Mexico [Part 4] - Into the Blues

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Into the Sunset

The next morning, while Parul stay asleep, I woke up and went out as the sun rose. I pulled a kayak and got into the slightly choppy waters watching the sun rise towards the east. We were far from the city center so there was absolutely no one in the water out here. I was floating on a kayak, alone for any distance to see with land far away on every direction. Somehow, in that isolation, I felt happy and I rowed on. It was almost a kilometer to the other side of the lagoon and I rowed on till I got to the spot we had come to the previous evening and then, on impulse, I rowed on towards the Pirates Channel, which was opposite to the city. I saw a lot of grasshoppers floating dead in the lake and many which were trying to fly across to the other side. Perhaps this was a natural phenomenon but I failed to understand why the grasshoppers would do such a thing as try and fly across the lake!

The Pirates Channel was a long distance away and extremely tiring. At the channel I found more groups that had started from the town of Bacalar; some in kayaks and some in paddle-boats. I rowed on and crossed the channel with it’s current helping me to the other side. It was another water body that opened up here and I decided to take a break. I pulled my kayak to the bank and walked to find a nice spot to sit in. The muddy banks reminded me of the snow treks as my foot pushed into the soft mud and I was struggling waist deep at times! Much unnecessary adventure later, I sat and watched the sun as it climbed higher and higher and heard the gleeful shouts of a group of girls trying paddle-boat yoga somewhere behind me in the channel. A couple conversed in rapid Spanish on the other side of the channel from where I sat. I decided that I was more at peace in the middle of the lagoon and headed back, struggling against the current of the channel this time around. Once the channel ended, I was hot enough to appreciate a dip in the refreshing water. I relaxed in the water for a while before continuing back towards the villa. I cut across the lagoon this time once the villa came into sight and while I had expected the current to be working in my favour this time, it clearly was not helping me any. Breaking now and again, I finally pulled into the dock at the villa where Parul was sitting smiling and wondering where I had been gone for five long hours while having left a message to be back after two 😬 But I was tired and happy and thinking that perhaps the two were deeply related for me.

Solo morning kayaking

While we had thought about extending our stay by yet another day to enjoy this beautiful place, the villa was booked and we fortunately saved on a considerable sum of money 😛 We packed up as wild peacocks walked around the property.

We had planned to walk back the distance to the ADO bus station but a couple leaving the villa in their car gave us a ride to the city center. They were driving around the peninsula in a rented car and gave us a really nice recommendation - El Cuyo, that we meant to but could unfortunately not follow up on.

A Fisherman’s Village

We bade goodbye to Bacalar and took a van to Mahahual. It was not very far but we had to spend half of the distance standing because the driver had picked up extra passengers on the way. That’s just how things were in Mexico and no one seemed to mind the mild chaos much. It was similar to the chaos which most communal societies, including India, have.

We checked into a hotel that was a bit outside the centro. The receptionist offered us snorkelling trips and more but we had thought of checking out the diving here. Mahahual lies on the Meso-American Barrier Reef system which is the second largest in the world after the famous one in Australia. It runs along the Caribbean coast of Mexico and a lot of famous dive locations are dotted on the coast. I chose Mahahual on impulse because I saw fewer number of dive shops online and assumed it would not be all that touristy. As we walked from the hotel to the city center, where all the dive shops were located, the empty streets and closed shops suggested that the city was a little too non-touristy.

Empty streets of Mahahual

Walking along the sargassum affected beach, we reached one of the shops just as it was wrapping up. The girl there explained the prices for each of us and the sites that they went to. I took her number and told her that we’d let her know in case we wanted to dive the next day. I was not quite sure and the other dive shop I had marked was a bit too far to reach before closing time. We aimlessly wandered around the beach and saw another modest dive shop at the far end of the beach. It seemed closed so we went to enquire in the shop next doors. This is where we met Norma, a Spanish woman who had been living in Mahahual for a while now. She was a dive instructor at the shop next doors and ran this shop as well which sold odd beach stuff (swimsuits, sunscreen, etc). A big part of how I decide upon dive shops is the conversations I have with the people I meet there. Norma turned the tables in favour of Mahahual Dive Center despite the previous dive shop being cheaper. After much deliberation, I booked my Advanced Course and Parul booked her Discover Scuba (yet again 😛). Parul even bought a flashy pink one-piece which was bolder than her usual style. Once again, Norma did a brilliant job at convincing her of how amazing she was looking in it (I had said as much but clearly I suck at sales 😑).

