After Tulum, we headed to Valladolid with the intentions of leaving our bags at the bus station, going to swim in some cenotes, and then catching the 2:30PM bus to Chiquila, the town where the ferries leave for Isla de Holbox. However, upon arriving in Valladolid, we found out that numerous sites on the internet and the guide book had wrongly quoted the time for the only bus to Chiquila. The only bus left at 2:45AM, not PM. Modifying our plans, we found a very cheap hotel room, ditched out stuff and made a trip to Chichen Izta. I had been to Valladolid and Chichen Izta on my last trip to the Yucatan, but Kurt had not, so it was a good chance for him to see (and taste) some of the offerings of the non-coastal areas…..starting with some cochinita pibil (pig that has been cooked in banana leaves, supposedly underground…..delicious).
To cool off after the ruins, we stopped at the Cenote Ik-kil. If anyone is headed that way, I would def recommend skipping this cenote and heading to the ones closer to Valladolid. I had visited those on my last trip, so we decided to try a different cenote, but Ik-kil it turns out, is a scheduled stop for a lot of the tours that go to Chichen Izta from Cancun, so it gets a little crowded. For those that don’t know, because of the limestone geology of the Yucatan Peninsula, there is virtually no surface water. Practically no lakes or rivers, leaving cenotes as some of the few pockets where surface water is actually found.
After swimming, we went back to Valladolid, sampled some more yucatecan food (Poc Chuc and panuchos), wandered around town and the big convent, and then slept for a couple hours before getting on the bus at 2:45AM.
We arrived in Chiquila at 5:45AM and caught the 6AM ferry to Isla de Holbox. While these were not my preferred hours, I will say seeing the sun rise from the ferry as we passed flamingos was pretty incredible. We landed on the island, dropped our stuff off at the hostel/camp ground and by 8am my boat was leaving on a whale shark tour. Seeing the whale sharks was really the whole reason for the visit to Holbox. They feed off the coast of the island from May to September every year. The whale shark is a filter feeder and can grow to be up to 40 feet long, the size of a whale, hence the name.
On our 1 hour trip over to where the whale sharks feed, we came across some other sea life including dolphins….
giant manta rays (the wing span of this one was as the same as the width of our boat)
Then we finally reached the whale sharks and started our snorkels. The govt agency that I work for, SEMARNAT, also regulates the whale shark tours. Only 2 people and the guide are allowed in the water at the same time with the whale shark. It may not look like it, but they are moving pretty fast. On one of my snorkels we swam behind it for a good while and I was definitely swimming as fast as I could to keep up with it.
This is the giant manta ray from underwater. At point during the snorkel, we were with both a whale shark and a manta ray. They both feed on the same things so it’s not uncommon to find them in the same waters.
As we headed back, we were suddenly on top of about 40 yellow manta ray.
Back on Holbox, Kurt and I headed to the beach where we built a make shift palapa from a sheet and drift wood. While we were on the beach, this weird mushroom cloud formed behind us….
That night, AeroMexicana, the airline, was doing some promotion or contest, so there was a couple eating a dinner on the beach and then they took off in the hot air balloon. Holbox is really small and we were there during the lowest of the low season. Hence, this balloon was the most exciting thing going on that night, everyone in town hopped on their golf carts (main mode of transport on the island, they even have golf cart taxis) and headed to the beach to watch.
The view from our tent in the morning
It was the same price to camp using our small 2 person tent or to use their giant family-sized tent that was already set up……easy decision
The much utilized hammocks at the hostel/campground
The ferry
We caught the daily bus that goes from Chiquila to Cancun and then the ferry over to Isla Mujeres. We had been lucky enough to find flights back to Puebla for almost half the cost of the bus tickets, saving us $ and 24 hours on the bus. We wanted to stay around the Cancun area since we were flying out from there, but didn’t actually want to stay in Cancun, so Isla Mujeres was our choice. It is def still touristy, but much more laid back and cheaper than Cancun (and almost empty during the low season). We found a hostel right on the beach.
We did one last snorkel tour and though there was much less diversity than we had seen in Belize, we still saw a lot of fish (credit kurt for all the underwater picts from Isla mujeres)
Sunken statue of a virgin, supposedly given by Cuba
The beach behind our hostel (also had a great beach volleyball court that we played on a fair amount)
Saturday morning before our flight we went snorkeling again on the beach just behind the hostel. This little guy followed us around for quite a while.
Squid!!
This was the view from the ferry on the way back to Cancun and the way back to reality. It was funny though, when we got on our flight, 13 people from my office were also on it as they returned from the SEMARNAT Olympics that had been held in Cancun that week. So this wraps up the summary of my last big trip here in Mexico.....
