Wotae: 13.03.2017
Hello my dear readers,
As promised in my last update I'm writing to keep you posted on what's going on in Mexico.
Now I am finally at the point where I can say that the journey begins.
Im writing out of an ADO bus that will take my friend and me to Chetumal from where we will leave to the famous backpacker island Caye Caulker of Belize.
After 7 months of working in a host family and one month of volunteering in a hostel in playa del Carmen; I can honestly say: I've been counting the days till I'm finally on my way to travel down to Costa Rica.
If we have a plan?! You should expect it from two Germans but we decided to stay flexible and be able to be spontaneous. The only thing we know is that my friend needs to catch a flight on the 3rd of April to Jamaica.
So 2 days ago we drove with a collectivo from Playa del Carmen to Tulum and enjoyed 2 days in a hostel in the heart of Tulum. We also took a trip to the cenote Carwash that we only heard about through a good friend, since it's not very known.
After a rough start that brought us to the dentist (caused by pressure in the airplane) and a few visits at the pharmacy we felt relieved to finally let the adventure begin.
By now we are on the express boat to Caye Caulker and the before mentioned relief left me for about an hour an a half.
Crossing the border has always been my biggest fear because I knew how much corruption is going on in this country.
As we arrived at the ferry station we found out the prices raised up to 50 dollars one way, which confused us since we read about this trip (Tulum-Caye Caulker ) multiple times and everybody wrote how it costs around 50 dollars in total. But we didn't want to let this tear us down so my friend went to an ATM to get us the money that we needed. So...right as she left, a worker of the crew told me that she should get more money because of the border fees, that raised from 295 to 500 pesos.
You can imagine, by that point, I was slightly pissed. Not at the guy who told me: but at the system that just lives with the idea that tourists are stupid and rich.
We explained that we only had 400 pesos and 20 euros left so as the border guy (who felt very powerful in his position ) accepted the money which just showed that it wasn't that big of a drama as he first pretended.
So we gave away our bags and watched the police dog walk around them like we were some criminals, which was quite amusing and weird for us. Every time the dog passed by our bags - we still felt relieved somehow. You just never know if someone smuggled something in your bag.
-Oh and one more thing for the tourists traveling to Belize from Mexico, who stayed in Mexico less than a week and think they can leave the country for free. They will tell you that it only counts if you go in by car so you have to pay anyway for crossing the border. -
At the end the only thing that matters is that we are on my our way to Caye Caulker and I can already tell that we are going to love it so I can't wait to share our time, on the Island without cars, with you.
Warm greetings
Mila