We sat in a small shop to have some mezcal and dinner. I had a feeling that Mahahual was going to be delightful 😄 We walked back in the dark along the beach, looking at the eerily closed town which seemed in a state of abandonment.

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Mezcal is served

Diving Days

Day 1

The next morning started a little later than I am used to for diving. When we reached the dive shop, we found it open and bustling. Parul went to the shallow part of the beach for her usual drills of DSD with Norma. I met up with Auden, my Canadian instructor who would be teaching me the advanced skills. She told me about the course structure and what all we would be covering and helped me download the relevant material online (the SSI app is pretty great!). Jorge, the shop owner, was there - a eternally amusing personality full of light hearted comments and laughs. We also met Carlos, the proprietor of the hotel we were putting up in. He was doing his rescue diving course here. All in all, this place felt very homely. There was no formal feeling of being in a “shop”.

We were joined by a French family for our first round of dives. They were a well travelled bunch who lived in South Africa. The man was a bush wildlife photographer and the woman was a HIV doctor. The son was a well behaved teen who was overly enthusiastic about the water. They had some amazing stories to share and told us about this once when they were diving in Cuba and one of their equipment started leaking air. The instructor simply patched it with a duct-tape underwater and resumed the dive as usual 😂 We also found out about Jorge’s amazing underwater photography skills!

This section will not have many photographs since our underwater gear is rather limited. We hope to get it soon though. Diving shows you such beautiful things!

My first dive was hardly what I was expecting. Auden and I went to a shallower sandy part to practice my buoyancy. This was something I had always thought I was good at. Turned out, I was just good at fiddling with the BCD. The forty minutes underwater were a struggle as I miserably failed at the exercises that Auden was asking me to do. So engrossed did I become in all of this that I forgot to check my tank’s pressure and while we were wrapping up at the safety stop, I felt a lack of air in my tank. I checked and it was in the “red zone”. I panicked that I was running out of air and told Auden as much. She seemed a bit nonchalant about it and I assumed it was because of my miserable performance at the buoyancy skills 😑 I told her I was going up and she nodded assent. I surfaced and tried to inflate my BCD. Did not happen so I assumed I was all out of air and tried manually inflating it. Auden surfaced by this time and swam to me asking what was wrong. “Can you bloody not see!” I said in my head and uttered “Air! I’m out of air!” She pressed the button on my BCD and it inflated alright 😕 “You are not out of air”, she said. “Relax!” The boat picked us up and then Parul and the French family. Auden looked at my dejected face and suggested that we postpone the second dive to the next day. I happily agreed. I needed time to absorb everything. The day had been humbling, to put it mildly.

For Parul, on the other hand, things had gone as smooth as usual. Norma and Jorge were so surprised and impressed at Parul’s calmness underwater that they took it upon themselves to teach her how to swim. There was a small pool behind the dive center and they gave her a few lessons there. I came intermittently to the sessions on the first day and realised that she was much more confident when I was not around so I just check in from time to time. She was definitely making progress! Much more than I had imagined possible in a single session.

We thanked the guys and bade them goodbye for the day. Auden told me to go through the course material for the next day and then we sat in the shack next door for some lunch.

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Lunch scenes

Chilling by the beach

Parul was definitely having a happy day 😄

The town was much more lively today than it had been yesterday. The shops were open and tourists were walking down the street. It was a regular tourist town now! The secret to the transformation was the cruise ship docked at a distance. Mahahual was a regular stop for cruise ships making their way on the eastern coast of the continent. When the cruise ships docked, the taxis plied, the shops opened, the masseurs called out the happy tourists walking the streets, the shacks played loud music to attract patrons. These were mostly American tourists, wide eyed and loud, splurging their dollars and pumping them in the local economy.

The reason for the village's transformation

❤️

We walked back to our hotel to rest. I indulged in the usual game of Civ apart from reading up on the course material for the next day and contemplating about the day that had been. My frustration peaked at the dinner when I was exasperated at the food being the “same” stuff no matter what I ordered 😑

Comforting myself

One is a quesadilla and the other a gringa. Spot the difference 😑

Day 2

I left the next morning after packing my bags. We had decided to move to a hostel later that day since it would be cheaper and closer to the city center. Parul would join in later since she did not have any dives that day.

