Snorkel - check
Scuba dive - check
Swim in a cenote - check
Visit Mayan ruins
So there was only one thing left on our list: visit Mayan ruins. We could have gone to Tulum but I really wanted to head for Coba - set deep in the jungle. I had a hankering to be Mowgli dancing with the apes, or something. It turned out once we got there that that was exactly what it was like, except to the children apparently it was more like The Road to El Dorado.
Anyway. We got up at the crack of dawn to beat the rush. Stopped at the gas station and saw how many Mexicans were waiting there in the hopes of being picked up for work. Drove down to Tulum then along a surprisingly good road out to Coba - passing villages full of shops selling hammocks, embroidery, coco frio, and more.
Of course it cost more to get into Coba than we'd expected, but it was worth it. We rented bikes, and pedalled off into the jungle.
The kids loved it - climbing over the ruins, looking for vines to swing off, biking on to the next place. Ellie had to head back to the toilet for quite a while at one stage, so Mark, Hannah and I cycled on until eventually we reached the big pyramid.
Luckily there was a shack there selling cold drinks. We were hot, sweaty, and about to climb quite high in the sunshine. We bought a big Gatorade and some Oreos, then tackled the pyramid. Mark held on to the rope going up and down. I did OK without it, but my legs hated me by the time we reached the bottom. Hannah lost her hat halfway down, and ended up climbing off to one side of the pyramid to find it.
Back at the base we smeared suncream over our sweaty selves, swung off a good-looking vine, then cycled off to find ourselves a Mayan ballcourt. The kids immediately yelled 'El Dorado' the minute they saw it.
I was hot, sweaty and basically done at this point - and so was Mark judging by his red face. I took him back to the shop and offered him an ice cream, and nearly fell over when he said no. I insisted.
We now had a decision to make. We had enough pesos to swim in the Gran Cenote on the way home. Or we had enough pesos to have a cheap lunch somewhere. But not enough pesos to do both. We drove around looking for a restaurant that took credit cards (not easy) and eventually found one. Then we drove to the Gran Cenote only to find they'd put the prices up, and we didn't have enough pesos after all. But they took dollars too, so we were OK.
Gran Cenote was our third cenote and again quite different to the others. It has a fairly small swimming area that's open to the sky, but beyond the edges of the open area, the swimming area goes off for ages into caves full of stalagtite, stalagmites, and bats. The depths were being explored by divers while we were there. Every so often you'd see way down below some divers with flashlights, swimming past you, off into the tunnels.
I impressed myself by swimming into the caves and even under some of the low roofs, swimming underwater on my back gazing back up at the stalagtites (under the bit to the left in the photo below). It really was amazing, even though I'm shuddering thinking about diving through those depths.
While we were there the oddest thing happened. Mike looked over at the family beside us in the water and said 'Raquel.....?' It turned out his old friend Raquel, from Georgetown, was there with her husband and kids. We chatted and laughed and took photos for Facebook. Amazing.
And then it was time to spend the last of our pesos on some very cold and very welcome cans of soda from the snack shop, and drive home. I was completely shattered and slept the whole way, then carried on sleeping on the back seat of the car while the others went for one last Nutella gelato.
And then it was home to pack...
It was an amazing holiday. We stayed here http://www.vrbo.com/125036 and it was pretty much perfect. We ummed and ahhed about all-inclusives, but they would have cost us so much more. Maybe we'll try them one day.
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