Activity Summary
Saturday 6th May - Day 247
Travel to Bacalar
Bacalar town
Dinner at Mr Tacos
Drinks at La Playita
Sunday 7th May - Day 248
Bacalar lagoon tour - Iselitas
Cenote Negro
Canal de los Piratas + swim
Isla de los Pájaros
Cenote Cocalitos & stomalites
Cenote Esmeralda + swim
Lunch at Mr Tacos
Travel to Chetumal
Dinner at La Tertulia Restaurant
Monday 8th May - Day 249
Travel to Caye Caulker / Belize (Water Jets International)
Summary
Bacalar
As we had skipped the renowned beachside resort towns and cities in Yucatán (Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Tulum) our first slice of the ‘beachside’ chill vibe was Bacalar and if we were to spend more time here it wouldn’t have disappointed.
The town centre is small but pretty and has a great chill about it. Plenty of bars lined the lagoon waterfront and it looked like some of the hostels we walked by were pretty lively. The lagoon is definitely the highlight with its crystal blue majority saltless waters that were great to wade around in.
Certainly would be able to get our chill on here with ease but we were happy with our day's activity seeing most of the sights and could move on to Belize.
Chetumal
A fairly big city but with very little tourist appeal. Nice enough to walk around in the evening while searching for food but it was completely dead on a Sunday and we struggled for open eateries that were decent. At this point we would have settled for any big chain fast food but there wasn’t a morsel in nearby sight. That said, the walk to the pier at a reasonable time in the morning made the whole stay completely worthwhile.
Transport
Bacalar
Valladolid homestay -> [walk] -> Ado bus terminal -> [ADO bus] -> Bacalar ADO roadside -> [walk] -> Hotel
Chetumal
Bacalar hotel -> [walk] -> ADO ticket office / roadside -> [ADO poo bus] -> Chetumal -> [Uber] -> Hotel
Caye Caulker
Chetumal hotel -> [walk] -> Water Jets International pier -> [pass through Mexican customs - speedboat] -> San Pedro (Belize) -> [Belize customs - speedboat] -> Caye Caulker (Belize)
For a lot of reading about this journey, none of the advice was at all clear. So a summary is:
Book tickets for the speedboat more than 24 hours in advance
Get to Chetumal the day before - not worth the ADO morning bus stress
3 forms to fill out at the pier - bring a pen or make friends
Mexican border control is dead easy - passport is stamped and money declaration form taken
Belize border control in San Pedro is equally easy - passport is stamped and the 2 remaining customs forms are taken
Absolutely no money changes hands
Accommodation
Bacalar - Hotel America
Number of nights - 1
Price per night per person - £11
The hotel was pretty loud from what appeared to be locals so it had to be an earplug jobby. Otherwise it was pretty simple, two double beds again and we made do for the night.
Being closer to the bus terminal and having bag drop were the main points for us.
Chetumal - The Downtown Hostel
Number of nights - 1
Price per night per person - £13
Nicola was actually quite a fan of the room. Spacious with decent enough bathroom and quote ‘it’s the small things’ like sockets by beds and bedside tables and lights. Certainly had enough space in the shower for Luke to get a haircut and then make it easy enough to scoop into the bin.
Bit of a negative were the bitey things knocking around the room. The death toll was 3 for less than 24 hours in the room - making up about 50% of our mozzy related incidents in the whole of Mexico.
Diary
It seemed like there was only one bus available from Valladolid to Bacalar so we bought our tickets early for this one and left our homestay for the bus at 10.10am. Naturally Steve and Lee were already there nice and early as usual.
The bus was about 4/5 hours to Bacalar and armed with travel pasta and cakes we were pretty set. We booked a boat tour of the Bacalar lagoon for the next day and kept ourselves entertained like we usually did.
The Bacalar stop was a slightly unusual one. It was the first time we hadn’t pulled into a fancy terminal station, but rather pulling over on the main road. Departing this wasn’t much of a problem but our plans to get the bus to Chetumal the next day required us to be a little more aware of our surroundings.
With bags loaded up we walked the 10 minutes to our hotel, had a confusing exchange in Spanglish over whether we had paid (Booking.com doesn’t make this overly clear in the confirmations), dropped our stuff and then walked into town. The main centre of town was a little walk away but we had opted for the easiest big bag bus hike as the priority for us - a decision we would come to appreciate the next day.
