Sunriser

We have been so lucky to have our personal Mexican tour guide in the form of our dearest friend Ruben, who arrived accompanied by his partner Gert-Jan to spend a couple weeks with us and show us Yucatán in the eyes of a local. It was a wonderful and very interesting route through towns, maya ruins, cenotes and Mexican cuisine.

We visited the main towns of Yucatán: quiet Valladolid, bustling Merida, elegant Campeche and then cross the peninsula again direction Bacalar, while visiting many Maya sites in between.

La casa de los Venados ( house of deer) in Valladolid is the private residence of an American art collector, beautifully restored and housing an impressive collection of Mexican popular art.

The International day of Dance, April 29th, caught us in Merida. Not only could we enjoy the popular dances in the main square, but also Ruben, a dancer himself, introduced us to his friend the lovely dancer Tatiana Zugazagoitia and took us to see a dance performance in the Art University of Merida, a very interesting building based on the former train station. Outside the station old train carts have been transformed into small restaurants.

The main attraction of Yucatan are the many historic Maya sites. We visited many of them, among others Tulum, Uxmal, Cobá, Balamku, Xpuhil, Calakmul and Cuhunlich. We were there some 30 years ago and many more sites have been discovered since then and many nicely restored. Although in the humid heat it can be hard to climb the many steps, the views are amazing.

Another advantage to have a ‘local’ as a guide is food. We learned to appreciate many new spices (hot hot hot), fruits and new flavours.

One of the side effects of the giant comet that landed near here (and wiped out the dinosaurs) is the existence of Cenotes, (mostly) underground lakes where you can swim in nice cool fresh water.

We had a great time travelling with our friends. It is an enormous variety of smaller things to see and visit: hacienda’s (big farms) with steam engines for processing sisal, or converted into military bases (which we also visited), colonial houses, the abundant nature and the daily streetlife.

At the time of writing we have left Mexico, Beatriz is in Spain with her father who is sick and I am on Sunriser with our friends from Happinez and Adventure in Belize. The coming weeks I will sail Sunriser further to Guatemala and prepare her for the hurricane season.