As soon as I can, I’ll update you on my one year trip. I’ve decided to leave everything behind and spend real time with the people that matter the most in my life: my wife and three children. This is my story, I hope it will inspire you to create yours.
You can read my previous “On the road” articles:
- On the road #1
- On the road #2
- On the road #3
- On the road #4
- On the road #5
- On the road #6
- On the road #7
- On the road #8
- On the road #9
- On the road #10
- On the road #11
- On the road #12
- On the road #13
- On the road #14
- On the road #15
- On the road #16
- On the road #17
- On the road #18
- On the road #19
- On the road #20
- On the road #21
Date: from March 29th to April 10th
Countries/States/Province traveled through: Mexico
I’m writing this On the road from a campground in Texas… wow, life is so easy here! After a little over seven months spent in Mexico and Central America, I now have a better appreciation for life in the States. Resources are so easy to find and life is sweet. But before I drive through the last stretch of my adventure, I had a few more days to spend in a magical world…
The Mexican Adventure Continues, the First Wall on our Way Back
Crossing the border into Mexico was almost boring. No tramidores, no circus, nobody to yell at us saying we are doing the wrong thing… just a plain border with clear indications. After a few km inside of Mexico, we already felt the difference. We have left Central Amercia. No matter how many people tell you Mexico is sometimes behind the rest of North America, this is not true. Not entirely anyways. All of a sudden, you have full access to shopping malls, resources, 2-3 lane boulevards. We hit our first wall; the magical aspect of our trip is fading away and being replaced by a world that we already know. Mexico almost feels like home now. In a single day, we are able to do our groceries, have our clothes washed in a laundromat, have Freefall in the garage for an oil change, get propane and fill our water tank. Things have become incredibly simple all of a sudden! As we need to go back to the garage for a small repair the next day, we patiently waited in a movie Theatre watching la Bella y Bestia. This time, we understood almost everything that was said in Spanish!
We spent a few days in the magical region of Lake Bacalar. This is a lake with 6-7 different tones of blue and turquoise. A true gem that is still unknown by many tourists and it’s only a 3 hours drive from Tulum. We enjoyed our stay with a free coffee in the morning and swimming in the afternoon. The water is simply magical. I can even use my Mexican phone to create a hotspot and work by the lake. Definitely, we are off to another great start for our second time in Mexico!
We decided to leave Lake Bacalar to enjoy the beach one last time. This time, we drove on the East side of the Yucatan Peninsula. We found a great spot to park Freefall… after getting stuck in the sand.. hahaha! Never think you can boondock by the beach, RVs tend to disappear in a foot of sand! We finally stayed there only for one night because the beach wasn’t that great after all:
We drove up to Tulum and finished the day in a Starbucks. Oh, I missed my latte! We can park right in the ruins parking lot and will visit them tomorrow morning before the hordes of tourists arrive.
Tulum is a lot different than the other ruins we have seen so far. They are a lot smaller and the temples have less detail than Tikal or Teotihuacan. However, the setting is just fabulous; right by the turquoise ocean!
After visiting Tulum in the morning, we drove about 2 hours and stopped at a Cenote. We have been told it was a marvel and couldn’t miss it. This time, I have to disagree. Is it because we have been travelling for over 9 months and seen a lot of wonders? Maybe. It is because the Cenote was filled by tourists with orange jackets (that we have to pay on top of the entrance fee if you want to swim inside), definitely! Oh well, we have seen it, but we weren’t impressed at all. In our original plan, we were supposed to sleep in the Cenote parking lot. It’s now 1pm and we have seen what we wanted. Time to hit the road again and go to the next stop: Uxmal!
The Uxmal ruins are beautiful. It looks like the Mayan community had been changed into lizards as there are iguanas everywhere inside these walls! These temples have been carved with better “technology” or “know-how”. They show lots of details and we found a similar peaceful atmosphere like we first felt in Tikal. It was definitely worth the ride this time! We go to sleep with smiles on our faces after visiting 2 different ruins and one Cenote in the same day. We are getting a little faster than our anticipated plan…
We finish our “to do list in Mexico” with the visit of Palenque ruins. They were quite impressive. As this is another highly touristy attraction, we decide to apply the same formula; we get there late in the afternoon, find a campground and settle for the night. The next morning, we are the first people to enter the temples. There is an amazing setting this morning as there are lots of clouds over our heads. It feels like we are deep in a rain forest and are about to discover some magical treasure. There is almost no one around and we can climb pretty much everywhere.
Before leaving this magical place, we hit a second wall. We now know that this was the last thing we wanted to see or do in Mexico. This means we are going to start our ascension towards the U.S. This also means that our dream is about to end in roughly 2 months. I know, *only* two months more to travel… I complain for nothing! But still, we had 6 times that when we started. This is the last stretch to our trip.
We stopped a few days in Catemaco to recharge our batteries before the last marathon in Mexico: 1,200km in 2 days. We enjoyed our time in Mexico but the touristy approach in Yucatan and the heat made us leave this country 10 days earlier than expected. But this is something we learned while traveling: if you like it, you stay, if you don’t, there are plenty of other things to discover in the world. Life is short, we then decided we will visit more in the U.S. instead!
Looks amazing. Never been to Mexico, only been to America once so it may be worth the trip South. Cheers.
Hello BHL,
It’s a completely different world once you enter Mexico. But you can find so much magic there, it’s definitely worth it!
Cheers,
Mike
Wow, with every post I’m amazed by what you guys are all doing. I like the way of keeping all options open as to your travel plans. We’ve been to the US 3 weeks ago (for 2 weeks) and we had only booked our first night. We just plannend per day where we went according to what we liked to do. Felt like having the ultimate freedom!
I think it’s the “best” way to travel once you get use to the uncertainty factor. For the whole trip, we never planned more than a week in advance. This gives you the flexibility to stay or leave whenever you like/dislike a place. Sometimes, we drive a lot more than expected and some other, we stay in hidden paradise for a week because we like it :-).
We find it a little bit more difficult to apply this type of travelling in the US now… When we want to stay in State Parks for example, we have to plan it a little bit in advance.
Cheers,
Mike
Great! It brings back memories of our first trip as a couple. Only 6 months together and we went on a 3 week trip to Mexico.
I really liked Mexico, where did you go on your trip?