On our way over to the main road along the waterfront we saw a hostel with a pool that was popping off (a big contrast from the places we have seen in Mexico so far) and by the time we got to the main road we crossed paths with Steve and Lee who were also doing some exploring, mainly for a place to get a swim in.
Now teamed up we went back into the main square, past the San Felipe fort that was used for historic pirate attack defences and to Mr Tacos for our last taste of Mexican taco cuisine. We went for a quick detour to a bank to try to take out some cash but it turned out it was a bust and there were barely any other options to withdraw money. We settled for trying to make it work with what we had.
Mr Tacos was great. Extensive taco, quesadilla and burrito menu with some tasty fresh juice available. Chichurron, chipotle chicken and a first fish taco in Mexico for Luke nicely rounded off his love hate relationship with Mexican cuisine. The poor waiter also had to deal with us shedding all the peso coins we had accumulated over the month but he took it in good humour, as did the group putting up with Luke counting and double counting his pennies like a typical accountant / kid at a sweet shop.
We spent the evening with a few drinks at a waterfront bar called La Playita which had the most affordable beer Luke has drunk at bars so far and had some nice views over the lagoon in the moonlight. Very nice evening.
We were only staying in Bacalar for a night given we needed to get to the ferry terminal in Chetumal super early the next day to catch the ferry to Belize & Caye Caulker. Our decision to leave today turned out to be an inspired decision. The only bus from Bacalar to get to Chetumal before the 8am check in time at the ferry left at 6am and for us, it was not worth the hassle of getting up super early, Nicola feeling like shit, walking 10 minutes with our big bags to get a bus on the side of the road to Chetumal, all for the sake of spending an extra half day in Bacalar. Steve and Lee did this the next day and the bus didn’t turn up so they were forced to catch a cab to Chetumal for double the price of a bus ticket - Nicola had read this happened frequently and was factored into our decision.
The main annoyance / risky element was leaving our bags with the hotel reception. It didn’t seem like an overly well run hotel and our bags were left behind the desk in full view of anyone passing by. Luke cable tied them together so stealing them wouldn't have been overly easy but we did leave a lot of electronics in Nicola’s locked bag as we didn’t want them on the water with us. If anyone really wanted to, they’d be able to get into the bag pretty easily but it worked out all fine in the end. The London street smart pessimism is hard to shake.
We had a 30 minute walk to the Iselitas tour jetty which was actually quite nice so early in the morning, without any large bags and at a time where the temperature wasn’t savage and cloud cover kept us in shade. We had a stray dog follow us more or less the whole way which put Nicola on edge as she really doesn’t like or trust them, but he turned out to be harmless. There was even an organised kids bike race going on which was rather wholesome.
At the jetty we waited around for a little while, managed to pay for the tour on a card which was infinitely helpful and eventually got on a boat just after 9am. There was a little bit of rejigging to get the boat to balance and once off the tour guide decided to choose us as the first people to speak to in blitzkrieg fast Spanish. Naturally we were both confused and didn’t even realise he was speaking to us until one of the Mexican people translated to Luke. After he answered there was a 5 minute period of pure confusion as the guide decided to dock the boat, get everyone to move to another and get another captain on board. The reason being - we were English, Luke had said he speaks very little Spanish and this meant the tour couldn’t go ahead.
This was all a bit dramatic but finally we were off with a guide who spoke a little English. We would stop off at each viewpoint where she would explain some things in Spanish and then translate into English just for us. The best part was that she spoke slowly and clearly enough for us to actually understand what she was saying in Spanish and the English was almost not needed. We would have been absolutely fine not understanding 50% of what was going on but o well.
The first stop was Cenote Negro, a big old hole in the lagoon made of rock and at its deepest went down to 100m. The crystal blue water of the lagoon turns almost black as the shallow white sand in the lagoon is lost and the deep water abyss takes over. We skirted around the cenote for a little while before moving on.
Next was the Canal de los Piratas where the boat anchored up and gave us the opportunity to have a swim for 45 minutes. The water was pretty shallow at waist height for most of the canal so it was more walking over and around before we had a nice little wade around in the water by boat. It was like being back in the crystal blue shallow waters of Phi Phi island, minus the tides and it was a fair amount colder (although this was more a product of the wind and intermittent sunshine).
