From Cozumel to Ambergris Caye, Belize
Woke up at 4:30am to catch the first ferry at 5am to Playa del Carmen. I booked the 6:20am ADO bus ticket from Playa Del Carmen to Chetumal yesterday for 223 pesos (~17USD) in advance in Cozumel. They run approximately every hour and the journey supposedly takes about 4.5hours.
I arrived at Playa Del Carmen at around 5:45am just in time to watch the sun come up and take few pictures. Found a street vendor across from the bus terminal selling tortas for 25 pesos; pretty decent too (pretty sure they were pork but I can't be 100% sure). Of course I didn't realize that I was at the wrong bus terminal. The ADO bus station across from the ferry terminal does not go to Chetumal. You need to go to the main one on Avenida 20 to catch the bus. This was easily remedied by a 20 peso (~1.5USD) taxi ride or a short walk. I didn't want to miss the bus so I opted to take the taxi ride. If you're not an idiot like me you might as well just walk.
I arrived at the main ADO bus station at around 6:15am which was just in time to catch my 6:20am bus to Chetumal. Bus was completely full so I am glad I had bought my ticket yesterday otherwise there would have been very limited seating. You can easily purchase your bus ticket ahead of time at the ADO terminal in Cozumel or Playa del Carmen. I highly recommend this. ADO also allows you to pick your seat when you purchase a ticket so I was able to get a window seat at the front of the bus however usually if the buses are empty you can sit in any seat. They'll also usually make one stop or two stops to grab a quick bite to eat.
The bus of course left on timely Mexican fashion at around 6:30am and was pretty uneventful; I slept the entire way. We arrived at Chetumal bus terminal a little after 10:45am. So four hours and 15 minutes total travel time including stops.
The most interesting thing was when I arrived at Chetumal bus station I discovered that they had recently started running a new ferry called San Pedro - Belize (Express Water Taxi) for 30USD. I believe the Belizean attendant stated that this ferry started Oct 30th of this year. The great thing about this ferry is that it bypasses the trip to Corozal entirely and leaves from the Chetumal Maritime Terminal (Terminal Maritima de Chetumal) which is only a 20 peso taxi ride away from the ADO bus station. It's amazing that 20 pesos in Cozumel would barely get you two blocks while in Chetumal it seemed like we could go for miles. I split the taxi with a guy I met on the ferry named Bart so the tax ride really only cost about 80 cents USD. Bart is retired and lives permanently outside of Playa del Carmen and is just visiting some friends in Ambergris Caye in Belize and is then off to Honduras.
Unfortunately bypassing Corozal at the Belize border means that it was almost impossible for me to convert my Mexican pesos into Belizean dollars. This could be a huge problem as pesos are practically worthless in Belize unless you need toilet paper. Actually, it would be useless at toilet paper too since Mexican pesos are plastic. I tried at least 4 banks in downtown Chetumal and none of them had or would exchange US dollars The Belizean attendant at the ferry told me about one place in Ambergris Caye called Milo's that would exchange currency but probably at a huge cost or terrible exchange rate. Make sure to have US dollars if you're going into Belize and skipping the Corozal border crossing otherwise it will be almost impossible to change your pesos into dollars. I stupidly had most of my currency in pesos because I wasn't sure how long I would be in Mexico and hate getting charged ATM fees. Luckily Bart was able to exchange about 200USD of my pesos into dollars so I should be good for a while until my direct deposit goes through on Wednesday.
Mexican customs and immigrations at the Marine terminal is basically 1 guy in a booth. There were maybe 7-8 people in total taking the ferry. The "border patrol" consisted of looking at your passport and stamping it. Not much in the way of questions. The Mexican army also briefly stopped by. They had a drug dog however I use that term very loosely since the dog appeared to be a very young golden lab. He looked like he would rather play fetch than look for drugs; very menacing indeed.
