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Greetings loyal reader! Please join Bruce and Mary as they celebrate Independence Day and Canada Day, Mexican style, with a trip to Holbox, La Isla de Pirates. BTW: Bruce web guru that he is (not!) has discovered that most of his subscribers get their latest posts via email and never visit the site. That is fine but by doing so you readers have no chance to add to Bruce and Mary’s vast fortune by clicking on the Google Ads. Bruce just checked and he has $30US to date and hopes to someday get to that magic $100 figure which will trigger Google issuing its first Bruce check. At the current rate this will happen in 2015. Maybe with your help, Bruce can get his first check in, oh say 2013 or 2012. So here is the plan, gang, when you get this post emailed to you, click on this hot link, SetFreeInMexico and then click those ads like crazy people. Muchas gracias, mis amigos, for your attention to this most crass of appeals. Oh, and one more thing on this subject. Many of you loyal readers make comments by replying to the post emails. By actually going to the site you can share your thoughts and opinions with the whole world wide web! And now let the Holbox story begin!

We have been hearing about Holbox the Pirate Island for a while now and with the quirk in our work schedule for our Canadian employer (Thursday and Friday off work as July 1st is Canada Day) we decide to take advantage of these unplanned days off with a trip to Holbox. So we scout car rentals and check maps and at noon on Thursday, July 1st we head out in our agency’s base rental, a VW Pointer, sin clima, without A/C (I am such a cheap sucker).

Mohan (Tel World Travel Agency), the car rental guy is right, taking Av. Perez Ponce at Walmart to Av. Aleman will take you directly to Hwy 176 and to Tizimin, the second largest city in Yucatan and the halfway point to Holbox which is NW of Cancun. And everything has been going so swimmingly, we’d been enjoying the change of scenery from low scrub jungle to higher jungle surrounding acres and acres of pasto, pasture, supporting the countless Ranchos. And we’d been enjoying the names, like Rancho de Sacrificio (not going near there during any Mayan high holiday) and the road signs are great, as well. Our favorite is, No Manaje Cansado, Su Familia Se Espera, Don’t drive while asleep, your family will wait for you.

But our happy go lucky traveling quickly comes to an end when Hwy 176 disappears into a one way road that dumps us off at a glorieta (roundabout) at Tizimin’s central plaza. The open highway had signs every kilometer it seemed like but now there are none. We circle the glorieta and exit heading the right way, we think, but soon we are hopelessly lost on a road heading out of town, the wrong way, we think. We stop at a minisuper to get some water and ask directions and we are assured that we are heading the right way and we congratulate ourselves on being so lucky but soon a sign does appear, Rio Lagartos 88km. We know instantly that this is not the right road so we turn around and about 3 sets of directions later we are on Hwy 27 heading towards Colonia Yucatan, the right direction. This drive is starting to get long and the ranchos, once a welcome break from the normal Yucatan scenery are losing their charm when finally we find ourselves in Chiquila, the port city serving Holbox. Yea!!

We take the first right turn off the glorieta at the foot of the pier and find Don Patricio’s parking lot (Mary had read about this dude

in a blog) and we quickly park where the old guy waves us, grab our gear and hoof it to the tix office on the pier. Only to be 5 minutes late for the ferry and sure enough we can see it just a couple hundred meters out making its way to the low shadow on the horizon that is Holbox. Ok, it’s 5:05 and the next ferry is not until 7, what to do? Dumb question, there’s a cantina over there, right on the beach! We mosey over and grab a table next to the house cantadore who is crooning away on his way out of tune guitar with his buddies, including the owner, keeping him company. We order a litro of Sol for 35P and relax. It is hot and humid, the salt from sweat is gritty on my shoulders, but the beer is cold and the view is fantastic. Miguel the cantadore introduces himself and sings us some songs but he will not take a tip, he is retired at 62 and this is what he does, hanging with his buds, soaking the suds, and telling stories in between songs.

