This Could Be Paradise
Dec. 5th, 2014 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeOn Thursday morning we were up and out early, determined to see the sights of Cancun (such as they are). The famous beach area is on a spit of land shaped like a 7, a good way away from downtown Cancun. None of this really existed before 1970, when the place became a resort much akin to those on the south coast of Spain. As a consequence, it's a rather soulless place of holiday hotel after holiday hotel, all with their own little section of beach, while there are some restaurants and bars dotted intermittently down the 20km of the beach area. Many of these are American - there is a Hooters here for example - and indeed these are many of the accents you hear. Fundamentally then it's not a place for me, I've never liked throngs of tourists, holiday resorts or beaches so I could have told you that anyway but I thought it was definitely worth exploring.
We got a taxi from our hotel, which was around thirty minutes from downtown, and we were surprised at the sheer distance to the beaches. It was a good 20km as I asked us to be dropped off at the centre. Unfortunately there isn't really a centre of Cancun's beaches, rather one long homogeneous strip so we got dropped off in the literal centre which was the upmarket Kulkakan Mall. As it was before 9am, bugger all was open so we walked down the main drag for a kilometre or so, trying to find a beach. Sadly they were all private hotel beaches so we couldn't get across although we did get a nice view across the tranquil lagoon towards downtown Cancun - another collection of bright white high-rises in the sun - as there was an opening in the buildings for a boating school. We had to be careful though as signs were warning us throughout the spit to be careful of the crocodiles, who particularly enjoy bathing in the languid water of the lagoon. We did manage to pick up some sandwiches from the local Oxxo though before hailing another taxi at the taxi rank to travel 6km further down the spit to the Maya ruins of El Rey, thinking this would be the only real item of interest at this time of the morning.
El Rey is a rather small Mayan site which is highly populated by iguanas. So much so that they startle you around every corner, just sitting there shiftily, their gaze fully transfixed on you. The baby iguanas romping over the waterlogged grass were quite fun but their real domain was the stone building and there were a good three or four on each of them. The remains here are far less impressive than the ones we had seen earlier in the week. The area was populated during the Post Classical Period (1200-1500 AD) just before the Spanish arrived and is arranged north-south along a narrow piece of land. There are 47 buildings built in a style similar to that of Tulum (see later) which appeared to be a far less impressive building manner than some of the sites which preceded it. The settlement was largely based on fishing but roads emanating from it along with the discovery of jade and obsidian tools suggest they trades far and wide. There was a modest temple here, with columns which were still visible, but most of the buildings were residential and thus not particularly grandiose. There was also a pyramid here too initially measuring 5.5m with a temple atop it, but little of this survives, just two small alters and the stairway. Due to the level of the ruins, with some of them merely being a flat slab of land and some piled stones, you needed a huge leap of the imagination to imagine what they would have been like with columns supporting a thatched roof which would have provided shelter for the working household. It was interesting seeing one culture replace another in the background, with the remains of a temple up front with a huge corporate hotel behind it. I'm not sure whether that's progress or not.
Before we had visited this site, we noticed a public beach across the road, so we popped down to view the beautiful turquoise Caribbean Sea as it crashed onto the marvelously white sandy beach. This was the first time I had ever seen the Caribbean and this beach was surprisingly quiet, with palm trees and beach huts dotting the expanse of white. This was called Dolphin Beach and although we didn't see any dolphins, there were quite a few people indulging in watersports while there were a handful of families enjoying the sun. The sand was wonderfully soft, difficult to walk upon in shoes though, but I felt I must at least touch and taste the Caribbean which is exactly what I did. From the waterfront, you got a wonderful panorama of the bay with all of the hotels lining it, a sight of humans desecrating a picturesque area for themselves but a picturesque area nonetheless. A slice of paradise even. With a Hooters and a range of other American fast food restaurants. But then what can you do I guess and there are other more secluded beaches further down the road.
We arranged to meeting the taxi driver at 11:15am, which was a little optimistic really - we thought El Rey would be bigger than it was and so we had twenty or so minutes to kill waiting in the sun for him. This was no bad thing though as it was a good place to reflect and unwind. Fortunately the taxi driver was early so we were soon back at our hotel, where we had a little sleep before embarking on the four hour journey to Chetumal via Tulum, which I'll detail next. Perhaps we could have stayed in Cancun longer but there wasn't much here of interest aside from potentially snorkelling, diving and exploring the nearby caves which I think would be best done on a separate holiday. I may look into doing a short sunshine break like this in the future but for now we had to press on and head south.
