Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

Of all of the places we’ve visited so far the campsite at Xpu-Ha has to be one of my favorites.  It is also one of the places where I could imagine spending a lot of time each year.  If it had been up to me I would have spent another month there, but Matthias was getting a little antsy and ready to move on, so we did.  We do have a lot of miles to drive so I understand why it was a good idea to leave.  One of Matthias’ favorite sayings is that it is best to leave the party when it’s at its peak.  He does have a good point because now I’m left with great memories and no regrets.

There is a 4-lane highway that goes down the coast of the Yucatan peninsula from Cancun to Tulum.  This area is called the Riviera Maya and it is one resort after another.  About 70 kilometers south of Cancun there is an area called Xpu-Ha.  A little dirt road goes from the main road down to the Bonanza camping grounds – one of the last non-resort and family-run sections of beach.  The campground is right on the beach and when you first drive in you drive onto the most perfect white sand you have ever seen.  There are no lines or barriers or individual campsites anywhere.  There are just a bunch of palm trees, and a few campers nestled in amongst them.  There are 2 full-time campers who have RVs parked there the entire year.  There is another woman who comes down for 6 months out of the year and a handful of others that keep coming and going throughout the year.  The last time we left this campground there were only 4 other people staying their besides us. 

The beach was also amazing: perfect white sand, crystal clear waters and just the perfect temperature.  The first time we had been there we met a Swiss couple and she went out snorkeling every morning.  There are tons of places in the area where you can pay to go snorkeling.  But here all you had to do was walk out there and you had some of the best snorkeling I’ve done in my life.  The last couple of times I went out I got so lucky and we had very clear water and a nice sunny day – perfect conditions for snorkeling.  Just a short ways down the beach there are only rocks, but right out in front of our campsite there were some very nice coral reefs.  I saw all sorts of different fish and some of the most vibrant colors.  The highlight was definitely the 2 manta rays I saw.  They have a triangular shaped body and at the back edge I believe they were about 4-5 feet wide.  They have a disproportionately long tail-like thing behind them that just kept going and going and going.  The first one swam by me about 10 feet away.  The next one was farther away.  I wish I had gotten a better look at each of them, but both times I was so freaked out and scared I bolted for the shore as fast as I could.  All I could think of was the crocodile hunter and how was killed by one of them.  Or was that a sting ray?  Or are manta rays and sting rays the same thing?  I still don’t know, but it was really an amazing experience to see such enormous fish that close.

During our last stay there we also met a great couple – Josh and Anna.  They live in California, he is American and she is German, and they had just begun their road trip.  They are coming through Mexico and heading into Central America next.  They were more like-minded travelers and we had lots of fun and things to talk about.  Somewhere on their trip they started playing Bacchi Ball, but with oranges and one lime.  You throw out a lime and each player gets two oranges and the object is to get your orange to land as close to the lime as possible.  They play this game in Italy and France (there it is called Boules, I think).  We would play with them when the sun was beginning to set, and after the game was over we took the oranges, pressed them, mixed them with tequila and had cocktails.  It was great fun for us and Julian and William also loved playing too.  They read books with William and Julian, went swimming with us and even watched them for a while so Matthias and I could go to the beach by ourselves.   The afternoon after our first night of heavy drinking she had made a huge batch of her specialty “Borracho Nachos” (borracho is Spanish for ‘drunk’) – the perfect hangover cure.  The next couple of days all shared cooking duties and had great dinners together.  They picked stuff up for us from town and we did the same for them.  It was sad to leave them but we are excited to hear how their travels continue and where they end up.

      

The constant sight-seeing and the major lack of a plan these days is getting a bit old, but at Xpu-Ha it didn’t seem to bother me.  I was content to spend a day without any sort of plan.  There is all sorts of stuff to do: go for a swim, dig in the sand, lay in the hammock and read, play soccer with the kids, go into town to do some grocery shopping.  In paradise, that is more than enough to keep me busy.  

 

A couple of months ago when Matthias was talking to his family in Germany our nephew Justin (whose friends coined him the Snoop-lingo nickname Jazzy-Fizzle) said he wanted to come visit us during his spring break.  We looked for flights and he ended up getting a flight to none other than the Mecca of all spring breaks – Cancun, Mexico.

Justin is 16 and in the 10^th grade.  The last time we were in Germany was last year during the World Cup, almost a year ago.  Since we don’t get to see him all that much we were very excited that he was coming.  The day of his arrival we went to the grocery store and stocked up on the essential supplies for a spring break vacation – beer and ice.  We picked Jazzy-Fizzle up from the airport and had a cooler full of beers waiting for him in the car.

When we got back to our campsite Justin slipped right into the hammock with a beer in hand and relaxed into life on the Yucatan.  (By the way, the drinking age for beer and wine in Germany is 16, so as far as we were concerned, he’s legal.)   The next couple of days we spent swimming, snorkeling, hanging out on the beach and looking for cute girls.  One day Justin had seen an attractive woman up on a balcony and that night he decided to go over to her and yell “Hola!” at the top of his lungs.  She came out of her room, leaned chest first over her balcony and they just started talking.  She didn’t speak any English, and he doesn’t speak any Spanish, but I have the feeling that they both knew what each other was trying to say.  From a distance (crouched behind a coconut tree in the shadows of the moonlight) Matthias and I watched our nephew make his first acquaintance in Mexico – a 21-year old bombshell on the beach.

