With Christmas and New Years around the corner, I flew over to Cancun, Mexico to meet my dear friend Stella. We tried to find a good balance between inland experience and beach time during our two weeks of exploring and I have to say: Mexico, te quiero mucho. From beach bumming in Cancun and Tulum, swimming in cenotes and sipping cocktails on the beach to exploring maya ruins in Palenque, dancing the night away in San Cristobal and cheering for Mexican wrestlers in Mexico City. It’s been an absolute blast.

Cancun

I arrived in Cancun before Stella late in the afternoon and made my way to Agavero hostel. I have to admit, I am not a huge fan of Cancun, for me it’s just like any other city in the states, made for American tourists to spend their vacation with a sense of feeling at home (really what’s the point of that?!). But our hostel was just amazing. Oliver really knows how to make his guests to fall in love with this place. From the moment I arrived, he treated me like a long lost friend, super friendly, super informative, just a really great host. The hostel is in a quiet side street, easily accessible by bus (bus brings you to dolphins beach, it’s about a 30 minute drive, depending on traffic), close to restaurants, the bus terminal and the supermarket. They have a really nice rooftop bar, affordable cocktails and Oliver makes the best breakfast every morning. Sorry for raving, but he is just my idol when it comes to hosting backpackers. Will definitely lay return when I fly home from Cancun end of June.

Stella arrived late at night, so we had our reunion the next morning and kicked off our time in Mexico with a chill day on dolphins beach, some reggaetón and margaritas. We decided to only stay in Cancun for one day as we wanted to spent Christmas in Tulum and heard good things about it. There are different ways to drive down to Tulum, the more expensive version is to take a bus. The cheaper version is to walk behind the bus station and take a colectivo (a van that drives once it’s filled up) first to Playa del Carmen and from there catch another one to Tulum. It takes around 3,5 hours, but it’s super convenient and as I said, just really cheap.

Tulum

Oh, I just really liked Tulum and it marked our longest stay during our time in Mexico (I think 5 or 6 days). The vibe is super bohemian, hippie, chill and beachy (not sure that is even a word hah). We stayed at hostel Che Babel, which is a good hostel run by Argentinians, with a cool bar and good prices. Hostel staff is, however, sticking to themselves a lot and it’s hard to get reliable information out of them regarding activities etc. We still had a good time there and their dinner parties at night as well as their Christmas dinner were awesome. You can rent bikes from the hostel (approximately 25 minute bike drive to the beach and the maya ruins as well as some cenotes) and it’s located very conveniently close to a lot of bars, cafes and restaurants.

Stella and I spent our days visiting the Maya ruins, chilling on the beach, snorkeled at Grand Cenote, Cenote dos Ojos (very, very touristy but still great to dive and snorkel) and Cristal and Escondido (you wouldn’t know that these were cenotes until the divers come up from above you, still feels more like a lake). Besides that, we ate a shit load of amazing Mexican food (they have really good and cheap tacos next to the bus terminal in Tulum and food along Ave Tulum was also great – for example breakfast and smoothies at Tulum Art club). Besides that, we danced the night away (for example at Calle Centauro sur or in the bars around the corner- they also have salsa bars where Fernando and I miserably failed haha) and enjoyed our christmas days.

Regarding the food in Mexico -i am a huge fan! Guacamole for the win! A few things that you have to try when in Mexico: tacos – obviously, chilaquiles (omg I am addicted) and elotes (I’ll stuff my mouth with this once I get back); which are basically corn sticks with Mayonese, chili and cheese – SO FREAKING GOOD!

Palenque

After almost a week of beach bumming, we decided that it was time to drive a little more inland and took a night bus to Palenque (Chiapas), which is best known for its archeological site of maya ruins as an old Maya city state back in the days. Besides that, the city also serves as a hub for tours to Agua Azul, which are numerous waterfalls located on the Xanil river. We stayed at Yaxkin hostel, which is a super basic hostel, rooms and beds are not the best, WiFi is only accessible at reception, but it does serve the purpose and is located close to the city center and is surrounded by lots of restaurants and cafes.

For the Maya ruins, we grabbed a colectivo on our first days there from the city center, which drove us right to the site and took around 20 minutes. Unlucky for us, it was super overcrowded due to the holiday season, but was still a nice activity for a couple of hours. You can climb around the ruins, look for souvenirs at one of the street vendors and learn more about Mayan history and the city that was once located there.

On our second day there, we booked a colectivo via our hostel, which brought us to Agua Azules with a quick stop at another waterfall before driving to San Cristobal. Visiting Agua Azul was nice, even though the weather wasn’t the best that day. Super touristy, but impressive to see how all these waterfalls come together. We had around two hours to stroll around, eat lunch and take some pictures, before heading to San Cristobal, which is around 5-6 hours away.

San Cristobal de las Casas

After an exhaustingly long colectivo ride from Agua Azul, we finally arrived in San Cristobal late at night. This stop was one of my favorites, as it gave us, in my opinion, deeper insights on the Mexican way of life. San Cristobal is a really cute colonial town and offers tourists a great balance between markets, street food and great architecture as well as a variety of different restaurants, shops and bars. We stayed at Iguana hostel, which is divided in two houses close to the old San Cristobal Cathedral at the Parque Central. The hostel has a chill garden with view over the mountains, a bar, breakfast every morning and offers a variety of tours that you can book with them. During our first breakfast there, we were lucky enough to meet a bunch of really cool people on our first morning there during breakfast, which made our stay in San Cristobal even nicer.