Our bags being guarded at the shop

I had two lessons - Computer Diving and Navigation. Auden taught me how to use the dive computer to do all the necessary calculations and in the second lesson she taught me how to navigate using a compass and using physical references. The underwater world, which had seemed so uniform and similar in every direction slowly started making itself much more real. I made it a habit to check my gauge and computer at regular intervals, I practiced the buoyancy skills that I had sucked at the day before and improved at them ever so slightly. Auden tried to motivate me between the dives while I kept asking her for ways to improve 😂 This was a much better day that the one before.

By the time my dives ended, Parul had come to the shop as well and was practicing her swimming. She had managed to nail it for a short distance! I guess all she needed was patient teachers (which I am definitely not) and the correct direction (which we had figured in Cambodia).

The town was desolate once again today. We went back to the hotel and stopped for lunch at a taco place nearby. We had another pleasant surprise today. We had recorded a podcast with The Musafir Stories while we were in the USA and they had edited and released the content that day. I sat listening to our memoirs of the Kashmir Great Lakes trek while hogging on some delicious seafood tacos. The day was definitely going much better today.

Listening to The Musafir Stories podcast

We returned to the beach later that evening to get Parul to practice her swimming for longer lengths than the pool had allowed. She still grimaced and stopped every time a wave hit her face but I guess she’s doing alright 😆

Sunsets in Mahahual

We ended the night with some fried food and a litre of michelada 😛

A litre full 😂

Burger and chimichanga 😋

Day 3

The next day’s agenda had two lessons - Deep Diving and Fish Identification. The first was all about the depth and after the last one at Koh Tao, I was a little skeptical about air pockets getting stuck in my ear. It went alright though and we went 29.2 meters deep into the ocean. The next one, Fish Identification, had me perplexed. I had to memorise a few fish varieties from the book, learn their symbols and identify the ones that Auden would point out underwater 😑 I also had to draw the ones I could not thus identify 😂 It was a fun dive and by the end of this one, I was much better practiced in buoyancy, much more aware of the gauge and computer, used my air judiciously; all in all, I was much better at diving! Parul had come diving today and the blue and calm waters of the Carribean coast made for a fantastic day.

A fantastic day

We returned to the center and thanked everyone yet again. Both of us had our own special reason for fondly remembering this dive shop. The entire experience of diving in Mahahual had been a relaxing and pleasurable one. The dive center and everyone there made things interesting and exciting. Right from Jorge with his jokes, Auden with her comforting instructions, the captain and his laid back attitude (and love for Gorillaz!); it all seemed to fit in extremely well. I was glad that we dove here and I got my Advanced here rather than elsewhere. It was such a stark difference in experience from the Open Waters in Koh Tao.

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All 👌

That night we hit up a nice Italian place (recommended by Jorge) to celebrate the dives and out personal successes ✌️

Someone can swim! 🐢

The American Sweetheart

Mahahual had been nice but now that we were not diving, we realised that a beach-side place had little to offer us. Plus the accomodation was a bit too expensive to simply dally our days about. So we decided to move on to our next destination, Tulum.

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Somewhere in Quintana Roo

It took a couple of bus changes and something similar in terms of number of hours to reach the town. This was one of those towns that had been recommended by everyone whom we had shared our Mexican plans with. And over the time we had formed an opinion of Tulum in our mind - touristy. And it did turn out to be touristy, heavily so.

The tourist town

Confirmation that we are still in Mexico 😂

Impressive street art enroute the AirBnB

We walked from the bus station to the AirBnB we had booked in a quaint neighbourhood. The place was cheap, nice and ample for our needs. There was a kitchen as well, which meant we could cook 💃

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Making the AirBnB home

Wisdom 😂

We dumped our luggage and left to find some lunch. We settled on an Argentinian place that served empanadas. Tulum, much like Brisas de Zicatela was now home to a lot of travelers and expats. Hence the food here was pretty diverse and comforting.

I started appreciating the empanadas out here

We did some shopping to stock up the refrigerator and returned to the AirBnB to relax.

