Mexico: things are looking brighter

Jess wading near Cenote Cocolito, Laguna de Bacalar

Aahhhhhnd relax! We've reached Mexico!

After a pretty intense few weeks in Guatemala ending in my rather more than tense medical emergency, it felt great to cross the border out of there. And after whizzing straight through Belize (we stopped for 10 minutes in the capital and even this was too long) this euphoria was further enhanced by the sight of a beautiful rainbow positioned perfectly above the already resplendent Mexico sign at border control. ​

We had left Flores two days earlier after a few more trips to my beloved eye clinic, spent a couple of days in El Remartes, a much more low key village on the same lake as Flores, before crossing over to Chetumal, Mexico.

And in case you are on tenterhooks from the previous post, I have not gone blind. But actually it was a closer run thing than I realised!  Turns out, I had an attack of acute angle glaucoma, which could have happened anywhere but chose to happen in a ramshackle town in the middle of Guatemala, with no medical help nor internet access.  Luckily for us, the clinic we found near Flores, after our four hour taxi, was amazing, a big thanks to Vincent Pescatore. After early treatment with pressure lowering drugs, they cut a whole with lasers in both eyes (laser iridotomy) and because of their intervention, there is no damage to my optic nerve (which could have caused irreversible blindness) and I should now make a full recovery. Phew!

Not to alarm anyone but if you've ever been told something about the angle, shape or size of your eyes by your optician, you could be prone to the same thing!

Anyway, enough of medical emergencies and more of beautiful Mexico, which has so far seen two birthday celebrations (Otto's & mine) and many more good times. Even Chetumal, the border town, was clean, cheap and friendly, I have a feeling Mexico is gonna be our sort of place.

Who's more excited at the arrival of Otto's birthday cake?

So far we've spent been in the country two weeks and we love it. Everything is better in Mexico! We started in Laguna de Bacalar, the lagoon of seven colours (although mostly turquoise) where we celebrated Otto's birthday with a million turns on the water slide and then a drive in the electric cars!

 Bacalar is perfect for kids, the lagoon is great for swimming, it's quiet and fairly shallow. every night, the electric cars are available for rent in the main plaza and they were even screening kids films when we were there, albeit in Spanish, but Jess & Otto are starting to pick some things up!  We could easily have spent longer here but we had less than three weeks to explore this area of Mexico so we pushed on after 4 days.

​From Bacalar, via a quick ophthalmology stop in Cancun we travelled up to Isla Holbox.  ​​

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Mikey paddling hard: kayaks at Laguna de Bacalar

Holbox was beautiful and it was here we celebrated my birthday with a bike ride through some enormous muddy puddles, followed by a multitude of mojitos. We met a Belgian family on the beach who were also celebrating, a coincidence but a great one as they also had a 4 year old girl for the kids to play together, while the birthday mum's enjoyed the 2-4-1 happy hour cocktails.  

The water here in Mexico appears to be ultra-marine everywhere (except the foot deep stagnant puddles we had to traverse on our bikes).  In fact, Holbox was pretty convincing evidence of climate change and the dangers of rising sea waters, I have to wonder how long before the whole island submerges, get here quick before we lose it to the sea forever! The Northern and Eastern beaches are still luminous white sands and it remains beautiful, but the sea is coming to claim it for sure.

Jess & Otto's beachhouse @ Casa Tortuga, Isla Holbox

We left Holbox, the day after my birthday for Valladolid, where we are at present. Here, we should get to see some Mayan ruins and swim in Cenotes, another couple of things ticked off the list.  

Only one week till we head to Cuba and just three weeks till we're back in the UK (although fingers crossed, only briefly).  

See you soon everyone!

The beach at Isla Holbox