The ferry departed on time at 3pm from Chetumal; It took approximately 2 hours. The water looked like glass and was as calm as could be. The blue-turquoise waters are absolutely stunning in the sun. By the time we approached Ambergris Caye around 5pm the sun began to set. Belizean customs on Ambergris Caye was slightly larger than Mexican customs at the Chetumal Maritime terminal. It consisted of one small room on a dock with about 2 immigration officials. All they basically asked was if you had been to Belize before and how long you were here, stamped your passport and sent you on your merry way.
I missed the last ferry to Caye Caulker so I had no choice but to stay on Ambergris Caye. Me and Bart decided to get situated and sat down at a bar for our first Belikin beer (The national beer of Belize). The exchange rate is 1USD to 2BZD. The going rate for a Belikin beer seems to be about 4 Belizean dollars (2USD). Not quite as cheap as Mexico but still decent. The average beer in Cozumel cost 20 pesos (approximately 1.50USD depending on exchange rate)
There were hawkers all along the main street trying to solicit business for hotels. It seems most of the places were full or so they claimed. We walked around to a bunch of places that wanted to charge anywhere between 60 to 100 Belizean dollars. Finally we stumbled onto Ruby's which is a budget accommodation right on the water. Bart had previously tried to email this place earlier and they informed him they were full however once we arrived we discovered rooms were available for 60BZD a night (30USD). Me and Bart shared a double so it only cost 15USD/night. Not exactly the Hilton and a little rundown but well worth the price, especially for the location which is right on the main room and also on the water.
Bart had been to Belize many times previously but had not done so in a few years so he had the general layout of the island. We bar hopped to a few places along the beach and found the price of Belikin beer to be pretty consistent at 4BZD (2USD). Restaurants however were a different story. A lot of them seemed to have meals priced around 20-50BZD. Not exactly cheap by budget standards. We decided to eat food from the street vendors and found a little hamburger stand which sells burgers, burritos, hotdogs and pork chops. Burgers were 5 Belizean dollars (2.5USD). Really good burger with onions, cheese, lettuce, tomato, hot sauce, etc. Burritos were about 4 Belizean dollars (2USD).
Spent the night walking around to some of the beach bars and meeting all the local expats of the island. Ambergris Caye too seems to have quite a large foreign community though since it's quite smaller than Cozumel it's really easy to know everyone. With only about 11,000 people you're bound to bump into the same people. I am thinking of staying in Ambergris Caye one more day to explore then taking the ferry off to Caye Caulker. I hope to do at least one day of diving tomorrow. Haven't decided if I will stay in Belize for the New Years or head to Guatemala. There is something very nice about not having to speak in broken Spanish and being understood. All the locals here speak English (or some sort of derivative of Creole/Spanglish).
Arriving in Cancun, Mexico in the midst of the swine flu
I decided to take a long weekend trip to Mexico because I haven't been there in a while and I knew the swine flu would mean less tourists, cheaper flights and hotels. This thing has been completely overblown by the media and I would suggest if you're planning to go to Mexico not to delay or change your flights. The economy down here has been hit incredibility hard and most local companies/hotels/restaurants desperately need your support.
I originally booked my flight for Saturday and was supposed to be returning on Tuesday afternoon however my flight ended up getting changed around so I had to leave on Friday. The flight itself was incredibility cheap. I ended up using about 30,000 of my airlines miles to make the flight cost around 114USD. Ironically when I had to change my flight to Friday Delta ended up owing me 40 dollars back since I changed my arrival to Cancun rather than Cozumel. So basically my round trip flight to Cancun only cost me about 75USD. Not too shabby.
From the Boston to Atlanta the flight was fully booked however on the flight to Cancun almost everyone had an entire row to themselves. There were hardly any people on the flight. I didn't mind this at all; it was great. No mention of the swine flu yet.
Arriving in Cancun airport at around 1:00pm this place was like a ghost town. I was one of the first people to customs since I did not have any checked luggage. Got through customs and right to the shuttle bus terminal in literally 2 minutes. Quickest I have ever been through Cancun customs. The shuttle bus to the hotel zone is around 14USD one way I think. You can probably take the public bus for 6 pesos (45 cents) but it stops everywhere. In this case, the shuttle is faster and air conditioned.
