I am sitting in a restaurant in Playa Del Carmen, listening
to a pan flute version of Age of Aquarius and avoiding the amorous waiter. He says he doesn’t mind that I am older than
his mother because I look better, only 30 years old. I love the lies here. I was told that this restaurant has Wi-Fi but
it turns out their service has been disconnected. So now I am just going to take up a table by
writing this into a Word doc until I can post.
Back to yesterday.
I’m not totally sure where I left off but I think I mentioned that I had
discovered that my car contract ended on Thursday night at 8pm but I had booked
a bird tour for Friday morning in Muyil, about 30 minutes south of Tulum. My boat and float tour on Thursday had a pick
up at 8:45 am so I went in to see Luis at 7:30.
He was thrilled to see me.
Actually, he is quite nice and doesn’t even lose patience with my
horrible Spanish. I thought I was
getting by until I had to have a discussion about contracts. A bit out of my league. Anyway, I told him I had plans for the car on
Friday morning so I wasn’t bringing it back until then and I wasn’t paying any
extra. He tried to convince me that
would be another day’s cost but I stared him down until he just said to bring
it back by noon on Friday.
When I booked my bird tour, I could go on Thursday but I
wouldn’t get the regular bird guy, Fernando.
So, thinking I would still have a car, I chose Friday so I could have
Fernando, I learned my lesson with the Gabriel/Juan debacle. But that meant I had Thursday free so I
booked a canal cruise. I was assured it
was two hours of mangroves on a boat and then some time floating along the
current through another canal. Oh, and
the travel agent guy said that someone who had already booked wanted the Muyil
ruins tour (extra $20) so I would get that for free.
When the van arrived, who was the guide but Fernando, the
bird guide. When I showed him my
binoculars and bird book, he was so happy.
He is an ornithologist. There
were 11 other people on the tour who had to put up with me and Fernando looking
at every bird in the area. That will
teach them to pay an extra $20. A couple
of new birds.
Muyil Ruins
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| This little platform has four sides that exactly point North, South, East and West. |
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| I was surprised that this mostly unvisisted site was closed for climbing but Fernando said they had to do it for the Winter Solstice in 2012. There were so many tourists that they were worried about the structures. |
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| The big pyramid. |
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| Add caption |
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On the back of the big pyramid, there are two carvings of cranes, symbols of fertility.
This place is another meca for women to come and give offerings for health, children etc. |
Then we went to the
dock. (It was where Rene had taken me to
see the tiny kingfisher). It is the
dock for a fresh water lagoon. Because
of the porous limestone that is everywhere here, the two attached lagoons are
not attached to the ocean. The water
comes up through the ground. So, it is
fresh and very shallow, which makes for a lovely blue colour (which of course
never shows up in pictures).
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| The man made canal. |
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| Fernando |
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| The small lagoon |
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| Entering the canal |
The first, smaller, lagoon is attached to the bigger lagoon
by a man made canal. It was an underground
river but the ancient Mayans dug it up (it is long) to allow canoe access to
the next lagoon. (Pan Flute Chicken
Dance – I kid you not!). I was thinking
the mangrove swamps of San Blas but this canal really was nothing like that,
mostly just saw grass with very infrequent bush sized mangrove trees. And no birds.
But it was getting late by then.
There aren’t many birds around after 10 am due to the heat. After
only 30 minutes in the boat, we got to the float part. We all piled out of the boat, got a lesson on
how to wear a life vest like a huge diaper and jumped into another canal. The life vest works like a seat. And the current just carried us along for 40
or so minutes in super clear, very shallow water. Lovely.
I should have worn water proof sunscreen because I burned a bit but
other than that, excellent. The water
was so calm, I didn’t even get my hair wet.
No pictures, I couldn’t take my camera.
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| I stole this picture from Frommer's website. It is the canal where we floated along |
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| more swimming with da fishes. This was my last photo before going in the water. |
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| According to Frommer's website, this is a Mayan Custom House. It is at the mouth of the canal. |
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| Inside the Custom House |
Back to the dock, where Fernando showed me where Grey
Throated Wood Rails came out at sunrise.
I was supposed to meet him at 6 am the next morning but he suggested we
meet earlier to see the sun rise over the lagoon and get a glimpse of the
rails.
Then a lunch included which was surprisingly excellent for a
tour lunch. It was served in a giant
palapa near the cultural centre (calling it that is a stretch) of Muyil. As it turned out, the van had to go to Tulum
for a few minutes and then didn’t return for 3 hours. So, we were all trapped
there. I spent the time birding off the
back deck. It was starting to get late
(3-5pm) so the birds started to come out.
Black Catbird and Summer Tanager.
