Luxurious Hacienda Temozon, Yucatan Mexico

It’s our fourth day on our road trip through the Yucatan. After two nights staying at the unrestored Hacienda Yaxcopoil it was time for a little change.

With another beautiful sunny day ahead of us we’re eager to move on.  We pack and eat our lovely homemade breakfast of scrambled eggs with Chaya, a Mexican type spinach and crispy tortillas.  We spend an hour or so checking out the working parts to the hacienda, the huge pumps used to bring water up from the ground as well as large pools for storing the water and then miles of irrigation lines to carry it out to all the gardens and fields, all made from cement.   Everything is still in tact, from the kitchen area to sitting rooms and bathhouses.  Of course worn down, but many items have been saved and are on display.  We wander the Hacienda taking pictures until we find our host. Thanking him for our stay we surrender the keys to the guesthouse and say goodbye to this little piece of history.

 

Our next stop, Hacienda Temozon.  According to the map I printed out, the Hacienda Temozon is not far at all, maybe half an hour or so.  Cindy being the excellent navigator she is, directs us south.  We find ourselves driving on narrow roads passing through tiny villages with the remains of small ruins and entrances to what once were elegant haciendas.  This is definitely hacienda country and you can’t help but wonder the grandeur of what this area must have once been. 

We enter a village boasting tall structures, restored in vivid rich colors.  We must be close!  The homes are like all others in Mexico, shacks made of stone and grass, but we come upon a park like setting with a driveway that has a set of rod iron gates that looks that it leads to lush green paradise. Suddenly we don’t feel like we are in Mexico at all.   A young gentleman, clad in his impeccably clean white work attire greets us and checks our name. He instructs us to pull up to the end of the driveway, leave the keys and suitcases in the car and walk up to reception and they will look after us. He opens the gates for us and on a cobblestone path we park the car and make our way to the reception. Greeted by a young lady, we’re handed welcome drinks and brought to a beautiful sitting area. We sit down with her, fill out the usual paperwork and we’re shown our room.  Wow, a five star hotel in the middle of nowhere!  The Hacienda Temozon is one of several Starwood properties in their “Luxury Collection” of hotels.  We are totally going to take advantage of this after roughing it the last few days!!

Opening the huge double doors to our room, we find ourselves smiling with pleasure.  A huge king size rod iron bed with thick lush duvet, an enormous off suite bathroom, with hot and cold running water, fresh flowers strewn throughout the room and a iPod radio so we can listen to music.  A room to die for!!   Our suitcases arrive; we tip the porter and decide what our next move is.

After taking several pictures of our room, we wander throughout the lush grounds, passing the large pool with fountains, the shaded lounge area and inviting restaurant.  The Hacienda has been fully restored with vibrant colors and lush manicured gardens making this place in the middle of the Yucatan an incredible oasis.

We find ourselves walking along the abandoned railroad tracks at the back of the property that were once used to collect henequen to make rope. Cindy wants to keep following the tracks to see where they lead to, but I don’t.  She’s the explorer, not so much myself.  In the back of my mind I’m thinking of drinking cervezas, by the pool in those inviting lounge chairs. We reason things out, since it was very warm and we had no water with us, it was time to get back and enjoy the pool.  J           

On the way back we stumble upon a dry cenote on the property.  They are using it for a spa, with massage tables set up and romantic candles strewn along the pathway and stairs down into it.  The smell is a bit damp and musky, so although it looks really cool, I’m not so sure it’s the place that I would like to get a message done.

Back at the room, we change and spend the rest of the day relaxing along side the pool. As the day progresses into evening we’re back at the room getting ready for dinner. We decide first to take a walk outside the hacienda grounds into town to see what we find. Not a lot happening, except for a couple of ladies representing a satellite company knocking door-to-door trying to make a sale. It’s kind of amusing to see these ladies trying to sell a satellite dish to a family that lives in a one room thatched hut.  There are several small newly built buildings just off the grounds that are selling hand made rope and crafts made by the villagers.  There isn’t a lot on the shelves for purchasing, but its nice to be able to watch them work at their crafts right in front of you. There was also a group of giggly girls wandering the street with their hotel uniforms.  Young chefs, with a bright future!  Nice to see!