We got a taxi from our hotel, which was around thirty minutes from downtown, and we were surprised at the sheer distance to the beaches. It was a good 20km as I asked us to be dropped off at the centre. Unfortunately there isn't really a centre of Cancun's beaches, rather one long homogeneous strip so we got dropped off in the literal centre which was the upmarket Kulkakan Mall. As it was before 9am, bugger all was open so we walked down the main drag for a kilometre or so, trying to find a beach. Sadly they were all private hotel beaches so we couldn't get across although we did get a nice view across the tranquil lagoon towards downtown Cancun - another collection of bright white high-rises in the sun - as there was an opening in the buildings for a boating school. We had to be careful though as signs were warning us throughout the spit to be careful of the crocodiles, who particularly enjoy bathing in the languid water of the lagoon. We did manage to pick up some sandwiches from the local Oxxo though before hailing another taxi at the taxi rank to travel 6km further down the spit to the Maya ruins of El Rey, thinking this would be the only real item of interest at this time of the morning.
El Rey is a rather small Mayan site which is highly populated by iguanas. So much so that they startle you around every corner, just sitting there shiftily, their gaze fully transfixed on you. The baby iguanas romping over the waterlogged grass were quite fun but their real domain was the stone building and there were a good three or four on each of them. The remains here are far less impressive than the ones we had seen earlier in the week. The area was populated during the Post Classical Period (1200-1500 AD) just before the Spanish arrived and is arranged north-south along a narrow piece of land. There are 47 buildings built in a style similar to that of Tulum (see later) which appeared to be a far less impressive building manner than some of the sites which preceded it. The settlement was largely based on fishing but roads emanating from it along with the discovery of jade and obsidian tools suggest they trades far and wide. There was a modest temple here, with columns which were still visible, but most of the buildings were residential and thus not particularly grandiose. There was also a pyramid here too initially measuring 5.5m with a temple atop it, but little of this survives, just two small alters and the stairway. Due to the level of the ruins, with some of them merely being a flat slab of land and some piled stones, you needed a huge leap of the imagination to imagine what they would have been like with columns supporting a thatched roof which would have provided shelter for the working household. It was interesting seeing one culture replace another in the background, with the remains of a temple up front with a huge corporate hotel behind it. I'm not sure whether that's progress or not.
Before we had visited this site, we noticed a public beach across the road, so we popped down to view the beautiful turquoise Caribbean Sea as it crashed onto the marvelously white sandy beach. This was the first time I had ever seen the Caribbean and this beach was surprisingly quiet, with palm trees and beach huts dotting the expanse of white. This was called Dolphin Beach and although we didn't see any dolphins, there were quite a few people indulging in watersports while there were a handful of families enjoying the sun. The sand was wonderfully soft, difficult to walk upon in shoes though, but I felt I must at least touch and taste the Caribbean which is exactly what I did. From the waterfront, you got a wonderful panorama of the bay with all of the hotels lining it, a sight of humans desecrating a picturesque area for themselves but a picturesque area nonetheless. A slice of paradise even. With a Hooters and a range of other American fast food restaurants. But then what can you do I guess and there are other more secluded beaches further down the road.
We arranged to meeting the taxi driver at 11:15am, which was a little optimistic really - we thought El Rey would be bigger than it was and so we had twenty or so minutes to kill waiting in the sun for him. This was no bad thing though as it was a good place to reflect and unwind. Fortunately the taxi driver was early so we were soon back at our hotel, where we had a little sleep before embarking on the four hour journey to Chetumal via Tulum, which I'll detail next. Perhaps we could have stayed in Cancun longer but there wasn't much here of interest aside from potentially snorkelling, diving and exploring the nearby caves which I think would be best done on a separate holiday. I may look into doing a short sunshine break like this in the future but for now we had to press on and head south.
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no subject
Date: 2014-12-06 05:58 pm (UTC)El Rey sounds rather peacefully cool (now, at least) - if you do get photos up sometime, please include a few looks around there.
Are these entries written "live", or are you documenting the trip in retrospect?
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Date: 2014-12-07 11:59 pm (UTC)I tend to write the journal accounts when I can, not in real time per se but ideally at the end of each day if I have the energy. They are quite long though and do take a while to do - up to two hours in some cases - so it really does depend on finding the time.