When the van finally came for us after 5pm (the tour was supposed to end
at 1pm), Fernando told me he had been
pulled from the bird tour (he speaks French and a French group had booked) so I
would be going with Alberto – the guy who was going to take me on
Thursday. Well, nothing to be done,
Alberto it will be. But Alberto said 6am
at the palapa, no wood-rails on his bird tour.
The next morning I got up at 4:30 so I could go to the dock
on my own. As I was driving on the
highway in the pitch dark, I realized I was driving a quasi-stolen car with
likely no insurance. I slowed down a
bit. The I turned down the even darker
dirt road through the jungle and I started to think of calling this post ‘my
increasingly poor decisions in Muyil’ (fortunately no accidents or jaguar
attacks). I got to the parking area and
the gate had been left open – good start, I thought I was going to have to
scale it. It was starting to get a bit
light. I stood on the dock and looked at
the spot Fernando pointed out. Sure as
rain, three rails appeared a few minutes later and wandered around for about 5
minutes and then back into the forest.
Apparently that is the only time you can see then. A few minutes at sunrise. I have a very bad picture (poor light).
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| Sunrise |
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| The worst bird photo ever - the grey throated Wood-Rail. I accidentally erased the second worst photo that at least showed that there was a bird in the frame. If you look very hard at this, you can see the red legs and the brown body. |
The sun didn’t quite make it over the horizon before I had
to leave to meet Alberto. Alberto is a
Mayan who lives in Muyil. I think I
mentioned that Muyil is a very small traditional Mayan village with mostly
stick huts. He grew up there and knows
over 300 birds by voice. He was awesome. Quite a few new ones. But even he got excited at the end, we found
a red-capped Manakin (picture – I could only get one – to follow), he had never
seen one either. It is always exciting
when the guide gets a life list addition.
Plus toucans and trogons (neither new but still beautiful).
Muyil Village
(I think it technically has a different name but no one calls it that)
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| These two weren't nearly so friendly as my favourite puppies, but I liked the black guy's ears. |
Birds
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| Purple Martins |
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| Collared Aracari (Toucan) |
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| Collared Aracari (Toucan) with more Zoom - I love my new camera. |
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| Red-capped Manakin eating a berry |
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| Citreoline Trogon. The blue back shows this is a male. |
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| And his mate showing off here Citreoline breast |
Bird tour ended at 10 or so and I headed back to Payless to
drop off the car. Luis was there. For some reason, probably punishment, I had
to give him 200 pesos extra. I couldn’t
tell if it was for the extra hours or for using my visa or for just pissing the
poor guy off but I just gave him cash for it.
I hope he pockets it. He deserves
it. Back to the Casa Rosa to pack up and
to ADO for the 11:30 bus to Playa del Carmen.
Back to having to lug my pack from hotel to hotel. I am in the Hotel Playa del Carmen on the
main drag (or what I thought was the main drag). First order of business: Find a book.
I finished mine and this hotel has no TV. Aaack.
The clerk told me there aren’t any English bookstores but Walmart sells
them. It turns out my distaste for
Walmart can be put aside in a book emergency.
I found Walmart. And what always
happens in Walmart, not matter what country, I wandered around and picked up
stuff. New earphones for the plane. Some vanilla. Some cookies – I carry these really awful
cookies around so that I don’t die on my long ruin/bird excursions. Finally I found the books. Not a one in English. Now what?
As I was walking away from the store, I saw a hostel. I asked if they had a book exchange and they
did. I had my finished novel with me so
I swapped out. A hundred years of
solitude. That should keep me busy for 6
days.
Back to my room to dump my stuff and then a wander. It turns out that the main tourist area is a
car-free road that runs parallel to the beach.
It is commercialism as its best.
I tried to walk to the end but I think I would have hit Cancun before
the stores stopped trying to convince me to enter. And they were just getting
more fancy and expensive the further north I went. I turned back and walked down to the
water. I assumed there would be a
boardwalk or a malacon but nope. So that
is how I ended up on the beach for the first time, a week into my vacation on
the Mexican Caribbean. Eventually I
made it back to the main drag to find some dinner, which is how I ended up in
Pan Flute hell – with no Wi-Fi.
Playa del Carmen
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| Me taking up a table in a busy restaurant - Karen's. |
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| The main tourist area. |
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| The beach |
They are not happy with me taking up a table and I feel I
have punished them enough for not paying their internet bill so I will end
here. I bought tickets to Cozumel for
tomorrow so I may post from there.
Quick update, next day.
I am in Cozumel in the Hotel Mary Carmen, which has Wi-Fi, hallelujah. This is a nice little town but of course,
mostly tourist shops. I have arranged
another rental car, a VW bug, for tomorrow.
I plan to drive around the island to see the big park at the southern
tip. Then one more night here before I
try to get back to Playa, to Cancun and over to Isla Mujares in one day. I really don’t want to stay in Cancun if I
can help it.
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