Wandering through Quintana Roo

And finally, on 17 February, off we go!!! Destination Mexico, specifically Puerto Aventuras, on the Riviera Maya, in the state of Quintana Roo. And here at last are the lights of Cancun. We drive another 80-odd km until we reach Puerto Aventuras, specifically the Catalonia Yucatan Beach. The hotel is a very large and very beautiful four-star; few Italians, but far too many Americans!! The sea in front is lovely, but not exactly the best, partly because it's often quite rough; still, you can always swim because near the main bay there's a small lagoon that stays sheltered, with the water always flat. And in any case, despite the rough sea, even if the water isn't exactly crystal clear, the sun makes the colours of the sea really beautiful.

And there are plenty of fish too!!! Puerto Aventuras is a very pretty little town, even if there's very little that's genuinely Mexican about it; it's very touristy, with hotels and rental houses, golf courses, and its centre made up of little shops and restaurants built around the small harbour and the dolphinarium. Here you can admire dolphins, seals and Caribbean manatees swimming in large saltwater pools, and you can swim with the dolphins. In Mexico there are so many things to do and see that in a week you have to make a very strict selection... we limited ourselves to visiting the state of Quintana Roo, trying to alternate sea, Maya ruins and natural beauty.

PLAYA DEL CARMEN: as many people have described it, the famous Quinta Avenida looks like Viale Ceccarini in Riccione: shops, restaurants, bars, tequila bars...; the sea isn't up to much, and from its beaches you can see the skyscrapers of Cozumel....

SIAN KA'AN BIOSPHERE: it's a natural reserve and a Unesco World Heritage Site: it's home to howler monkeys, anteaters, foxes, ocelots, pumas... The excursion takes place by boat, and it feels like being inside a documentary; it starts from Punta Allen, a small fishing village where you can breathe a bit of the real Mexico. The meeting of sea and lagoon is spectacular.

The excursion proceeds in stages: a swim in the natural pools, a fairly sheltered stretch of sea where the water is splendid: do you have in mind the classic postcard image you think of when you picture the Caribbean, with turquoise sea and only palms on the horizon???? Then you go snorkelling on the coral reef: the colours certainly aren't those of the Red Sea, but you can admire lots of fish and enormous brain corals!!! And then off in the boats, in search of turtles and dolphins!!!! We were lucky and managed to see both, along with a manta ray and lots of colourful starfish!!!! Finally you visit a small island where frigatebirds nest (a typical Mexican bird, named this way because it doesn't get its food by fishing as, for example, pelicans do, but by 'swiping' it from whoever was clever enough to get it!!!), in a stretch of paradise sea.

The tour ends in the Laguna Negra, which you enter by passing through the mangroves; this lagoon owes its name to a particular mussel, very common in this area; these mussels, at a certain hour of the day, let's say they do their 'business', so the water turns very dark, almost black... To round off this excursion in style, and it really is worth it, a paella lunch on the beach at Punta Allen...

COBA: a visit to one of the largest Maya cities, which also includes the tallest pyramid on the Yucatan peninsula!!! The path runs through tropical jungle (at the entrance there's even a sign about venomous snakes!!) and, walking along it, you can admire the ball court and other Maya remains, some of them still covered by jungle.

In fact, every time you see a small mound, it's a Maya ruin, since the Yucatan peninsula is completely flat!!!! We also made an astonishing discovery: the Maya bee really exists!!! It's a smaller kind of bee than the one we know, but its main feature is that it has no sting!!!! It also makes a very delicious honey!!! And at last you reach Nohoch Mul, the Great Pyramid, built on a natural hill and a good 42 metres tall!!! The view from the top is spectacular — jungle as far as the eye can see, 360 degrees!!! And before we left, we even had an encounter with crocodiles in the lake at Coba!!!

PLAYA PARAISO: lunch at Ana y Jose's beach club, on a stretch of coast considered among the most beautiful on the Riviera Maya!!! A shame the sea was a bit too rough...

TULUM: a Maya site right on the Caribbean Sea; beautiful; we were lucky enough to get there in the late afternoon, almost at sunset, so the site was almost deserted; a surreal silence... and the whole walk was accompanied by friendly iguanas...

CENOTE 'CRISTALINO': along the Carretera Federal towards Tulum there's a whole succession of cenote signs, some of which you can even swim in... the Cristalino cenote is little known to tourists and is generally frequented by Mexicans wanting a bit of relaxation.... When we went, as soon as we arrived, we were alone; it was wonderful, you could only hear the birds singing and see nothing but green around us; the ideal place to relax!!!! The water wasn't even as cold as I expected, and snorkelling there is truly special!! From outside the water doesn't look very deep, but from below you realise it is, and very deep in places!!! Then you spot lots of freshwater fish, and the bravest can even try venturing into the caves...

From what I could see, Mexico is a country of great contrasts, which I think are all the more visible along the coast, where tourism is more pronounced. On the beach enormous resorts spring up, but beyond the federal highway are the huts of those who live Mexico every day... The overwhelming majority of tourism in this country comes from Americans, who have transformed this part of the world a little too much; just look at parks like Xcaret or Xel-Ha, where beautiful lagoons have been turned into a kind of Gardaland, tailored above all to the American ideal... Going there can certainly be fun, but I far prefer nature. What can I say... a short but intense week, which only made me want even more to return to this splendid country, to keep discovering its beauties.... HASTA LUEGO MEXICO!!!