Back at the Hacienda we enjoy a delicious, but terribly expensive, relaxing dinner overlooking the pool.   With the temperature cooling off and the mosquitoes taking advantage of our Canadian blood, it’s back to the room to enjoy a comfortable nights sleep.  We turn on the iPod to listen to our music and quickly fall asleep.

 What a great day is was….

1900Km exploring the Yucatan, Mexico, Uxmal Ruins & Calcetok Caves

It’s about 6:30 am and we wake up to what sounds like thousands of birds singing, so loud that it’s almost deafening and of course roosters trying to out do the birds.  Then suddenly a loud bang!  It sounds like a huge cannon firing.  Cindy and I came to the conclusion it was maybe a device to keep the birds away from a nearby crop or something, as it wasn’t consistent, but lasted until daylight.

We begin getting ready for the day ahead of us and right on time our host knocks on the door and asks us if we would like to eat inside or out.  Since, it’s turning into a beautiful day we opt to eat outside.

Our morning breakfast consisted of fresh orange juice, fresh fruit and a homemade deep fried tortilla with shredded chicken inside smothered in fresh cream. Wow, it was delicious. After breakfast we had our cold showers; refreshed and ready to hit the road to start exploring.

South we go, roads are narrow but in excellent condition.   Our first destination for the day is Uxmal Ruins.  We will need to drive west, but as we begin to make the turn, we’re instructed by the policia that an accident has occurred and the road is closed.   No problem, with a bit of a detour, we find our way.  We pay a parking fee to park the car and realize that although it’s early, quite a few cars are already there.

We get our stuff together, pay the entrance fee, pass through the subway type counter and up some stairs and there it is. Uxmal. Our strategy is to start at the North end and make our way to the south, exploring every nook and cranny and of course taking the paths that lead away from the structures hoping to see something others don’t usually see. On the one path we found the site where the Mayans buried their dead, mounds with carved skulls and cross bones carved into the limestone boulders surround the mound. I found it interesting that the skull and crossbones were around before the pirates.

Taking pictures of the fantastic view, we come upon an elderly couple with the wife ahead and her husband desperately trying to keep up with her. We watch with amazement as every step he makes is very thought-out and although it seems like such an effort for him, he still has a smile on his face. We say hello.  They are having such a great time, taking pictures and exploring; even though it is so obviously difficult, especially for him.  Off she goes first and we watch as he is contemplating how he’s going to get down the steep steps.  We’re not sure how he even climbed up in the first place!  I offer assistance and slowly but surely we make it.  The wife is grateful and so is he; they grab each other hands and smiling they’re off. Back with Cindy, we can’t help but hope that we will still be exploring at their age.

Of course we had to climb every structure. It’s a rather large place and when we were nearing the four hour mark we decided we had seen enough. The last ruin we climbed had the best view, high above the other structures.

Walking back out toward the parking lot to the car, there are lots of vendors selling their wares now.  From t-shirts to other usual souvenir items, ten minutes later, 200 pesos lighter, some shirts for our for our friends and kids, we head to the car.

Just outside Uxmal, there is a resort/hotel and a restaurant. Not knowing what lies between here and our next destination, we go for the buffet. The food was ok, we felt full and rehydrated.  Not really Mexican food, but it did the trick.

Taking the road back, we see why it had been closed earlier. The road is very windy and a large truck had lost its’ load of hay bales on one of the curves. The truck was gone, but every local was now in the ditch trying desperately to load the huge bales into their trucks and into whatever means of transportation they had with everyone helping each other.   It must have been such a gift as they were all smiling and laughing.  We slowly weaved our way through with the aid of the locals waving their bandana’s at us to proceed.

Although we’re pretty tired from all the walking, we’re off to find our next adventure!  Winding our way through back roads by following our little print out map off the internet, we finally find the road to the caves we’re looking for. It’s very narrow with high grass and reeds on both sides.  It’s difficult trying to avoid the huge potholes.  Hopefully we don’t rip out the undercarriage of our rental nor meet anyone coming from the opposite direction, as there is nowhere to pass each other.  The vegetation is so dense the road is practically overgrown.

After about fifteen minutes, we spot a car parked up the road.  This must be the place, as there’s nothing else around for miles.  Not knowing what to expect I bring my hoody, water, camera and movie camera with us.