The entire time in Cancun I did not see any safety advisories or people wearing masks. It would seem they are trying not to scare people with the whole swine flu. The only thing I noticed that made me realize something was slightly amiss was after clearing customs they had several people taking temperatures of passengers which is funny because if someone actually did catch the swine flu on the flight they most likely wouldn't show symptoms until 3-5 days after the incubation period.
Because I was flying into Cancun I decided to stay one night in Cancun and do a two-tank dive with my favorite company Manta Divers. I booked the Ambiance Villas (Kin Ha) hotel for one night which only cost 67USD after applying an Orbitz.com coupon I googled for. I could have easily picked a budget hotel downtown however I wanted something with a nice beach that was relatively close to the main hotel zone.
When I checked into Ambiance Villas I might have been one of 15 people in the entire resort. A couple people I spoke to on the shuttle to the hotel zone said that their hotels had been shifted around because most Cancun hotels were only booked to 20% capacity. A lot of larger hotels were forced to shut down and move some of their reservations to smaller hotels.
The room I had in Ambiance Villas was very basic, clean, and had 2 nice bed which is more than I needed. Generally I just require a place to sleep since I'm not too picky. The bathroom could have used a little work but other than that everything was fine. Thankfully the hotel offers free wireless so I was able to check my personal and work email and use Skype to call back home all from the confines from a beach chair overlooking the Caribbean. The hotel also has a nice little bar right on the beach with decent priced drinks (Decent by Cancun standards anyway).
I did not go out in Cancun on Friday night because I was tired but more importantly, almost half the restaurants and clubs
were closed. Senor Frogs and Pat O'Briens did not seem to be open. I ended up eating dinner at Outback Steakhouse..very authentic Mexican food I know.
Unfortunately, Manta Divers did not have enough divers to go out but I was able to stumble upon another company called
Scuba Fred's (formerly Nautilus Diving) which is located in the Cancun Clipper Club on the lagoon side. Fred is a former employee of Manta Divers and I remember from before when I dove in Cancun before.
The only people diving were me, the Clemente (divemaster) and a Mexican tourist whose name I do not remember.
We did 2 dives, one wreck called C-58 in about 80ft of water for 32 minutes and a reef dive called Punta Negra (technically also did Grampin as well) at 50ft for 44 minutes. Both dives were good. A lot of people knock Cancun diving but I actually think it is still very good just not a nice as Cozumel. Unfortunately, Cancun does not have anything near the reef structure that Cozumel has but it's always teaming with a variety of fish life. Saw a nurse shark and a couple rays (one was actually dead).
The wreck dive had lots of barracuda and the 2nd dive had massive schools of fish. In my opinion, the schools of fish are
always larger than one would see in Cozumel. If you've never dove Cancun I would say, you may want to try it at least
once, you might be surprised.
Scuba Fred's was a great dive op and based on my experience I would recommend them anytime. Manta Divers is also a good choice, I usually always dive with them while I am in Cancun but unfortunately with no tourists than did not have any dives going out. It's a shame because one of their DM's Miguel is a great guy.
After finishing up my dives in Cancun, Clemente showed me the pictures he had taken on the wreck. Most of them came out great so I decided to buy a CD from him since I had no pictures of myself under water. He also included pictures of lots of local sea life taken previously. The price was 40USD which I consider reasonable under the circumstances. If anything, I figured I would do my part to help the local economy.
After burning me a CD, Clemente was nice enough to offer me a ride to the ADO bus terminal where I would leave to spend 3 nights in Cozumel. Cozumel is actually the main reason I booked this trip. The diving there is fantastic and the people and culture are extremely great.
Thanks to Fred and Clemente for a wonderful albeit very short Cancun experience. Wouldnt hesitate to dive with them again.
