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Mexico Pictures Here!

M||3 and I headed out for Mexico on 08/26 hurricane be damned. Despite a bit of a rough airplane flight, we arrived in Cancun without issue. I was thankful that once we arrived this time that we knew what to do and didn’t get caught in the newly arrived confusion. If you don’t know exactly where you’re going in the Cancun airport, then you’re tempted to ask help from people that won’t give up until you have committed to visit their holiday resort. So a note for anyone going to visit there, once you leave the security point, don’t talk to anyone unless you know exactly with whom you are dealing.

Regardless, m||3 and I headed straight for the Alamo rental car company, who eventually swept us into their van and shipped us off to their HQ to give us our mini car for the week. It was a bit of a rush, but after we got everything set up and noted to Alamo every single ding and scratch in the car, we were on our way.

Our destination was Isle Holbox. I don’t think we would have arrived there without these directions. We drove north towards Cancun, but skirted to the west side of it to make the free highway southwest. It was a long but amazing drive. One has to know how to behave on the long highways and remember that the small towns have those suspension destroying bumps that will come up out of nowhere, but if you remember that you’ll be fine. Once we navigated south far enough, we found the north turn to head up to Isle Holbox and that was where the problems began. I frequently joke to m||3 about my video game reflexes, but even they didn’t help me dodge the frequent and dangerous pot holes on this road. I should have played more Spy Hunter.

So we were doing about 60 km per hour when my luck ran out and I hit a pot hole that flattened the tire and bent the tire housing. We made a brief stop to check out the damage and had enough tire life left to make it to the next town. A very kind and generous policeman helped us with the flat that fortified our faith in the Mexican security system.

A spare tire down, we proceeded to Chiquilá to catch the ferry to Ilse Holbox. Once in Chiquilá, a child on a modified bike led us to a place where we could park our car. After a brief non-English debate with a 10 year old girl, we snagged a space and headed out to the ferry to Holbox.

The ferry was a little more frightening than I would have expected. The boat leaned heavily enough to make me wonder what I would do to escape if it capsized. Thankfully, we didn’t have to exercise such an option and once we landed we took a go cart taxi (there are no cars on Holbox) to our hotel Mawimbi.

Mawimbi, although lacking air conditioning and having the required mosquito nets over the bed, was the best find of our entire trip. The place is just an incredible sample of what a preconceived notion of paradise can be. I highly recommend that if you’re headed this way that you give them a stay.

We told the lady to bang on our door so we wouldn’t oversleep for the whale shark tour the next morning and had some much needed sleep. Unbelievably, we were awake before our wake up knock came and we got up for some coffee and cakes. In short order we loaded into a 24 ft boat, named Buena Onda, and headed out. On the way, we were educated by Alex, our guide, about the whale sharks and he provided the best scientific information he could about the whale sharks and what we should and should not do. I was impressed and still am curious about who funds them and that hopefully these smaller tours provide a good amount of data to researchers.

The ride out was a butt abusing hour plus. Right as it seemed we may never get there, much less see any sharks, right in the horizon line appeared this shape. All I can compare it to is the scene in ‘Jaws’ after Brody is tossing chum and sees the shark for the first time. Quint comes out and there is this scene of the upcoming adversary. It was kind of like that except the looming beast in the water was the opposite of threatening. As one of our boat companions pointed out, they must think we are “handicapped fish” and feel sorry for us.

Only two were allowed in the water at a time, so when the boat pulled up to the right place in relative position to the shark, it was all “go go go”. The first shark we swam with was spirited and was difficult to keep up with, which although thoroughly rewarding, it was decided that we needed to go find some more ‘lazy’ sharks.

I don’t know if we found ‘lazy’ sharks, but we found plenty more. We probably saw close to 20 on our entire venture. Entering the water with these magnificent creatures never incurred a sense of fear in the least. It was a bit a struggle to keep up with them sometimes, but rest assured as you were chasing them, they would suddenly change feeding course and head right at you. This lead to some funny underwater maneuvers, believe me. To witness these creatures was nothing less than spiritual. The scene was surreal, actually, since you are pushing through dark water dotted with jelly fish like Christmas lights as your ignoring your instincts to flee from a 30 ft behemoth pushing through an environment not your own.

As an added bonus, we saw some huge manta rays that breeched the water, which I didn’t even know they did. Picture a 15 ft manta ray doing a back flip and you might be able to calculate my surprise. Some of our companions had the opportunity to get in the water with the rays and now I wish that I had, but maybe for another time.

The ride back was a long one, but I certainly did notice that that all the other whale shark tour boats had long since disappeared. If you’re going to go, go Mawimbi. They seemed to take more interest in the experience instead of just spending and hour to show you a shark and get out of there.

Now we just had to survive the ride back to Playa del Carmen. More on the rest of the adventure soon.