We make our way through a narrow path and we see hammocks hanging between some trees.  A young guy gets up, greets us and asks if we’re here to explore the caves?  In our very limited Spanish we figure out that we need to hire Marco and he will guide us through the caves. We agree on a price and off we go.

Amazingly, the Calcetok caves are dry caves, which once had water in them. We walk up to the edge of basically what looks like a huge dry Cenote.  Marco directs us to climb down the homemade steel ladder to the bottom.  Not quite what we expected, but no problem.  In his flip flops, Marco has us follow him into the cavern.  Hey if he can manage, I’m sure we can.  Cindy and I both have good traction type shoes on and we are slipping all over the place as the ground is both of a limestone and a clay mud type substance.  We hold onto a rope as we start descending into the darkness until we come to some even ground and we stop. Marco takes his backpack off and out comes the headband lights we are to wear. Now the most interesting part: do we want to take the tourista, adventura or extrema route. After asking Marco a hundred questions about the different routes, we opted for the adventura route.  Bad choice……..

With Marco leading the way, we walk for several hundred feet in the pitch dark, up and down, around curves and crevices, with our tiny little lights desperately trying to see what we’re doing.  We crawl, yes crawl, through a small opening that lasts about 15 feet and pop out into a big pitch black space again. No problem I thought, this is easy. It’s so dark, the only way of knowing where Marco and Cindy are, is by the lights on their heads and Marco’s flashlight that he’s shining on the rocks for us to see where we’re stepping.   The heat is almost unbearable with moisture hanging so heavy in the air that you can see it thru the narrow beam of light coming from our heads.  I’m sweating, so I ask to stop so that I can take off my jacket. Marco offers to put it in his backpack, thank goodness, as there is no way that I can carry it and get thru these tight spaces.   As we begin crawling through even tighter spaces, pulling ourselves on our elbows, I’m thinking to myself that our clothes are going to be ruined and how are we ever going to get back  and are our cameras going to survive?  Finally we’re thru and stand up only to see what our next feat will be.  Looking straight up into a small chute opening, a rope awaits us.  Still in pitch darkness, Cindy begins the climb, using the rope to hoist herself up and with the aid of small crevasses to help out, manages to reach the tiny ledge about twelve feet above us.   After a bit of struggling, I’m able to pull myself up as well, but as I’m standing on the small slippery ledge I see a couple of openings so small I’m thinking I’ll surely get stuck trying to crawl through either one of them.

By now, I’m sweating big time and really starting to not enjoy this at all.   In my best Spanish I ask Marco, how many more small openings like this.  He says a few.  That’s it!   I tell Cindy I can’t go any further as I’m sure that there is no way I can get thru that tight space.   So back down the rope I go. Cindy follows as well and just as she sets her feet on the ground, all of a sudden she slips and she starts sliding down ….. and down ….. and down.   Finely she comes to a stop about fifteen feet down from another ledge we realized we were standing on. With the aid of Marco’s flashlight, Cindy climbs her way up the greasy slippery rocks.  With some nervous laughter and a drink of water, we begin to head back.  Again we follow Marco, heading back where had just come from, through a range of small crawl spaces.   It doesn’t seem like the way we came and I’m kind of getting worried that maybe Marco didn’t understand that I wanted to see daylight again. After it seemed like forever, I see a slither of light and we find ourselves back to the opening from where we came from.

Breathing fresh air now, we slowly make our way back to the hammock where the trek all began.   We learned that Marco’s dad and granddad had been taking tourists through the caves for years and he was following in their footsteps.

As we departed, I asked Marco what the Extrema route was and he explained it’s about five hours of what we had been through with extreme drop offs and even tighter crawl spaces.  I can’t imagine how hard that would be to do.  Apparently there is also a graveyard several miles back into the caves.  The best part of this adventure was the Mayan rocks on the floor of the caves that had been carved out to catch the fresh water dripping from the ceiling and of course, the light at the end.  The most interesting part was the fact that Marco emerged with his t-shirt still bright white and his flip flops still in tact.

Cindy and I thank him and as the sun is setting, with our mud drenched clothes and shoes we get in the car and make our way back to the Hacienda for one more night.