Suddenly it is 6:30. We grab our stuff and head to the tix office and board the 66 passenger Ferry (it is air conditioned, que bueno!) and quickly we shove off. In about a ½ hour we are moored at the Holbox pier and there are number of “taxi”s, golf carts ready to haul visitors. We have read that there are no cars on the island which we find to

be mostly true. One cabbie hollers, “Veinte pesos, solos veinte pesos”. Hmm that ain’t bad, about a buck 60 for a cabbie. We start quizzing him about accommodations (we had arranged for none, which is why we were bummed to miss the 5:00 ferry as now the sun is setting) and sure, he says, there are lots of places on the beach and cheap. As we are exiting the pier a gringo-looking dude approaches us and we listen to his spiel: A house this night for 500P (about $40US) and a cabana the next for 300. Hmm, sounds interesting. We tail him in his personal golf cart for a mile or so and then we pull into his little complex behind an abandoned hotel/restaurant. We debark and our cabbie is happy to wait to see if this place agrees with us. We walk into a garden area with several hammocks strung, one occupied by a very relaxed but high tech (laptop on a stool next to him) local and we are shown the common baths for the cabanas and then the “house”. It is a very large cabana with a second bedroom in the loft and a full kitchen. It is really cute and more importantly it is now dark and a little tough to do much more hotel shopping. “We’ll take it.” we tell Dave the owner, a Swiss national who is in his 10th year of this project, named Ida y Vuelta, Go and Come Back. We shell out the 500P in cash, he takes our first names verbally, gives us the key and that is that.

We unpack some stuff but the main thing I want to do is take a dip in the Caribbean and cool off. We head directly to the ocean, about 150m away across the the road to the pier and I wade out into the shallow moonlit waters and dive under. Very nice, I needed that, and the sugar sand is one thing I do miss about the Caribbean. Mary shields me with a towel from passersby on a beach stroll as I

change back into shorts and tank top and we walk the beach road to Centro about 600m away. It is a quaint area with a skinny main street with lots of personal golf carts and taxis bouncing by on this dirt road. There seem to be equal numbers of locals, gringos, and Europeans. We spot a minisuper and find that we still have an hour and a half to stock up on beer and wine for the night and right across the street is a roof top joint called Restaurante TikiTiki. What draws my attention is the whiteboard out front with 2×1 Piña Coladas scrawled on it. Man, I love Piña Coladas, “Let’s check this out, Mary!”

We walk up the stairs and see a table of a pair of good looking, young couples hablando, talking, in Español and sitting right under the lone ceiling fan on this very warm and humid night but that is okay as we make our way to a table overlooking the street. Tomás approaches and presents his menu and practices his English with us as we do the same with our Español. We order up a beer for Mary and my first Piña Colada, complete with a dash of nutmeg and it is excellent! Que Bueno!

Mary looks over the menu and chooses the pasta garlic dish and I see Pescado Chenchado. I ask Tomás what kind of fish dish this is and he explains that the chef’s name is Chencho and this is his style. Ok, I’ll take it and I am rewarded with couple of tasty fillets done fairly close to Vera Cruz style, only better. Mary’s pasta? Not so hot unfortunately. We have another beer and Piña Colada and enjoy the roof top view of the action on main street below us and when the check comes it is 250P, with tip 300P, about $24US.

On the way back to our “house” we check out a number of hotels and resorts along the beach road (the ones that still have open recepciones) and find that the best deal is a room at the Mawimbi resort right on the beach and pretty fancy looking. The gal who tells us to check back tomorrow says it appears we could have a room for 900P, about $72 which sounds workable.

We head back along the beach road on the way to our little complex and it is so dark. We aren’t used to that, living in the big city of Mérida. We make our way around the cabanas and into our unit and put our beers and wine into the fridge and then park ourselves, after a good hosing down of bug spray, at a little table outside out door and fire up a Cohiba. It is still hot and humid and I strip down to my skivvies in the dark. I have no luck in talking Mary into cooling off in the same fashion. We finally hit the sack about midnight and the fan doesn’t quite cut it and it is a rather sleepless night for the both of us.

I’m out and about shortly after dawn, trying to find some coffee and I bump into Dave the owner and I tell him that we will be checking out. Old farts that we are, we need a private bath, a cabana with common baths just won’t cut it. It’s kind of too bad because this place is really cool, our kids would probably love it. Dave is very nice and offers to store our stuff if we cannot secure another place before 11 check-out.

