Cancún and Isla Mujeres

Our arrival in Cancun is.. well, weird. We just spent two weeks in calm, charming, and socialist Cuba, and then we are in the middle of a city with more tourists than inhabitants (at least in high season, which is not right now, thank goodness), with everything tourists love.. Huge resort hotels, large shopping malls, entertainment programmes at the beaches and all the rest.

The city trippled its population in the last 20 years, and was hit by hurricanes twice in that time. We didn't expect it to be a beauty, but.. well. After the first evening we are looking forward to leaving. Also, I didn't take a single photo here.

However, our couchsurfing experience here is great. José is a calm and really nice guy, and despite the fact that he gets up every day at 4 am to be at work in time, he shows us around a bit in the evening, and introduces us to the delights of Mexican Street Cuisine. 

So many people that work in the tourist industry can't or don't want to cook for themselves, and in this situation a myriad of tiny little food stalls have jumped into existance. On Cuba, where the cuisine is definitely not too diverse, a German traveller we met called Mexico "the land of a thousand sauces." Now we know he is right. 

Isja Mujeres,eastern part of Punta Sur. A plaque at a wall informs us that this is the easternmost bit of Mexico, so in the morning it will be the very first bit of Mexican land touched by the first sunbeams. Sunrise was 6 hours ago, so we get a bit more than just a few of them.

Still, we are happy to take the ferry to Isla Mujeres. The tiny island is swarmed with tourists driving around in golf carts (very good to hitchhike to the other end of the island..), but usually they just stay for the day, and in the evening it gets quiet on the beaches and boulevards.

Quiet beach bar.. It's so good that it's not high season yet.

Later in the evening we get visited by.. a rustling noise. A mouse? Nope, no mammals (apart from humans) on this island. Oh. Hermit crab, a big one.

And what do we do, apart from hitching rides with tourists from the States? We go snorkeling! And we are amazed. Just 10 metres off the beach, the water is swarming with fish in all colours and shapes. It feels like diving in a tropical aquarium.

Beach combing souvenirs we can't take with us (our backpacks are way to full anyway.)

But we CAN take photos of them all. The eastern coast of the island is rocky and just full with shells and coral pieces of all sizes, while the west coast is mostly lush and quiet sandy beaches.

 We also do an excursion to the Punta Sur. The Mayan ruins that are supposed to be there turn out to be not overly impressive, but the cliff and the view onto the Atlantic ocean definitely is.

So, I spent an hour of walking in the blazing sun to see this? ("This" are the remains of the Mayan temple of the dawn. Since the Mayans probably had no concept of tourism, they didn't care to build more than this one temple on the tiny island.)

Okay, there are also the cliffs, and these are amazing. Admittedly a good spot to build a temple.

By mistake (yes, it honestly was!) we also wander into the sprawling area of a hotel that seems to be closed right now.. 

On our way to our "private" beach hotel. I thought these little towers off the coast have a bit of a "Waterworld" feeling to them.

So it's just us, the light lunch we've brought, and a lot of Caribbean fish. And these guys, of course. The little beggars would do anything for a piece of tortilla.

Including tail, some of these iguanas are a over a metre long. I do know that they are herbivorous lazy beggars, but still, they eat my tortilla with a loud snap of their lizard maw.

PS: I've looked it up, and while they are part of the Iguanidae family, their genus is "Ctenosaura", also called "skinytailed iguanas". Unlike their cousins, the Green Iguanas, which are also often found in Mexico and Central America, these here will eat anything. (Wikipedia lists fruits, flowers, foliage, small animals and careless tourists' fingers.)