An hour later we enjoy a refreshing shower and pour ourselves a nice cold beer and wait for dinner.

Ah dinner. We are served a crunchy thick tortilla like cake with chicken and cheese. I didn’t eat since I had the feeling I was getting Montezuma’s revenge.  I apologize to our host and try to explain that I’m not feeling well as Cindy enjoys her dinner.  I take drastic action and pop half a sypro tablet and hope for the best tomorrow.

Hit the bed and we both fall asleep instantly….

1900Km exploring the Yucatan and Quintana Roo, Part 2

Nothing like falling sleep to the hum of a ceiling fan, keeping you just cool enough to help you fall asleep and shoo the mosquitoes away.

Waking up is never hard to do when I'm on holidays, I just have to find a place to get some coffee, but that usually involves waiting patiently for everyone else to get up, so I just amuse myself by observing how the day starts out for everyone.

The drinks from the night before have taken their tole and we've managed to let a good part of the morning slip by.  So Cindy's out of the shower, I brought coffee up to the room, got the bags in the car and ready to hit the road.  As I was hauling the bags down the stairs I look down from our balcony and notice our neighbors cleaning chicken, lots of chickens, in their yard. From skinning the birds to cleaning and chopping them up on their plastic tables and then dumping them into a tub of water. I don't know what restaurant will  be recieving these, but we won't have to worry about that this time as were hitting the road.                                      

We take the road west, out of Puerto Morelos and turn north, taking a short cut to the toll highway to Merida. If you're not familiar with this highway, its pretty boring, but in excellent condition. About at the half way point, you can get gas, hit the washroom and of course pay the toll to use the road.  You will actually pay the toll twice if you take this road at the middle and the end.  After a quick stop to get rid of all the coffee we drank, we're back on the road. The highway just seems to go forever and ever, passing the odd Mexican drivng their tricycles along with wood which they have harvested from the dense forest. Who knows where they live, as it seems like there are no towns for a hundred miles.

As always when your nearing Merida, you have an army checkpoint, although these army guys are dressed in black. With huge ropes across the highway and the guys toting machine guns they mean business and you must stop.  This time, as we slow down to stop, the officer just waves us through. Note: Just in case you decided to try to fly through the check point there's a HumVee hiding in the bush with a 50 caliber machine gun manned and ready.

We're using the ring road around the outskirts of Merida heading southwest, looking for a particular road that will lead south. We find a place to get gas, snacks and water, then back on the road and about twenty minutes later we find our road to head south. From here, things are sketchy even though I printed off fifty maps, they really don't help us and we have to wing it, hitting a couple of different back roads we will manage to find our stop for the evening, Hacienda Yaxcopoil that I  booked online before we left Canada.

With the sun starting to go down, we finally arrive in Yaxcopol and drive around the Hacineda several times trying to find an entrance and a place that resembles where we should check in. There are a few houses in the village and the hacienda.  Thats it!  I'm not even sure this is a village?  We park and start wandering around looking at all the authentic furniture and wall decor at the same time looking for someone to help us. We find an older gentleman and in our limited spanish he is quick to welcome us and show us to our room for the next two nights.  There is only one guestroom in the Hacienda, we are quick to find out that we are the only guests.

We're lead down a long path and come upon our guest house, the ceiling is at least 15 feet high, authentic 17 century tiled floors & furniture. Two double beds, small fridge and a washroom and shower have been added to this room. Seeing that we have a fridge, I ask where I can buy some Cervesa's as I figured there must be a little store in the cluster of huts and houses that surround the Hacienda. He looks at me and says no, then he thinks for a moment and says ok.  I give him 50 pesos and he's gone. About 15 minutes later, with sweat on his brow and a big toothless smile, he presents us with 3 litres of cold beer.  Now thats service!  "Mucho Gracias",  I say and give him someting for his kindness.  Our host tells us where we are to park the car and asks us what time we want dinner and off he goes.

We get our bags unpacked, and wanting to wander the Hacienda before the sun is totally down we start to explore.  Hacienda Yaxcopoil is actually a museum.  Everthing is in its original condition and one only has to imagine how beautiful the gardens once were, how colorful the faded walls were and how luxurious this place had once been.  There is only one guest room and we had the place all to ourselves.