Mary and I walk up to the beach road and right on the corner is La Iguana, a 9 unit hotel in 4 or 5 buildings surrounded by beautiful gardens which are home to zillions of Minnesota size mosquitoes. Our Meridano mosquitoes are pesky, hard to swat suckers but these are of the 1 quart capacity and when they completely cover your calves it doesn’t matter much if they are easy to swat. We jump inside the room and slam the door shut to find a very comfortable, clean, modern room with an absolutely gorgeous mini-split A/C unit in the wall right over the bed. And it works! This room is 500P about $40 and is definitely in the running but we want to check out some places right on the beach as well.

We fight through the mosquito horde to the beach road and start scouting. There are a number of nice resorts on the beach but pretty pricey as well, at least to us, running $150 to $220US/night. We stop in at the Mawimbi, again, and evidently there is some confusion as the unit available last night has suddenly gone from 900P to $120US. The switch in currency is almost more aggravating than the price hike. No thanks.

We’re at La Plaza Principal and there is a server hawking breakfast at his sidewalk cafe. This will work. And finally we get our coffee! We both have omelets and then we backtrack to the Ida y Vuelta to get our gear and we book our room at La Iguana. The lad in recepcion was right this morning, the bugs are not nearly as bad as we approach midday. It is hot and muggy and we both shower for the second time today and then we just lie under the mini-split, enjoying the cold air it is dumping onto us. And now to the beach but first we have to get supplies. We ask a couple locals for grocery stores as all we see are the mini-supers and they are expensive for beers. We finally get it through our thick heads that there are no grocery stores like Walmart or Issteys on the island, you have to go to Chiquila for that. All there are is smaller and larger supers. We stop in at the biggest one in the area which actually has produce, eggs, and even sundries, only to find that a 6 pack of Tecate is exactly the same price we paid last night, 75P. I do score the exact same wine, a Chilean Merlot for only 80P instead of the 100 last night, so yea for me, I guess. Now we’re ready for the beach.

We grab our portable chairs, cross the beach road and set up about 20 feet from the aquamarine colored surf. It is a perfect day, no clouds, and a cooling breeze but not so strong as to blow away our sun umbrella. First I take a cooling dip, stepping thru the seaweed that is washing up on shore. It collects in not so beautiful mounds and fingerlets that extend into the water and it doesn’t exactly add to the experience but the sugar sand bottom and cooling water (just barely cool enough) are certainly good enough for me. I rejoin Mary on the beach. We crack some beers and light up a Cohiba and bake.

A couple hours later, we are both well done so we pack up and head to Centro for an early dinner. This time we pick one of the big beach front restaurants a couple blocks from the heart of downtown. Fishing is the number one industry of this island, so there are lots of seafood entrees to pick from. With Mary’s strong encouragement I pop for the lobster (240P) and they offer it a number of different ways. Now I haven’t had lobster since before the days when you had to be a bank robber to afford it but I must tell you, it is my absolute favorite dish. Back in the 80s living in Alexandria, we used to regularly run out to the Fireside on Fridays when Sonny would offer his 6oz Lobster tail special for, get this, $5!

Back to the present: They offer about 4 treatments of lobster and the one I pick is a wine and mushroom dish (Thermidor). They

carve the lobster out of the shell, mix it with this awesome wine and mushroom sauce and shovel it back into the split shell. It is incredible! But it made me realize, and I guess it has just been too long, that I love the taste of lobster so much that I should have ordered it simply Con Mantequilla, with butter, only. Que lastima! But I do not regret it. Mary has the best Chicken Cordon Bleu of her life, she says and it is good as I finish her dish in my usual fashion. Mary claims I married her because she could never finish her meals. We settle up with our server, Rolando, and once again we deal with the hidden propina, tip. As we have seen too often, the check has the total circled numerous times in pen through the tip amount, in an attempt to obscure it. But I reconcile the bill as I always do, spot it, and ask Rolando, propina incluida, tip included? Si, señor the embarrassed Rolando says, eyes darting. Well, as usual it is only 10% and, as I am feeling generous, belly full of Langosta, I give him an extra 5% and I make sure to tell him, por ti, Mas propina, for you, More tip.

