After Palenque we stopped overnight in Campeche, a colourful and unbelievably hot coastal town whose culinary speciality is a tortilla made with baby hammerhead shark and refried beans. Mmmm. Then it was back to the bus station for the final leg of our journey to Cancun, where we were due to meet up with Susie’s parents.
Until about twenty years ago, Cancun (meaning serpent’s nest in Mayan) was simply a long, uninhabited stretch of land sandwiched between the turquoise Caribbean Sea and a salt-water lagoon. Noting the spectacular beaches the Mexican tourist board sensed an opportunity, and following massive investment the coast is now lined with luxury hotels, designer stores and expensive super-clubs.
The state of Quintana Roo now has a staggering 69,000 hotel rooms – and the aim is to double this capacity within the next decade. It’s certainly a world away from the ‘other’ Mexico we’ve been travelling through. However, for the local, predominantly Mayan population, the influx of tourists is very welcome. Almost everyone is employed in the tourist industry in some guise or other, and the area is now one of the most prosperous in Mexico.
It was great to see Linda and Tony walking through the arrival gates of the airport –having not seen them since December there was a lot to catch up on! We spent six days with them at a lovely eco-resort a couple of hours down the coast from Cancun. And after three months of sleeping in hostels (or the back of the van) we were like kids in a sweetshop. The week was spent snorkelling, fishing (check out Tony with his sailfish!) and relaxing by the pool (or the swim-up bar). In the nearby harbour we spied this enourmous yacht with possibly the crassest name ever.
We also braved the mosquitoes and ventured into the jungle to see the ruins of the Mayan city of Coba. The Mayans were very skilled mathematicians and astrologers, and the calendar they devised is still the most precise known to us. Our Gregorian calendar is inaccurate to the tune of six hours per year (hence the need for the leap year). In contrast, the Mayan calendar is out by only seventeen seconds every 52 years.
At the Coba site a stone tablet was found which predicts the end of human civilisation on 21st December, 2012. Astonishingly, NASA scientists have confirmed that on this day all the planets and the sun and moon will come into alignment, directly bisecting the Milky Way and potentially causing a reversal of the earth’s poles. I’m liking the idea of a celestial themed end-of-the-world fancy dress party!
After bidding a sad farewell to Linda and Tony we had a day to sort out our laundry and stock up on essential toiletries before heading off to our next (and very different) destination: Cuba.
