From where I’m sitting, this could be Barbados. The sun is high in a cloudless
sky, the sea is brochure-blue and the sand is the stuff of dreams.
It’s that special time of day, the moment just after breakfast when you
remember, deliciously, that you have no obligations other than loafing in
the shade of a rustling coco palm and wonder whether it’s too early to start
drinking.
From where I’m slumped in my hammock, I can see a pair of Italian air
hostesses rubbing factor five into each other’s shoulders, a trio of
pelicans diving for fish and a smiling waiter coming to see if I’ve made my
mind up about that drink.
If this were Barbados, or virtually any other island in the Caribbean, I would
be looking forward to nothing more than a gentle swim, a long lunch, an
afternoon nap, cocktails, dinner, and so to bed in the certain knowledge
that tomorrow was going to be exactly the same as today.
Because while the Leewards and the Windwards are perfectly lovely for the
body, they offer little unction for the mind and soul. So the only real
option, after you’ve done the island tour, visited the fish market and
wandered around the pastel-painted historic capital, is to start drinking
earlier and earlier each day in a bid to stave off the creeping feeling that
you’ve flown 3,000 miles to be, well, bored.
There, I’ve said it. Boredom. Ennui. Tedium. Monotony.
Another drink, sir? Not before breakfast — ah, what the hell. But winter sun
doesn’t have to be that way. Now the pandemic panic has passed, all you need
to do is fly a little further, to the strip of Mexico’s Caribbean coastline
they call the Mayan Riviera, and you’ll find the same perfect beaches,
turquoise seas and bronzed Italian air hostesses, along with gastronomy,
history and culture in spades.
The strip starts in Cancun and rolls south, and as a simple rule, the beaches
get better, the crowds diminish and the infrastructure becomes more basic
the further down you go. If you like Orlando, stay in Cancun; and if you
enjoy European-style sophistication, with groomed beaches, cafe bars and
designer boutiques, head for Playa del Carmen.
Furthest south is Tulum, which has grown from a backpacker hang-out to a
hippie-chic honeymoon hot spot that’s all solar showers, gourmet dining and
barefoot luxury. I first came here 20 years ago, and the place was so
primitive it made neighbouring Belize look sophisticated.
Two decades on, I drive down route 307 — then a potholed road of sudden death,
now a smooth four-lane blacktop — and where once stood roadhouses owned by
embittered Vietnam vets and their tattooed girlfriends, I find branches of
the Banyan Tree and Mandarin Oriental chains.
Cops — the dreaded federales — who once saw tourists as a tax-free source of
income, now smile and ask if you’re lost. The Mayan Riviera, it seems, has
become civilised, but, for me, its biggest attraction remains a civilisation
long dead and gone.
The state of Quintana Roo, in which the riviera lies, was the last part of
Mexico ceded by the Spanish, but the conquistadors left little impression —
just a few colonial towns, a half-hearted handful of churches and the odd
run-down hacienda. The rest belongs to the Maya, the cruelly superstitious
civilisation whose once-fabulous cities lie crumbling and deserted in these
chicle-covered flatlands.
The Mayan people still live here, short, round-faced and charming, with names
like unplayable Scrabble hands and a gentle sense of humour that makes it
hard to believe their ancestors’ idea of fun was tearing the still-beating
heart from their victims and shoving it into their horror-stricken faces.
By far the most popular attraction out here is the huge temple site of Chichen
Itza, but the sheer number of visitors has turned a site of unimaginable
ghastliness into a Disney-esque Maya World. Climbing the once blood-soaked
monuments here is no longer allowed, after an American tourist fell for the
old “back a bit” trick at the top of the Kukulkan pyramid and thus
sacrificed himself to Kodak, the Mayan god of memory, but at the
little-known site of Ek Balam, just north of Valladolid, there are no such
restrictions.
The climb to the top of the pyramid is dizzying, but it’s worth the effort for
the view across the billiard-flat plain. “Anything sticking up is probably
another temple,” says Angelina, my Mayan guide, adding that some have yet
to be fully explored. She shows me the spot where hearts were hacked out
with obsidian knives and bodies left to bleed out before the whooping crowd
below. “The blood ran all the way to the bottom,” she says. “We know because
we ran an experiment with a bucket of pig’s blood.”
