Mexico 2020

The last day was not so eventful, just trying to shop some souvenirs in the city, driving to Guatemala City airport to return the car and flying to Madrid via Mexico City. Our days in Guatemala were unfortunately not that productive, didn't manage to visit any of the interestig places in the area. Guess we were both a bit tired and lazy, felt better to just hang around the city than try to organize ourself to climb up a volcano early in the morning.

There are at least some positive things in the corona situation: The flight to Madrid was almost empty, so we could both have own three seat row to lay and sleep on. In the less positive sides Denmark closed their borders and Ryanair announced that all foreigners would be forbidden to board flights to Denmark due to that. However it seems like I will still be allowed to board, they allow transit flights for passengers with valid onwards ticket from Copenhagen. At least I was told at check-in counter that it would be ok, let's see what happens at the gate and at Copenhagen airport..

As an another negative side we are both having slight fever. Not much and I think it's not corona due to symptoms not exactly matching but that's a possibility. Will see how this develops, but I guess we are both looking into 14 day home quarantine..

Just sightseeing around Antigua Guatemala..

Getting to Guatemala was a close call. Guatemala just banned all Europeans from entering the country, but we already flew in yesterday. They seem to be taking this corona issue seriously, we had our temperature metered at the airport and had to fill some questionnaire papers about which countries we have been to and if we have been in contact with sick people. No problems getting in afterall.

We took a rental car at the airport from a small company (seems like they have like two beaten up cars) and drove to Antigua Guatemala for the night. Guatemalans like to have their car windows all black, and even if it's annoying to drive at night like that I didn't have much to complain about. They also block visibility to inside and it's not so good to look like a gringo in some areas of Guatemala City at night.

The rental car issue in Costa Rica came a bit costly, seems like the rental company initially wanted to charge the engine repair from us. The 3rd party insurance I took should cover it though, and it's now also disputed with the rental company manager so not too worried of that yet. I'm pretty confident it was not our fault at all: Obviously the car was leaking cooling liquid and ran out of it, overheating and damaging the engine.

The diving around Cano Island was totally worth the drive to this remote location. On two dives in chrystal clear water we saw huge manta rays, sharks, octopus, crabs and a turtle. I could easily spend a week diving in those waters. The current was very strong on the first dive though, made some amateur mistakes fighting it and using a lot of air but managed to do a 45min dive anyway.

After the dives we departed towards San Jose, and that was the end of the good part of the day. Our rental car decided to lose the engine cooling, so we are now stuck in some small village on the Pan-American highway, four hours from San Jose and waiting for the company to bring us a new car here. I assume it was a water pump failure, which we could not help in any way. At least we found a small restaurant with wifi, as we have no working local SIM cards here. Still some hours to wait..

Just beach and hanging around today.

The road to Bahia Drake was not so bad afterall. Mostly a bumpy and rocky gravel road through the jungle with some crossings of rivers. The rivers were practically dry as it's the dry season, so they weren't much a challenge.

Well, later in the afternoon I managed to find some larger rivers to cross, but that was already past Bahia Drake on the way to Playa de Rincon, an empty and beautiful sand beach. Iryna had some work things to do, so I went there to fly the drone a bit.

Our diving booking didn't go so well, so no diving tomorrow. Some hiking and beach I guess, and diving on the day after tomorrow.

Zzh.. We are tired and stupid. Reached Sierpe, Costa Rica and didn't actually manage to do much in Mexico today, the bed was way too comfortable in the morning.

Now we have a proper 4x4 car Suzuki Jimmy and should be able to continue towards Bahia Drake tomorrow. Car rental in Costa Rica was obviously not the easiest thing to do, at least if you want to do it cheaply. The system works in pretty similar way as in the US where the rental prices are relatively cheap but don't include insurances. They are sold separately for ridiculous prices. Finally I bought an annual membership of Icarhire, an UK based 3rd party insurance provider which replaces the rental company insurances for more reasonable price. Actually I used the same company some years ago when traveling in the US and the membership will be handy also on the upcoming trips as it works anywhere in the world.

