Bacalar is a beautiful Lagoon, clear waters, sweet tasting water (not to drink though!) with no animals, so not to worry about crocodiles !  We stayed by the Lagoon in our own little cabin, a little out of town, so a bit isolated and could only get to town by cab, but that was easy enough. It was worth the slightly overpriced rooms as it was 2 days of breakfast by the lagoon, swimming, and just lazing about. It was great.

Here a great website with information about the Lagoon: http://www.mayanbeachgarden.com/Bacalar.html

After we went to Chetumal, which is on the Mexican/Belize border.  We found a hotel just by the centre of town, called Hotel Ucum. It had great value spacious rooms, with a swimming pool and wifi.  We went to the Mayan museum, which is a good place to get a better understanding of the Mayan culture.  There is a long shopping street, that runs all the way to the beach, a nice walk. We found a great restaurant just next to our Hotel, called Pantoja, and ate most of our meals there. Their great food settled my stomach for the first time ! From Chetumal , we took a bus to Belize to a town called Orange Walk. The border crossing was easy, as the bus literally waited next to the immigration boot, and the driver keeps an eye on who is on the bus so they won’t leave without you.

Our stay in Mexico is over, we loved the positive attitude of the Mexicans, and even though we were warned we had no problems with keeping ourselves safe. We would definitely go there again.

Now time to explore Belize !

Oaxaca-6 hours by bus from Mexico City. ADO has the best buses, and offer reasonable prices to travel around the country by bus. They provide comfortable tour buses with toilets and they show movies (in Spanish of course….).  The only down side is that the air conditioning is cranked up by the driver to keep him awake. I was glad to have packed an extra sweater in my hand luggage. Our back packs were checked in at the terminal, and ADO personal puts the bags in the hold.

Oaxaca is a town not be missed. It is so cosy with the centre basically one big street market.  The main square has restaurants where you can have some food and drinks and people watch the locals on the square. When we were there, a dance festival was in full swing, and there was live music and couples dancing on Latin American music.  Such a great atmosphere. The town is also very cultural, and a walk up the main street from the Plaza, brings you to lots of galleries, and to a Cathedral which is absolutely breathtaking.  Also, don’t forget to taste the Oaxaca cheese, it’s addictive if you are a cheese lover.

From Oaxaca we took the night bus to Villahermosa. It was a long journey, and as soon as we got there we stored our luggage in the bus station, and went to the historic centre.  It’s got some nice little shops, but we were not overwhelmed, maybe after such a great time in Oaxaca, Villahermosa was a tough act to follow. We went to the La Venta-Museum Park which is a zoo and an archaeological site. It was nice and relaxing, but we decided to take another night bus to Playa del Carmen, as with the heat we were desperate to get to the beach.

Night bus was fine, the comfortable chairs means you can get to sleep quite well.  In our guide book it said it was not very safe to take the night bus due to robberies and buses being stopped by bandits. We checked with some of the locals what their experience is with night buses, and they all said the ADO buses go straight on the highways to their location, and most buses robbed are the once that make stops in small villages and therefor on smaller roads. We felt better after our conversation with the locals and went ahead and took the night bus again. We had two road blocks and the army on the bus to check our bags, but that’s the most excitement we had that night.

Playa del Carmen- Playa for us was not the real Mexico. It’s a resort.  There is one main Avenue where there are many shops, bars restaurants, Subway, Starbucks……It was packed with tourists, and everything was  quite pricey. The beach was what we were there for and we found a little hostel 2 steps from the beach. White sand, blue water, swim early morning, some lovely local restaurants in the back streets, and we slowly started to love Playa. There is also the island of Cozumel, 45 minutes by boat from Playa. Bit pricey but we went ahead for a day trip. We did a snorkel trip and really loved the warm and clear water.  Loving Mexico!

Next stop: Bacaral-Chetumal

Picture taken in Oaxaca: