with other dogs since she's been going there regularly.

Stay tuned for birds and bug bites, still to come!  (You can see a preview of the latter in the photo of me with Paisley above.)