Xpu-ha to Playa Del Carmen

Deja vu, Goofy woke us up by barking at the wind at 4 am again. This time I got up to use the restroom and when I came back I called Goofy over who then wagged his tail and agreed to go back to bed. Success. We woke up again around 8. I decided that with work I needed a good wifi connection and wanted a little more action than sleepy Xpu-ha had to offer if I was going to be alone for a week. So, we enjoyed one more afternoon on the beach and then packed up for PDC. 

Goofy sleeping outside our tent

 

 

We checked into Playa Lingua and went to the beach for a sunset drink. This week was Spring Break for college students in the US, so the beach was over loaded with college aged kids local and foreign drinking and partying on the beach. What a different feel it was than in Xpu-ha. Afterwards, we walked around town and went to the grocery store for dinner. Eric and I enjoyed our last night together on the balcony before turning in early. He had a 7am bus to catch that would take him to the airport in the morning. 

 My room for the week

Xpu-ha day 2

What a great view to wake up to. Around 4am, Goofy, the dog we met yesterday (who we fed the rest of our chicken to since we didnt have a cooler to put it in) started barking at Lord know what and continued for a good 20 minutes or so, but we were able to fall back to sleep until about 7:30. Aside from the dog barking incident, we were really enjoying our stay at Xpu-ha, and we were really getting back into the camping lifestyle. This week I planned on staying behind in Mexico while Eric flew back to work in order to save some money. I needed to decide where I was going to stay; here camping for 7 days, or check in somewhere in PDC for the week. I had been tossing around the idea of staying at a language school/hotel for the past few weeks now, so we got on the bike to go check out the town and area of the school in PDC before it got too hot. 

 We tried to avoid the heat, but the heat proved to be unavoidable. We went for a dip in PDC before getting back on the bike.

I really liked the location of the school, so now I just needed to decide whether I wanted to be camping on the beach for 7 days alone. My primary concerns were; heat, privacy (being alone), rain (there would be no place to put our luggage if a bad storm came through), electricity for my phone, computer, etc, and wifi. Even though Jose, the gate guy told us that there was wifi at this campground, we never saw a connection. I decided I would spend the rest of the afternoon milling over my options and break the news to Eric in the morning. So, we got some street tacos and brought them back to our beach to eat by the water. While there, we met a kid, about 14, named Jonah who was there with his grandparents. This would be Jonah's third year in a row at this campground. He told us stories about the beach and brought us fresh coconut and juice. Nice kid. 

 

When we pulled in the day before, a woman named Isobel came to greet us and asked if we were friends with Simon and Lisa. “No”, Eric said, “but I know of them”. “Well, they are over there, they've been here for a while”, Isobel said. Apparently Simon and Lisa are a sponsored couple traveling by BMW around the world for 11 years now. They are a well known couple in motorcycle land commonly seen in Touratech catalogs and various other public media sources. As a backseat passenger on this trip I know far less about fame in the motorcycle world than Eric does, but we were both interested in meeting this couple who hold the world record for longest continuous journey by a team around the world. After a nice lunch by the beach and a swim, we decided to invite ourselves up to Simon and Lisa's place for a quick chat. They graciously accepted our rude self invitation and invited us up to their balcony for a drink and conversation with them and another couple they had over, Ken and Carol, who had also been traveling around the world by bike for quite some time; about 7 years. We chatted for about an hour but mostly listened to their stories since they had been on the road much longer than we had. What a great bunch of people with extremely interesting lifestyles. We were happy to finally run into some other bikers even though we forced ourselves onto them. 

 Above: Simon's bike. Below: Lisa's bike

Ken & Carol's bike

Ken, Carol, Lisa & Simon

Ken, Carol and Simon

Chichen Itza to Xpu-ha

We enjoyed the exact same, nice breakfast of coffee, juice, bread, fruit and eggs we had 4 years ago at Hotel Dolores before heading across the street to Cenote Ik Kil. While we ate, I processed a tenants application while Eric followed up on emails and such. Its always such a great feeling to work while on vacation for me; it always makes the job much more tolerable being able to look at (insert beautiful scenery here) while processing office work. We wanted to go for a swim in the cenote and take some neat pictures before check out time which was 11, and then hit the road for Playa Del Carmen today. We changed our minds about going to Cancun and decided in camping the rest of the trip since we had such a great night in Isla Aguada.

Cenote Ik Kil was literally right across the street from our hotel. Yes, we planned it this way, but I appreciated our convenient location as we just walked across the street in our bathing suits and towels instead of having to carry around all of our motorcycle luggage with us. We paid about 4 USD to get in, including a nice discount we got by purchasing tickets at our hotel rather than at the gate of the cenote. This would be my first time swimming in a cenote, so I was really looking forward to it. Little did I know Eric had no intention of swimming in it at all. In Chichen Itza a few years back, we learned that some cenotes were used as a hole of death as Mayans would throw people into them for improper behavior or sorts. Other stories I've heard and read are that cenotes were considered spiritual wells by the Mayans and were believed to be a portal to speak with the Gods. Today, people still believe that these cenotes are very spiritual and when swimming in them you can feel a special aura that is apparent and fascinating. Eric, on the other hand, finds them to be creepy, with their seemingly bottomless pits and hanging vines and how “you just have no idea what is in there”. I was bound to see what this cenote stuff was all about.

 Eric thinks if there are fish in here, there must be other, bigger things swimming around in here as well.

 

I didn't feel anything different or spiritual about being in the cenote, but maybe I wasnt looking for it. Maybe I was distracted by Eric's fear of the water, or the kids playing nearby. Who knows. Though, I'm glad we got there when we did. We heard the best time to get to the cenotes were before the tour buses since they are just packed after that, which would make for terrible pictures. When we arrived, we shared the cenote with two other families only. Afterwards, we went for a swim in the cenote pool at our hotel. Out hotel has two pools, one chlorinated and one natural pool. This pool is supposedly a natural formation using rocks and water from its own cenote. The pool has no chemicals or salt water in it, and never needs to be cleaned of algae or other bacteria. You are supposed to be able to feel a spiritual aura in this pool as well, but we didnt. Surprisingly, Eric got in this one.

After a nice swim, we packed and hit the road. It would only take a few hours to get to PDC, and we took our time along the way. There drive was a bit dull to be honest, with long flat roads and no views aside from trees lining the highways, but it was a fast drive and not too hot. We read the night before about a campground called Xpu-ha that was supposed to be one of the only remaining primitive camp spots in the PDC area. While at one time there were quite a few, PDC is far too built up for campgrounds now and its beaches are lined with resorts now instead. We found Xpu-ha on a forum accidentally when researching another campground in the area, so we werent sure if it even existed since it didnt have its own web site, but we found the campground no problem. We pulled down its nice, rocky but not too sandy road, and met Jose at the gate who promised a good spot for the night, bathroom facilities and wifi. I asked if we could see the campground first so we took a short stroll, but were sold by the view right over the small hill to the beach..

 Camp spot before the tent went up

 Alluring view that pulled us in..

 View for the bike

 Bathroom and shower facilities, could be a little better but the campground makes up for its condition

 

We spent the rest of the day lounging around the beach, drove to the grocery store to get a dinner of chicken and bread, made friends with a dog named Goofy, and called it an early night. What a great day on a great beach. We felt lucky to have discovered such a semi-private, beautiful beach not yet touched by ridiculously large resorts and the crowds that come with them.

 Dinner by our tent..

 Cool, extremely expensive bar in front of our campground