The Road to Oaxaca

We flew into Cancun on the 23rd and had to be in Oaxaca on the 31st of October to make it for Day of the Dead. The next 7 days became all about getting there. When we had originally booked this from Australia I had not fully appreciated just how big Mexico is. This means we didn't end up spending as much time in the Yucatan as we would have liked but we made it to Oaxaca with a day to spare!

Cancun

Cancun didn't really feel like we were in Mexico. It's an insane place. There's a 20 km strip of just hotels, fittingly named the Hotel Zone. We had two nights booked in Cancun to get over the flight and hopefully adjust a bit. The very first thing we did when we got there was sleep for like 12 hours. The next day we decided to check out the Hotel Zone. It's full of beaches which are pretty nice, and I'm sure it's great if you're staying in one of the fancy hotels but we weren't so Cancun was kinda gross. The Hotel Zone is full of people yelling at you trying to sell you stuff and creepy people dressed as the mask. It was also too windy to enjoy the beach (we were getting pelted with sand at one point). We were glad we only had one more night left.

My first taste of Mexican wild life on the walk out to the Hotel Zone. I am ashamed to admit he actually frightened me when I first saw him.

I got to go to a Bubba Gump restaurant! I had only semi recently discovered that these even existed so when the chance came up to go to one I had to. I've now got it out of my system and yes, they do play Forest Gump on repeat.

The beach at Cancun

Merida

From Cancun we decided to head to Merida just because it was easy to get (4.5 hour bus ride) to and it was in the right direction. We ended up spending 3 nights there. We found a nice hostel to chill out in and met some nice people. It's a little colonial town and it was starting to feel a bit more like we were in Mexico. We caught the end of Mayan Festival while we were there so there was endless dancing in the streets.

The first little Street Party we went to. I got to try queso de bola ice-cream which literally translates to cheese ball ice-cream. It was pretty much bits of Edam Cheese in some Vanilla ice-cream. Not quite what I was expecting but it was alright.

We went on a tour about an hour's drive outside of Merida to learn about how people used to make ropes and bags out of agave plants and ride on a trolley pulled by a mule.

Making the rope

The mule whom I am very grateful to for pulling me around in the hot sun

The Agave crop

The best photo we got of the Cenote that we got to have a dip in as part of the tour. 

More dancing in the street!

There were even Disney Princesses there dancing to the Spanish version of "Be Out Guest" (from Beauty and the Beast). After this they were dancing with Ben Ten and some kind of version of Spiderman.

Palenque

After three nights in Merida we had to cover some distance so we caught a 9 hour bus to Palenque and stayed there for a night.

While we were in Merida we found it hard to find any fresh food, as strange as that seems. We had even heard other people talking about how hard it was for them to find some fruit to eat. In Merida we found one weird supermarket that only sold packaged stuff and cheese and meat. So when we came across this supermarket in Palenque I was pretty excited to find tomatoes, but to top it off they sold Prickly Pears!

During our one day in Palenque we went to the ruins close by. It was a hot muggy day broken up by a few showers of rain. While the ruins aren't the best I've seen (I think I've ruined myself for appreciating ruins after going to Ankor Wat) it was an atmospheric setting amongst a jungle. The howler monkeys screaming in the distance adding a bit of thrill.

After the Ruins we hopped on a bus that would leave us in Oaxaca for Day of the Dead.