Mexico-Yucatan

The day of our departure for Mexico has arrived too, we get up early in the morning since our Livingston flight leaves Malpensa at 10.50 (it was 2 and a half hours late though) The flight makes a stopover in Rome and we practically leave at 15.30 in the afternoon, it lasts a good 12 hours!!! Livingston planes are fairly comfortable but the food is rather awful and above all served in very small quantities for such a long flight, time seems to never pass, two films are shown, viewing is rather uncomfortable, since the seats don't have personal monitors. Finally at 20.35 we land in Cancun: beautiful, full of lights, it stretches out below us and you immediately notice the very thin strip where the American Hotel Zone is, separated from the city by a lagoon. The formalities are dealt with very quickly and luckily at customs the traffic light is.....

green, so we can go through (oh yes, there are random checks, if the red light comes on....open your suitcase!!!); the organisation's coaches are waiting for us and distribute us among the various resorts......meanwhile we get to know the Carrettera Federal, which will be our reference point for the holiday, since it's the backbone of the road network of the Riviera Maya. Arriving at the hotel we attempt the feat of reaching our room, 4126!!! The Maya Beach is a beautiful resort but it's enormous, practically a town (it's divided into Maya Beach, Maya Caribe, Maya Tropical and Maya Colonial) and as soon as you arrive you're very disoriented, you don't know how to head towards the various areas. Anyway we manage it and collapse exhausted on the bed...we've been travelling for practically 24 hours.

The next morning we dash to the beach, to admire the beautiful bay where the Beach and Caribe complex stands while the other two have a separate bay. To be honest I was expecting a more beautiful sea: in some places the sand almost seems like slime and you sink in, it's not a nice feeling but you just have to go further out into the sea. Unfortunately we understand very quickly that the weather isn't the best, in the afternoon it always rains and we can no longer go to the beach: this will be the leitmotif of the holiday...rain...rain...rain, at every moment and every intensity.

The following day during the morning we stay in the room because it's raining while in the afternoon we take advantage of the free Sprintour trip to Cancun for shopping (it's raining anyway!) The following day the lovely excursion to Tulum and Playa Paraiso was waiting for us but you just had to look at the sky, which obviously promised nothing good, to draw the appropriate conclusions. Our guide Azbekal(????) during the transfer explained many things and curiosities about the Maya...I couldn't wait to arrive, the photo with the Castillo by the sea has always been among my most distant desires.

Unfortunately as soon as we arrived overlooking the sea, near the entrance walls, all hell broke loose: it poured with rain!Well, we laughed to keep from crying....it lasted at least twenty minutes, I'll let you imagine our pitiful state, instead of swimming under the Castillo I was swimming in my Nikes (for the record, from Friday they dried on Monday evening....under the air conditioning and the hairdryer!) The visit couldn't continue, or rather, we sheltered as best we could under the big tree that leads towards the Castillo...the water was flowing in rivers.....the road to the parking lot was flooded, the parking lot flooded...It continued like that all day and at night too, the next day we were all very very dejected...I'll let you imagine...

To think that we had Isla Mujeres by catamaran!!!we even considered giving up the excursion, being at sea in this weather is not at all nice and safe....Instead as soon as we arrived at the Cancun pier a warm sun peeked out and when the Sea Passion catamaran set off...a beautiful morning opened up!!!. They took us snorkelling near a lighthouse, I forgot to ask the exact area though...below you could admire lots of barracuda and beautiful fish, even though the current was quite noticeable and you had to be careful not to drift away from the group. When Sunday came Giorgio and I decided to visit Xel-ha, which I really cared about very much indeed. At the park you can choose two options: either the basic ticket or all-inclusive, that is food, drinks, lockers, beach towels, snorkelling equipment, life jackets.

Excluded is the swim with the dolphins (around $100 each!!, but I think it would be worth it) which you see in their pools as soon as you enter: how beautiful!!! how sweet!!!you really feel like getting in to play with them. And then........a miracle!!! a scorching sun came out!!!! The lagoon is too beautiful and so we immediately dive in to explore: in short we did about 5 hours of snorkelling, we went all round it far and wide.

there are lots of rocks and lots and lots of fish.........parrot fish that must be about 6/7 kg., some groupers also giant and then under the piers, since food to throw to the fish is available, there are walls of stationary fish into which you can dive in the truest sense of the word.But the most beautiful encounter we had was in a bend of the lagoon where there was no one, fairly deep water and while I'm swimming I see a ray coming towards me from below|They practically threw us out of Xel-ha as they were closing... On Monday morning we wake up to beautiful sunshine and so we decide to head for another of our dreams: a swim in a cenote. Crossing the Carrettera in front of the Barcelo there are some and so we headed towards this area.

Two cenotes are open-air while there's also a closed cave with stalactites and stalagmites that you reach by kayak: we decide to stay in the open air and deep in the vegetation we head to the first cenote, Kantun Chi. As soon as I saw it I was speechless....it's a marvel of nature, I could no longer even feel the insect bites and I dived into the water (cold!!!!) in a nanosecond.

Unfortunately for me(hihihi!!) I had my mask on and as soon as I put my head under I saw the abyss opening up, heeeelp what a sight!!!!slowly I headed towards the centre, it feels like swimming suspended in the void the water is so transparent; the bottom is rather unsettling, there are huge slabs of rock and endless funnel-shaped holes but they have a charm you can't forget.....as soon as I got out I read the sign and understood that beneath me there were a good 11 metres of water...well, thank goodness I didn't read it before, with all due respect to my little heart! The other cenote is reachable with another 5 minutes' walk through dense vegetation and is ''only'' 7 metres deep, also very beautiful, more lit by the sun and the water is very blue, in fact it's called Cenote Azul or Agua Transparente.

Now to the Barcelo: this resort really is a paradise, it has everything needed to entertain guests in the best possible way: in the 7-day stay there are also included two dinners in the Mexican restaurant and Spanish restaurant, as well as the possibility of using all the bars, pools, restaurants, shows of the complex which honestly we didn't get round entirely. Naturally we leave Cancun 2 hours late....I happily discover that the return journey lasts 10 hours, two less than on the way out.

Now I just have a great desire to run home,.....shame about the weather, we can only imagine how a week of sun and blue sky would have been....well, we can always sing like the Mariachi:

Ay ay ay ay canta y no llores Porque cantando se alegran Cielito Lindo, los corazones

Hasta Luego, Mexico!!!!