Back to the room to freshen up, as being an unrestored Hacienda, no hot water, no tv, no internet, just the sounds of the birds and an occasional dog barking and cold beer. (there was supposedly hot water, but it wasn't working)  Yea, this is roughing it.

It's dark now, and while we're wondering about dinner, we get a knock on our door. An elderly mexican woman walks in, smilling and explaining in spanish she will be serving us dinner. Cindy and I are starving by now and can't wait to eat. We do realize whatever we are going to eat has been made in her home.

What do we start with, but lime soup.  Delicious!   As we are having our soup,  our next course is being prepared outside. We get this huge pitcher of what looks like milk on ice. Since Cindy is not able to drink milk, I ask a few times if there is milk in the drink and out host says no. For the first time we are to have a drink called Horchata on ice.  It was so refreashing that we drank the whole pitcher not caring where the ice or water came from. With the main course being chicken tamales wrapped in banana leaves and regular tamales in corn husks, we're stuffed and satisfied.  We finish off with some sort of a rice pudding.  Wonderful!!   We thank our diiner host, she packs up her stuff and I follow her out to our little gate we have in the yard.  She disappears into the darkness.

Tired of the long day we climb into bed and fall asleep to the loud sounds of croaking frogs and chirping crickets..... What will our first day of exporing the region tomorrow bring us?

1900Km exploring the Yucatan and Quintana Roo, Mexico

Part 1


It's -25 Celsius, 4 o'clock in the morning and we're heading to the airport. We park several miles away to save some money as the truck is going to be there for three weeks. Our shuttle arrives, and we load our suitcases.  We drive through the car lot picking up more passengers for the airport.  One particular couple; I couldn't believe it, get into the shuttle bus and point to the driver to load their bags. Thinking to myself, 'this couple must think that they're already at their 5 star all inclusive hotel.'
We arrive at the airport.  Guess who wants off first, yes the 5 star couple!  The driver drags their bags to the sidewalk and as soon as he hands the last bag over, the 5stars are off, no thank you, no tip.
Four or five couples later, and its our turn to get off the shuttle; pissed at all these people for not tipping the driver, I hand him a few bucks, he smiles and thanks us.

Ah yes, the airport.  We look at the departure screen only to see our flight is delayed by 6 hrs. This is going to be one long day. We check with our flight carrier; no, we cannot check our bags yet. So off we go to find a quite place to wait......

After sitting, exploring every souvenir store and eating lunch, Yeah .....we can finally get rid of our suitcases and head to the security checkpoint. Of course they want Cindy to take her shoes off and walk through the security machine in bare feet, nothing like feeling like you just walked through a million germs.
They ask me if I'm the owner of the carry on bag sitting on the rail. "Yes."  "May I look through the bag?" "No problem," I say. She starts pulling stuff out left and right, I tell her to be careful as the equipment is fragile. With my dive camera, strobe and attachments all over the table, I explain what she is looking at.  She grabs another agent, gets the ok and I'm told to pack it up. Thinking to myself, 'haven't they seen a dive camera before?'

The flight is the usual 5.5 hours, Cindy does her work as I rent a movie. We land and of course its like 10 o'clock in the evening by now. I'm just hoping the rental car agency is waiting or us, since I did phone them earlier in the day to tell them were going to be 5 or 6 hours late.
We hit the secuity light, it's green, were through. Head through the airport doors, viola. a sign with our name on it. After trying about six different car rental agencies these guys haven't let us down yet. Our guy grabs our lugguge, in the van we go to the rental agency and fill out the usual paper work.  "Ah, Mr Sorenson, thankyou for renting with us again, we are upgrading you this time."  He hands the keys over to a brand new shiny black 2010 VW Jetta.
We're on the road south with 2000 km on the odometer and the intention to stay the first night in Puerto Morelos. The drive is great as usual with new lighting along the whole hi-way. Arriving at the hotel we chose earlier, it's now about 11 oclock and out we go to have a drink to celebrate the start of our holiday.

We don't have to go far, since right across the street is a little shack/bar that's still open.  As we sip on our two for one specials and enjoy the warm humid ocean air, the drinks start to hit us. It time to get to bed for the start of our long journey tomorrow.......