On board the boat we were fed our intercontinental breakfast which consisted of pineapple, melon, bananas and bimbo bread - safe to say no one went anywhere near the sugar ridden bread.
Once the boat started moving again we did a drive by of the Isla de los Pájaros where a ton of birds were chilling and flying around a patch of mangrove trees. The area was cordoned off to allow them peace and quiet which was quite refreshing.
Cenote number 2 was cenote Cocalitos which was a conical hole but of note were the stromatolites around here. These rocky organisms are believed to have created reef life over 3.5 billion years ago and play a massive role in keeping the waters their crystal blue colour and oxygenated. Not many places in the world they can be seen.
Last stop was the Cenote Esmeralda, again a conical shaped cenote but with edges made up of sand. The cenote is also connected to cenote Azul. Away from the deep cenote however the water was shallow enough to stand so after a 2 minute swim over Esmeralda we got scared and stuck to the kiddy pool levels.
With the tour done we half ran away to avoid any tip confrontation. We’d already paid quite a lot for the boat tour so didn’t feel like anything else should be included. Overall we were happy we booked onto the boat trip; it allowed us to see most of the sights in the lagoon while swimming in cool spots while the access to the lagoon from the main road seemed surprisingly challenging due to what seemed to be privatisation of entry points. 3 hours was probably quite a long time but we enjoyed the fruit feeding that came as an extra. Could have done with more sun however, Sod’s Law really that the one day in Mexico we do a water based activity it’s cloudy and windy.
We walked back into town and given we enjoyed the food and it was easy, it was back to Mr Tacos for lunch. Nicola was incredibly disappointed in not being able to get 3 fish tacos, lathered with coriander, because it was pre-2pm. We weren’t willing to wait for an hour so she settled for a monster chorizo y papas burrito without much complaint.
We had little else we wanted to achieve in Bacalar so decided to get our shuffle on for the 2pm bus. It worked out pretty well timing wise in grabbing our bags and making our way to the ADO ticket off about 10 minutes before the bus arrived but the walk with our big bags to the bus stop in the middle of the day sunshine was savage. Our saving grace was there was some pretty tasty aircon in the ticket office.
When the bus arrived we frantically ran out of the safety of the office and to the bus parked on the side of the road. Pretty much the entirety of the bus departed bar one guy and we were the only two getting on. It would turn out to be the worst ADO bus of the trip as it smelt like absolute manure, almost like one of the departees had decided to drop a massive deucey as a goodbye present to us when leaving the bus. We both had to wear our facemasks the entire time and Nicola was especially not happy - our allocated seats close to the toilet were vacated for some much closer to the driver.
At least it was a short ride to Chetumal. For the first time in an age we were able to get an Uber to our hostel which was dreamy.
Check in was painless and we spent a bit of time in the room working out what fees we were required to pay to leave Mexico / enter Belize. There are few blogs that really give much detail and absolutely none of them confirm the same process or fees so Luke got in a bit of a tiff working out whether we had paid the Tourism Tax (IDR) as part of our Aeromexico flight and how to get an itemised receipt from them. In the end he gave up. At the time of writing on the boat, we still have no idea what fees are to be incurred but did get a 1,500 peso buffer just in case.
While Luke went around in circles Nicola went shopping for sun cream and unsuccessfully finding a long iPhone cable. As there was pretty much nothing open on a Sunday in Chetumal and none of the food joints looked great. We settled for La Tertulia Restaurant after walking around a bit and while the pizzas were 4/10 there was enough to last us for dinner and brunch the next day.
Nicola was once again kind enough to give Luke a peasant haircut in the shower for which he was very grateful. Long hair and heat makes the man sweat.
After a pretty decent night's sleep we were up and out of the door by 7.30am and walking to the Water Jets International pier for our speedboat to Caye Caulker.
We were reunited with Steve and Lee and all waited around until 8.15am to check in, which involved filling out 3 sets of forms and dropping our big bags into a bag trolley. Not too tricky a process so far.
The Mexican passport process again was pretty painless, simply getting a stamp of exit and handing over our declared money form over.
We boarded the speedboat and we were on our way to Caye Caulker and Belize (via San Pedro first).
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