By the way, it makes picking up the rental car much easier if you actually book it in the correct country. It's San Jose, Costa Rica and not San Jose, California, US...

Today was the second diving day. Unfortunately still nothing spectacular, the dive sites were in the same area as yesterday. Depth around 8 meters, only schools of small fish and some small pieces of coral reef but nothing more interesting.

After the dives we checked out from our hostel and started wondering what we should next and where to go. The original plan was to continue to Belize, but.. There is not that much interesting things in mainland Belize. The islands are cool, but diving waters around them are not that much better and there is not that much things to do on the islands except diving and laying on the beach.

So, we started searching for other options. There was a cheap flight to Guatemala City from Cancun and we would have plenty of time to explore Guatemala. However that would be a smart thing to do, and such things are a bit boring..

For similar price there was also a flight to San Jose, Costa Rica tomorrow. It's a couple of countries away from Guatemala City from where we should fly home, but it would be possible to reach Guatemala by bus via Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador in reasonable time. Combine that with the fact that Cano Island in Costa Rica should be one of the best places in the world to dive, with healthy coral reefs and a lot of shark and other bigger fish and the decision started to done.

Unfortunately Cano Island seems to be in the most remote area of Costa Rica: It can only be reached by road on dry season and even then you have to cross some rivers by car. There's an option to reach it by boat though, and that should be doable. So.. Somehow our trip to Mexico turned into a trip to the remote jungle wilderness of Costa Rica. :)

I also emailed our old friend Eduardo from El Salvador to see if he would be home when we cross through the country. Unfortunately not, so let's see what we do. It's a good option to just spend some days in Costa Rica and fly to Guatemala from San Jose, there's a decently priced flight on Wednesday. On the other hand I still don't have Nicaraguan stamp in my passport and the country should be interesting.

For the rest of the day today we took a ferry back to Cancun from the island, rented a car for the day and plan to visit the Mayan ruins of Tulum and Coba in the morning tomorrow. Just reached a nice jungle lodge some 20 minutes north of Tulum.

Diving day, not much else was done. The first dive site was a rather boring underwater museum MUSA with statues placed as artificial reefs for coral to grow. The second one was already much better, an actual reef with a lot of schools of small fish.

Nothing spectacular in them though, both were shallow beginner dive sites. Easy and nice though. Tomorrow should be much better, deeper coral reef sites in the morning. :)

We had been planning to visit some locations around Cancun and due to some of them collecting huge tourist groups it should be done early in the morning. Interjet destroyed our original plan to drive to a city next to them already in the evening, so the morning plan had to be adjusted a bit too.

In the morning we woke up at six after some four hours of sleep, noticed there is no water for shower and left Cancun towards Chichen Itza and the cenote caves near it. One of the caves was the first stop, and that definitely was a nice one. There was almost nobody else at that time and the huge cave with a lake inside was beautiful.

Chichen Itza was an another story. It's located next to Cancun and due to that was already at nine in the morning totally filled by cruise ship group tourists. Not exactly enjoyable queuing, and the site itself is quite boring to me. It's a Mayan archeological site with some impressive structures, but... Just an open field with those buildings and a lot of tourist souvenir sellers. Was a bit of a disappointment.

However, another Mayan site was not. After a nice and too big lunch in a hippie vegetarian restaurant we reached Ek Balem just 15 minutes before the closing time an an hour before the sunset. We didn't even have cash for the tickets, but luckily they also accepted supplementing our remaining pesos with euros. There was maybe ten persons in addition to us roaming around the site, and it was possible to visit and climb all the buildings. Some of them were even way more detailed and better preserved than the Chichen Itza ones. The short one hour visit saved the day, being really enjoyable.

After the sunset we drove some 200km back to Cancun, dropped off the car at the airport and barely made it to the last ferry to the nearby island, Isla Mujeres where we had booked our accommodation for the night. Some diving in the program tomorrow. :)