Next morning, Angelina picks me up before sunrise, stopping for breakfast at a
local roadhouse called El Arbolito, where po-faced Mayan women spoon
exquisite concoctions such as huevos motuleños (scrambled eggs, but not as
we know ’em, Jim), chilmole (wild turkey in chocolate sauce) and the
ambrosial cochinita pibil (suckling pig cooked slowly with bitter orange and
achiote) into saucer-sized tacos costing about 15p each. It is here, after a
near-death experience with an innocuously transparent chilli sauce, that I
learn the Maya are unqualified to recommend condiments to gringos.
The ruins at Coba are another popular spot on the tourist trail, but by
getting there at 8am we have the vast, jungle-covered site to ourselves for
two thrilling hours. Excavations have so far uncovered two huge temple
pyramids and a pelota court — where young aristos would compete for the
dubious honour of having their hearts ripped out by the high priest. But the
biggest thrills of this Indiana Jones film set are found deep in the
surrounding jungle, where broken stelae lie hidden in the undergrowth and
unexplored tombs rise like tree-covered hillocks.
“Now is okay, but in June and July the mosquitoes are so bad I can only bring
Span- ish clients,” says Angelina. I presume this is because the Spanish
cope better with bugs, but she shakes her head. “Revenge,” she explains.
But what lies above ground on the Mayan Riviera is nothing to what lies
beneath. The entire Yucatan peninsula is, in effect, the limestone roof to
an underworld the Maya called Xibalba, the place from which all life came
and to which it all went. Down here, beneath the probing roots of stunted
trees, in Gaudi-esque caves the size of cathedrals, lie the cenotes, the
subterranean cisterns from which the people drew their water.
There are some 3,000 cenotes in the Yucatan, deep subterranean pools of clear
water at a constant 78F. The biggest have changing rooms, shower blocks and
cafes — others have nothing but a hand-painted sign and a semi-comatose
gatekeeper to whom you pay a few pesos for the world’s most sublime swimming
experience.
But the ultimate underground experience is the Rio Secreto, conveniently
located just off the main coast road. Here, clad in wetsuit and caving
helmet, I wade, swim and scramble for more than a mile along an underground
river, through sparkling cav-erns seemingly decorated by Swarovski. As I
emerge awestruck from the underworld, I catch a local family burning
banknotes as an offering to the guardian spirits said to live there, and yet
an hour later, I’m sipping chilled prosecco and listening to a Verdi concert
on the beach in the Italianate resort of Playa del Carmen.
The next morning, I watch from a lobster boat as a dozen wild dolphins wrangle
a glittering school of fish into the shallows, wind them into a tight ball
and take turns to chomp their way through. Frigate birds join in, dropping
like Stukas, and as I watch a huge hawksbill turtle swim away from the
carnage, the boatman passes me a cold tin of Tecate.
“Breakfast beer,” he says, but I hesitate to take it. It’s not yet 8am,
but then again, what the heck — I’m on holiday.
Chris Haslam travelled as a guest of Sovereign Holidays
TRAVEL BRIEF
Getting there: Thomsonfly (0871 231 4787, thomsonfly.co.uk) flies
nonstop from Gatwick and Manchester to Cancun, from £476. Otherwise, expect
to pay from £550 with either US Airways (0845 600 3300, usairways.com/uk)
or American Airlines (020 7365 0777, americanairlines.co.uk),
via a US hub.
Where to stay: best in Cancun is the Spanish-owned ME (0808 234 1953, me-cancun.com),
an oasis of Iberian style in a resort built to American tastes; doubles from
£110 per night. Top spot in Playa del Carmen is the Mandarin Oriental (00 52
984 877 3888, mandarinoriental.com),
a jungle retreat built around its own cenote; doubles from £425.
Accommodation in Tulum ranges from the budget, beach-front Cabanas Copal (cabanascopal.com),
for £55, up to prop-erties such as Playa Azul (playa azultulum.com) on the
riviera’s loveliest beach, and the yoga-tastic eco-luxury of Sueños Tulum (suenostulum.com),
both offering posh, solar-powered hippie living from £80 per night.
Tour operators: Sovereign Holidays (0871 664 0227, sovereign.com)
has seven nights, B&B, at the Mandarin Oriental Riviera Maya (mandarinoriental.com/rivieramaya)
from £2,157pp, with flights from Gatwick and private transfers. Seven nights
in a Cancun five-star cost from £1,377pp, as above. Or try Exsus (020 7337
9010, exsus.com) or Trips Worldwide (0800 840
0850, tripsworldwide.co.uk).
Guides: Alltournative (alltournative.com)
is the only company running trips to the Rio Secreto — fine if you don’t
mind sharing a van with other tourists.
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