The rest of the vacation would prove to be an endless pursuit of hot women.  It guided nearly all our decisions on where to stay and what to do.  Fortunately just a few days after he arrived was the beginning of Semana Santa, the holy week before Easter, or more importantly, the time of year when all Mexican families head to the beach.  There were several very adorable young women and we tracked them all up and down the beach.  Justin took lots of short walks around the campsite “just to see what was going on” and Julian (the blue-eyed, blonde hair Mexican magnet) became his new favorite cousin.

After many futile attempts at conversation and one enormous pyramid of empty beer cans we decided to head to the real pyramids of Tikal – ancient Mayan ruins in the jungle of Guatemala.  It was a really long drive, but in the end it proved to be worthwhile.  We camped right at the entrance to the ruins where we booked a sunrise tour for the following day.  We awoke at 3:30 the next morning to the sounds of howler monkeys and began our trek out to Temple 4 which we climbed and watched the sunrise with toucans swirling around us.  The tour was great, and Justin showed real amazement at the ruins.  We spent about 5 hours walking around Tikal, climbing ruins and listening to our guide.  Of course he giggled like a little girl when a monkey almost pooped on my head, but the fact that I stepped in monkey poop was a nice consolation for the near miss.

 

We also made a visit to Finca Ixobel which is just a bit south of Tikal.  We ended up running into a couple of Vanagon drivers that we had met in San Cristobal.  It was great to catch up with them since it had been about 3 or 4 weeks since we had seen them.  We camped there, went swimming in the pond, made a beer run in a tuk-tuk and hit the happy hour hard.  William and Julian were already in bed when happy hour started, so Matthias took Justin first, and later Justin and I went back for more.

After leaving Guatemala we had a long drive back to the Yucatan.  We spent one night in Belize and then braved the last stretch with lots of reggaeton music, which is all the rage in Mexico and Central America.  We made a quick stop in Tulum for beer and continued back to our campsite on the beach in Xpu-Ha.  We arrived back just at the tail end of Semana Santa and the girl situation had only gotten better since we left.  There were some very cute girls and Justin was brave enough to go over and meet her entire family.  Their small trailer was parked right next to our car and one night the father came over and started getting things ready to leave the next morning.  As soon as it was dark Jazzy-Fizzle went over to the trailer and let out all the air out of the tires.  The plan was to impede their departure, and eventually come to the rescue with our tire pump.  But at 7:00 the next morning we heard them climbing into their car and watched them drive off from inside the Yoda Van.  A few minutes later I peered around the corner, but they weren’t stopped anywhere on the road.  Who knows how far they made it or what happened to them. 

Jazzy-Fizzle also likes the Skoal.  He is a serious ice-hockey player, and even attends a boarding school so he can dedicate more time to his sport.  He and his teammates occasionally indulge in chew.  He was a good nephew and even showed his Aunt and Uncle how to chew.  In the evening we sat around talking and chewing.  We made sure he didn’t walk around too much while he was chewing, because I know with the size of the wad he had tucked under his lip he was sure to loose his balance and fall over.  By the end of the two weeks I was really starting to perfect my technique and was even able to spit just as quietly and Justin.  It’s probably good he was only here two weeks because that is the last thing I need is an enabler to get me hooked on chewing tobacco.

For the last 3 nights we moved to another campsite on the Yucatan.  The beach wasn’t quite as nice as the beach at Xpu-Ha, but we did have a swimming pool right at the beach.  And we were surprised by an unexpected highlight – volleyball games with the retirees.  The first day when we arrived Matthias was checking us in and walked by the volleyball court.  They said they needed another player so he sent Justin right over.  He joined their game right away and when he came back he just couldn’t say enough about how much fun he had.  He had fun listening to them complaining about their bum knees and bad backs, but also joking around and having fun.  They play every day at 3:00 and the next day Justin said he didn’t really care what we did that day as long as he could play volleyball with the old folks.  We ended up staying 2 more nights and on the final day Matthias, Justin and I all joined the game.  They all make their way over to the courts on their mopeds, golf carts or bicycles, and play in the direct sunlight (which isn’t easy when it is in the mid-90’s with high humidity).  But they were so low-key, and most of them are better volleyball players than I am.  Matthias wonders if Justin’s account of his vacation will stress the babes or the senior citizens. 

And today Jazzy-Fizzle’s Spring Break 2007 came to an end.  With pulsing livers we drove him to the airport, had one farewell beer and said our goodbyes.  It’s crazy how easy it is to get used to a 5^th person in the van.  I miss him tremendously and hope we get to see him again soon.  At least it will be hard for us to forget him for a while because we think of him every time William uses one of the many colorful expressions he picked up from his cousin (which, by the way, are not really appropriate for a 4 year old to have in their active vocabulary).  Next on our agenda: some serious de-tox.

 

After Palenque we spent a few nights in Chetumal (on the Caribbean coast just north of the Belize border) doing laundry and stocking up on supplies. Our next stop was Mahahual. This town is on the coast of the Yucatan ... [Continue reading this entry]