In San Cristobal itself, you can visit churches, try local food at one of their food stands in front of the big church, visit the market to shop for some souvenirs, climb the little hill behind Th church to get a view over the city and party at night in one of their bars and clubs. We had a really fun night at Revolucion, for example, dancing and partying to typical life music that day, but you can also find other places like jazz clubs, clubs that play commercial reggaeton and bars with more commercial music if you like. They also have a really nice wine bar called La Vina de Bacco, where they give you tapas to every glass of wine that you purchase.

We also used our time in the area to take a day trip to Sumidero Canyon, which is located within Sumidero National Park further in the south of Chiapas. This park is, among others, home to river crocodiles and we actually saw a grown ass one and a youngster – impressive and a little scary to sit in a boat so close to them. We got picked up from our hostel early in the morning and were brought to the park entrance, from where you are seated in boats of approximately 15 people. I enjoyed driving through the canyon on Grijalva river, however our guide wasn’t the best in giving a lot of insights, so it felt more like a river cruise than anything else. Despite of that, the scenery is still very beautiful and I would recommend visiting the canyon anyways, but maybe hiking through the canyon might be more fun, than the actual boats tour.

After three days of fun in this charming little town, we made our way to Tuxtla airport (an hour away by bus) and flew to Mexico City for New Years.

Mexico City

Mexico City marked our last las stop on our little adventure and because we were late organizing anything hung for New Year’s Eve (as I am always), we were lucky enough to find a hostel (Hostel333) in one of the more popular neighborhoods Roma, which is also located right next to the Condessa area with lots of bars and cafes. We stayed in a very basic three bedroom dorm, but besides that, the hostel had a great location, a nice rooftop and breakfast in the morning. Once we arrived, we met a guy who invited us to have New Year’s Eve dinner with a few other people in the hostel and to go out to watch the fireworks after. Unfortunately, I fell sick in the evening, and even though the dinner tasted delicious, I was laying in bed by 10. Bummer, as I was really looking forward to party it up in Mexico City, but at the same time, I don’t really care about New Year’s Eve, so it was fine for both of us.

Good thing about being sick is being able to wake up early the next day. So, after having breakfast, some guys from the hostel took us on a little stroll around town, so that we were able to see some of the attractions already without having any people around – it’s by the way impressive how quiet big cities get the day after new . I have to say, from all the big cities I’ve been to, Mexico City is probably one of my favorites in Latin America. Maybe it was because not so many people were around because of the new year hangover, or because the weather was super nice, but I’ve just really enjoyed the overall vibe of it and all of the different neighborhoods of the city. So much to see and do, just a great place to visit.In the afternoon, we went on a free walking tour through the Coyoacan neighourhood, which is one of Mexico cities 16 boroughs and for example known fo the place where the Aztecs first welcomed HernánCortés and the Spanish troops when they first entered the city back in the day during the conquest through Spain. Further, it’s also well known for its markets, museums and Frida Kahlos former home. On this tour, you get a lot of background information of Mexican history and how Spain conquered Mexico, about famous people who used to live in this neighborhood. At the beginning there is actually not so much to see, but it is only towards the end of the tour you see more sights and get to walk through the lively area around which was really enjoyable and good to taste some different kinds of Mexican food.

On our last day together, it was also Stella’s birthday, so besides exploring the historical center of Mexico City and walking around half of the day, we also thought it would be great to do something special. So, in the evening, we booked a tour to see Mexican wrestling, called Lucha libre (you can book a similar tour via viator for example). We were first brought to a typical Mexican bar, where we were served Pulque (kind of like algave wine), a typical Mexican drink made out of fermented maguey. Even though I was super tired and still felt sick, the bar was pretty cool, as everybody was dancing to traditional Mexican music, enjoying the band and having a great time, no matter how old. After the bar, we went to the arena, where the matches would take place. Usually matches start at 7, but because these are mostly unknown or new wrestlers, we went a little later, to see the more popular matches. I’ve seen the cholita wrestling fights before in Bolivia, which were hilarious by the way, so I kind of knew what to expect, but having women and men wrestling in such a big arena with more show elements was really cool to see (new life goal: I wanna be a wrestler from now on, kinda reminds me of the Netflix sow Glow ha ha). On our way back, we actually still wanted to go for some drinks in Condessa, but unfortunately it was Tuesday and most of the bars were already closed, probably due to post New Year’s Eve.

So, that marked the end of our trip, because Stella went back to Yucatan and I flew over to Hawaii. More about that in my next post. Super happy we got to explore Mexico together, my dear Stellski. To many more adventures to come!

I will go back to Latin America end of April (I finally decided and my flights are booked) and will fly out from Mexico, so hopefully I will have a little time to explore the country a little more. I would love to see Puerto Escondido, Playa del Carmen, Bacalar, etc. and maybe you guys have some tips and insights, where to go and what to do. Can’t wait to be back, because these two weeks have shown me how much the country has to offer and I want more.