Ben Welsher | Writings

Day 7 - Merida We bid farewell to Hostel Rio Playa regretting that we didn't have time to bathe in their foot-deep 'swimming' pool even though, as notified by sign, diving was prohibited. Our early bus was of the plush (no really) ADO variety, I sense our standards of carriage can only decline as the trip progresses. We set our compass to Merida, the cultural capital of the Yucatan. First stop was Valladolid though for a brief excursion to the Mayan ruins at Ek Balam (Balam meaning Jaguar, Ek as in 'ooh ek'). A collectivo taxi with two Mexicans heading that way provided an economical connection. The Mayans put up some pretty impressive structures without the use of metal tools or draft animals and though most had crumbled the 29m pyramid still stood resplendent amongst the trees. The ascent was jagged and unforgiving and a slip could be painfully, bone-breakingly fatal. The view from the top, however, engorged the eyes with its vast verdancy. The climb down was mor...

Day 3 - Cancún I fervently hope that a runway is approaching us with the rapidity that we are approaching the tree-carpeted ground. Black waters have become turquoise and grey skies an endless blue. I've never seen so much jungle and I've been to the New Forest ferchristsakes. Summer had arrived in December. We had touched down in Cancún in the Yucatán Peninsula. A town infamous for being a magnet to alcohol deprived American teenagers in spring and all the exported debauchery that suggests. Our hostel was sited in a disused shopping mall, the escalators had halted long ago but the place did the trick and it was in short order that we were sipping our first ice-cold Corona. The trip proper had started now, 'journey' if you're of a more literary bent. I had been fighting a rather fatalistic state of mind for the past two days, a mind of dark and doomy imaginings. Now every edge was a precipice, every drain cover a trapdoor, the cracks were everywhere. It drives one...