We make our way to the palapa bar between us and the beach because Mary really wants to finish our drinks sitting in the swings they use for stools and we do so listening to a couple of young Germans talking about the World Cup. I ask the bar keep which of the many bottles of tequila sitting in front of me is lo mas mejor, the best, and he tells me it is Cazadores. Then he makes his way across the dirt street to buy a couple sweet treats at the stand where his little one has beckoned him.

We make our way back to La Iguana by way of the beach as the sun is setting in a clear sky and we hope to see it sink into the ocean which is always pretty cool. We notice that only one of the high class resorts along the way takes the time to daily sweep the omnipresent seaweed from its shore. We find ourselves in front of our hotel as the sun lowers to the horizon and we hustle to our room to grab some wine and beers in hope of catching the sunset from the chaise lounges in the sandy patio fronting our little resort on this hot, muggy night. We rush through the bug storm, get our supplies and stake our stations with the first order to douse ourselves in bug spray before the buggers carry us off. We do so and of course the sun disappears into a haze on the horizon not to be seen again tonight, but what the hell, we have beer, wine, and another Cohiba, things could be worse.

Well, actually, things are worse. About the time our Cohiba has played out, other biting things that are immune to mosquito spray have reconnoitered us, and after entertaining ourselves despite the onslaught, by watching the beach road traffic swatting themselves, we give up the battle in the twilight and sprint back to our refuge, staging our individual  long jumps into the room so as to not drag more mosquitoes in than can be helped. We fire up the mini-split, take our third shower of the day, and once again lie on the bed feeling the absolutely luxurious wash of cool air dumping from the mini-split’s rotating louvers. We have found, at least in July, it never cools down here in Holbox. It is a steamy, tropical jungle island around the clock.

We’re pretty played out so we just fire up Die Hard, the original, on my laptop and Mary makes it about half way through. I am right behind her.

We’re up early the next morning as we have arranged for a taxi to take us to the pier at 6:30 for the 7 ferry. The next ferry isn’t until 9 and missing the 7 ferry would guarantee that we would have to pay an extra day of car rental.

We have everything packed and by the door before we take a deep breath and bolt through the gardens to the beach road and we only take a few bug casualties. It’s 6:20 and we stand on the road swatting mosquitoes for ten minutes and at 6:30 the taxi is a no show so we start hoofing towards Centro.

Early risers are out and about in their private golf carts this steamy morning and we see a few taxis but they are already occupied. Downtown we are directed to a taxi stand but nobody is tending their vehicles. It’s about 6:40 and we are starting to panic as we ask another local about taxis and she just vaguely gestures southward. We walk a couple blocks and ask another local and he asks why we want a taxi as the pier is only 600 meters ahead. I look up and focus my eyes and right he is. I grab all the gear and Mary jogs the remaining distance and I catch up just as she has secured our tix with about ten minutes to spare. We join about a dozen others in a waiting room by the snack stand and relax. There is a small ferry moored right next to us. I notice a lady and her young daughter walking by us. I am curious as I step onto the pier to see where she is going. At the end of the pier is a larger ferry that looks remarkably like the one we took here from Chiquila and I see her boarding. I ask the tix taker if this is the Chiquila ferry and it is and it leaves in cinco minutos. I jog back noticing a sign that shows departure times for Chiquila and one other port, the other place is evidently where this smaller ferry is heading. Mary and I grab our gear and board the correct ferry and we find that we have started a stampede, as the other passengers in the waiting room, 20 some by now, are hot on our heels. And these are all locals except for one young gringo backpacking couple. Whew!

The rest of the trip is routine as we get back to the car rental agency in plenty of time and we are happy to be car free once again.

We find that we are glad to have had the Holbox experience and if you are a typical tourist with a lot more money than we have, Holbox would be pretty cool because you’d be staying at a 5 star resort on the beach which I imagine is fogged and pretty bug free and you’d be taking the whale shark tours, snorkeling, and the whole bit. But if you’re us, and we are, Holbox is “Mosquito Coast” and thanks but no thanks, for seashore we’ll take Progreso.

Thanks for visiting gentle reader. And please feel free to comment, we know others who have  loved their Holbox experience and Bruce would be happy to post your impressions. Hasta pronto, mis amigos and please pass the bug spray.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 11th, 2010 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Life in Merida. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.