Stocked up

Our AirBnB also had two furry denizens. Bob, the dog, hated being patronized, looked at us with suspicion every time we left the room and barked at us for any number of reasons. The cat was a clingy one that wanted to be rubbed and loved. She ran into the room the moment we unlocked the door 😂

Clingy cat sat on our door all the time 😑

However, she made for good company to work with

Unwanted intrusions 🐱

We spent our days working indoors. The heat was daunting and the comfort of the room was somnolent. I got hooked to Civ6 (officially addicted by now), ranted on the philosophy of slow-living, completed editing pending pictures from Europe. It was quite a fruitful time spent there. After all the continuously active travel, this was a much needed respite.

Good tequila makes for good times 😄

As does SRK's pink shirt

Ruins and Beaches

On our second day here, we went to check out the Tulum ruins. The ticket counter had more tourists than we had seen in any Mexican archaeological site as yet. Made sense since the town had more tourists than any other Mexican destination as yet. We walked around the ruins and pretty though they were, they did not seemed justified as archaeological sites. They reminded me of the Goa forts sitting on the cliff overlooking the vast ocean. The hordes of tourists all around made it less charming than the vacant Goa forts though.

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Ruins at Tulum

This upside down figure was probably the most interesting thing this place had to offer 😑

So many tourists 😬

Wonder what they were flocking in for

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Marking attendance 😛

There was beach access from the archaeological zone as well (!) which finally explained to me why so many of the tourists were walking around half naked.

Beach access from the ruins - FTW!

No wonder people were walking about in swimwear

Our main attraction at the site, however, were the iguanas! Initially we had mistook them for mere monitor lizards but some online searching had corrected us immediately. Oh and we also saw a raccoon 😆 We clicked a lot of pictures, mostly of the wildlife since the ruins were not as impressive 😛

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Smitten by the iguanas ❤️

Those eyes!

Interestingly, iguanas develop herbivorous tendencies as they grow older

I R Racoon! 😆

Why did the Iguana cross the road?

This grumpy one was Parul's favourite. Probably reminded her of herself 😛

Parul was strangely fascinated and scared by these creatures

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This one is not an iguana but it's so pretty! 💚

After the ruins we walked to the Paraiso Beach. We had heard much about this one as well. This beach was having it’s sargassum season as well but tractors were deployed to clear out the weed from the beach. The labourous activity did not allow the beach to look beautiful and hampered the natural process of water cleansing that the sargassum facilitated. The ecological debt of tourism 😑

The Paraiso Beach

An unnecessary exercise?

The beach itself, though nice, was not really as mindblowing as it had been made to be. I guess Clear Water Bay has raised our expectations immensely 😄 Since it was too hot, we cut our time on the beach short that afternoon and mostly sat at a shack sipping on cocktails and munching on nachos.

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Chilling at a shack

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That white sand though

The next morning I went running along the road all the way to the beach. It was a nice run, mostly because the town had a dedicated walking/cycling lane.

It was a nice run

We returned to the Paraiso beach that evening on cycles and spent more time bumming on the beach and trying to swim but giving up because of the itchy weed. The bright moon and the gentle waves were a happy experience. The number of conversations Parul and I have had on such occasions escapes my memory. There was something about mind control in reference to diving which faintly comes back to me, but the rest is gone ☁️

Back to the beach

Fooling around

That swimsuit is so 🔥

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Night photography with a point and shoot 📷

The next day was our last in town. We spent some time hopping cafes and had some dinner at a local place.

Mexican ethnicities we found listed on our cafe table

The grass is definitely green out here

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Too much cheese? No such thing 😆

Agua de Jamaica - one of our favourite beverage

Taco plate for dinner

Later that evening we went to check out the nightlife of the city for the first time during our stay here. It was interesting indeed but Tulum had already fulfilled our purpose of breaking the active travelling and giving us time to catch up on the pending work.

The wonderful street art of Tulum - the most charming thing for me

The next morning we packed up and headed to the bus stand, stopping to grab some breakfast en route.

Muffing English 😬

Agua natural

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Breakfast 💛

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While we had considered more things to do out here, we decided to hit up the next suggested destination. The lack of public transport and my hesitation to rent a vehicle restricted us from visiting the cenotes around town. We contented ourselves with walking about the town, looking at the amazing street art, eating some delicious food and spend the nights laughing over tequila.

Cheers to the craziness 🍶

The next from Mexican stories - Part 5.