by FERENC IVANICSOn the eastern shore of the peninsula there's rocky coast as well. If you look closer, many of these rocks are dead corals. Sian Ka'an features the third longest coral reef of the world. Unfortunately we don't have the means to scuba-dive watching the colorful fishies underwater. On the other side of the peninsula there is a series of mixed-water lagoons. The water is crystal clear, so it's another preferred destination for scuba-divers. We managed to walk to Punta Allen in two days. Bu there came the twist: How to get across to Playón, which is nothing but a wooden stage, a small   read more

by FERENC IVANICSTulum is an authentic Caribbean holiday resort. It's expensive for us, but if you look at its beauties and compare the prices to other places, I'd say it's rather affordable, or even economical.There are a lot of young travelers, hippies, nature lovers here, they rent cheap bungalows or camp near the beach. We, by luck, ran into Chain and Jaime, they run a campsite near the Tulum beach. We can tell, that was the most exotic camping we'd ever seen. We passed two quite enjoyable days there (though you can't escape from the mosquitoes). This lovely couple told us we could stay for   read more

by FERENC IVANICSThanks to the helpful tourists in Playa del Carmen we bought a new pair of tents. Our fourth pair on our 8000 miles walk. We bought two Jeep Hiker Tents, these are pretty strange tents but they seem strong, ant that's what important for us.They chipped in enough to buy some new socks and pants as well. Due to the almost expired visas our days were counted in Mexico. We were expecting to receive new shoes from the U.S. so we arrived in Tulum full of hope. Thank you for your support.   read more

by FERENC IVANICSWe stopped at Playa del Carmen, some 40 miles south of Cancún. Found a deserted go-kart track and made a base camp there. Our tents are full of holes, our clothes aren't any better. Playa del Carmen is full of tourists, Canadians, Europeans, from the U.S.AThe city is full of bars, shops, restaurants, it's a pleasure factory. We just sit on the 5th avenue with a WorldWalk-board. Two bearded guys in identical clothes, looks interesting. Many passer-byes are curious about us and we always chat with them, usually mentioning the situation with our tents and clothes. We get some small   read more

by FERENC IVANICSWe reached the Caribbean at Cancún. I guess most of you have seen pictures of the blue Caribbean Sea. I always thought those were images altered in Photoshop, a computer generated exaggeration. We've seen the Mediterranean of the French and the Spanish, The Atlantic in Africa and in Miami, the Gulf of Mexico in the U.S. and in Mexico. Their beaches were playing in another league. This is something totally different. The color of the water is amazing. So it's not surprising that Cancún is the "capital" of tourism is Mexico. An 18 miles long beach sprinkled with luxurious hotels   read more

by FERENC IVANICSNear Valladolid we found a bike-road parallel with the road. It looked more thrilling than the paved road, and even though we knew it was a bit risky due to the presence of our reptilian brothers, we took it.And I almost had it I was in the clouds—both with my thoughts and with my eyes—when suddenly my brother hold me back by my backpack and yelled: Stop! A snake! I looked in front of me and a few feel away there was a yard long, wound up snake. We knew its pattern, it was some kind of a viper.With perfect timing, an old man arrived riding a bicycle. We pointed at the snake   read more

by FERENC IVANICSChichén Itza lies between Mérida and Cancún. It's a large Maya archeological site on the Yucatán peninsula. It was obvious that Cichén Itza is "more important" than our other pre-Columbian experience: El Tajín. It's full of tourists, we haven't seen this many European and North-American faces in other parts of Mexico.We did know that the price of the tickets would be high (at least for us), but we decided to look around. The entry is free one hour before closing time, but one hour is just not enough. So, we paid those ten bucks each. Even though it's worth it, we would have loved   read more

by FERENC IVANICSIn early December Mexico's Catholics begin a pilgrimage to the Chalma church to leave their crown of flowers. They come from all over the country, generally in groups. If they hadn't have the image of the Virgin on their coaches or T-shirts, you would think it's some kind of sport event. Most of the pilgrims are young men and women, and many of them are children. They travel on bicycles or they run, and the groups usually have support vehicles. (Sometimes it's hard to believe we don't) And they are noisy! :)It's their habit to make the pilgrimage making awful noises with car   read more

by FERENC IVANICSAt home the you might see some stray dogs at the dump, I'm sure, there are rats, too. Here in Mexico vultures rule the dumps. Their number is absolutely astonishing. We've seen groups of more than a thousand birds flying through the sky in dense stripes. But vultures show up frequently at the edge of the road, just to comfort the tired traveler. :) As do stray dogs, these are the most miserable stray dogs we've seen during our 12.000 miles. Skinny, many of them are infected with scabies, full of ticks and sick all over. Someone told us in the U.S. that the situation was so bad   read more

by FERENC IVANICSSo, after spending the night tumbling, sweating, coughing, choking and cursing, 'cause some sand flies are, of course, lucky enough to pass through every single defense lines; we moved on next morning. Dog tired and hungry, on a slim paved roadwhich sometimes just disappeared. And we had to take detours in the coconut groves, back with the mosquitoes. These paths were managed by locals who asked for a toll from car drivers to let them cross these stages (locals lay coconut fiber on the sand to make it possible).It took us three whole days to get to El Paraíso. Almost 50 miles   read more