After my last update, I had a week to relax. I went to my favorite beach, Xca-cel, and spent some time in my reading in my hammock and swimming in the cenote. One day I took a tour of the Sian Ka'n Biosphere Reserve. We saw a lot of birds and floated down a river for a while. Other days I went looking for other cenotes in the jungle to explore. I also spent a bit of time at my friends Internet cafe in Tulum, watching movies and surfing the net.
On the 20th of February, I picked up a new group of 13 and we headed off to Chichen Itza. After the ruins and lunch, we went to Cenote Ik Kil and cooled off before going into Merida for the night. The next day we went to the Anthropology Museum and looked around town a bit, before having a night out on the town.
On the 22nd, we went to the Uxmal ruins and then spent the night in Campeche. After a late start the next day, we went to the Misol Ha waterfall in the state of Chiapas. This is the same cave I tried to get into in August, when the water level was too high. Now it was safe for all to enter. We had a good splash around and then went into the cave. I climbed up the waterfall, inside the cave and that woke up all the bats. It was getting late in the day and it was time for them to go out and feed anyway. I jumped off the waterfall and floated back to the entrance.
We spent that night in Palenque and saw the ruins the next day. We also took a tour of the jungle ruins before lunch. This group had been asking me for days about the Agua Azul waterfalls. They are not on our itinerary, but they really wanted to go there. Since it is one of my favorite places in the world, I agreed to take them.
We drove the two hours through the mountains to the long series of blue waterfalls. A few of them joined me for an epic two our hike/splash. We started off heading down stream. In this section, the waterfalls had short drops of only a few feet, never more than six. We would swim through a pool and then jump off the edge into the next pool. We went down quite a ways, swimming and jumping. Some sections we could walk down. The rock was perfect for hiking in bare feet. It was soft, but not slippery at all.
We decided to take a different set of waterfalls back up. As we came around a bend, we saw a huge waterfall that looked impossible to climb. As we got near it, we realized that we could, with some considerable effort, make our way up the side. We climbed up this, and several other, very tall waterfalls, before coming out well up river of our starting point. Now we had to come down some other big waterfalls and then make our way across the river. I suppose some sections of our little trip were not entirely safe, but it was a lot of fun. Those who joined me agreed that it was a truly memorable afternoon.
The next day was our big drive through the jungle to swim in Cenote Azul and spend the night on the Bacalar Lagoon. They had a swimming pool at the hotel and I practiced my one and a half flip/dive into the water. Then we headed up the Carribbean coast to Playa del Carmen, with a stop at the Tulum ruins along the way. On the Tuesday, we went to the Xel-Ha marine park and spent the day swimming with the fishes and snorkeling.
They all wanted a beach BBQ, so I took them to Xca-cel beach the next day. Xca-cel is closed to the public and guarded, but a dollar each for the security man got us past that obstacle. We got there around noon. The night before some of them stayed out until sunrise, so as soon as we got to the beach, they swam for ten minutes and then all fell asleep and worked on their sunburns. I read in my hammock and swam in the cenote.
Around dinner time, I started the fire. The guard told us that fires were forbidden there. I tried to offer him some food, but he said he was vegetarian. He went to get some water, and I put the coals onto the BBQ grill and ran down the jungle path, parallel to the ocean, to another location. The hot coals made my belly very warm and I had to set the grill down a few times. I finally got to a new place and put the coals down. Then I ran back along the path to sweep away all of the hot coals that had jumped ship. I found that the log that I had rested the grill on for a moment was smoking a bit. I attempted to put out the small fire with the liquid I was carrying in my bladder. This proved insufficient, so I filled some containers from the sea and finished the job.
I eventually got back to the fire, and it was going well, when the guard found us and told us to put the fire out. I may be slow, but I did figure it out eventually. Another ten dollars in his pocket, and we were free to BBQ for as long as we wanted. I was also his friend now, so he took me to his shack and showed me his baby turtle in formaldehyde.
On the last day of the trip, it was only ten days, we stopped off at the beach in Cancun and then went to the hotel. For dinner we went to a fancy restaurant in the new mall and then saw a movie.
They were another excellent group and we all had a lot of fun. It was also an all hotel tour, which was something unique for me. I got a bed every night and we ate out every meal.
Then I had eleven days off. I spent a few days in the Cancun area, doing paperwork and seeing a few movies. Then I moved down the coast and visited my friends in Tulum and spent some time on the beach. On the 7th, I started a scuba diving course. I have done five scuba dives over the past ten years, so most of the first day큦 information was pretty familiar. I breezed through the two practice sessions in the pool and we made a dive in the ocean in the afternoon.
That night I drove down a long dirt road to a deserted beach, between Xca-cel and Xel Ha. I found a nice parking spot and went to bed. I woke up at sunrise, as usual, then lay back down. An hour later I heard some talking and woke up again. I looked out the window and saw four men with large rifles looking at the van. They were Mexican soldiers on the dawn patrol. They were pretty friendly, and were mostly just curious. I told them who I was and what I was doing. They continued down the beach protecting their nation.
That afternoon I made another scuba dive and practiced my lessons under the water. We saw a few squid on the reef that afternoon. That night was the coldest night I can recall this year. Not only did I have to wear a t-shirt, but I even wore my sweatshirt for a few hours, although it was a bit too heavy. On the 9th, my instructor, Ivan, and I went out to make two more dives. We saw a turtle and some lobster. After lunch, I took my final exam and passed easily. I am now a certified PADI scuba diver.
I enjoy diving in the ocean and looking at all the pretty fish and corals, but my real goal for getting certified was diving in a cavern. The day after I got my license, I went to Dos Ojos caverns and made two dives there. I really enjoyed swimming under ground, especially upside down. I think that extreme cave divers are a bit crazy, but I could really get into doing intermediate level cave diving.
Then I headed back up to Cancun and spent the next two nights chatting with Penny on the Internet.
On the 13th of March, I picked up my new group of ten and started the same trip that I did previously, a ten day all hotel loop around the Yucatan with a stop in Chiapas. We went to Chichen Itza and swam in Cenote Ik Kil and spent the night in Merida. On the second day of our tour, we went to the Celestun Flamingo Reserve and saw a lot of birds and swam in a cenote. We ate lunch on the beach and got back to Merida in time to do some hammock and souvenir shopping before dinner and drinks.
On the 15th, we visited the ruins of Uxmal and spent the night in Campeche. We took a pleasant after dinner stoll along the sea side. Yesterday was a big driving day and we made it out here to Palenque. Today they are all visiting the ruins and doing the jungle tour. I will pick them up soon and we will go swimming in Misol Ha.
This concludes the latest installment of "The life and times of Avram Fox".
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