A Place for Fish

 2/20 - Getting to Isla Holbox (Hole - bosch)

Getting to and from Holbox is not the easiest place to get to, not that its hard, it just requires at least 3 types of transportation - unless you get a puddle jumper plane of some sort. So, given that it would be a long travel day, and I was hoping to be there for dinner, we headed out early for JFK on a cold rainy morning. The flight was relatively painless, even getting a nap along the way and we landed around 11 AM on an 80 degree, sunny day in Cancun. 

The bus I had booked was meant to leave for the ferry port in Chiquila at 1, and since we were through customs so quickly I was hoping we could trade for an earlier bus. [Side note: At the Cancun airport, near the exit doors, there are a lot of people asking to help you - I assumed they were scammers like you’d see at JFK offering sketchy taxis, but they are actually from the tourism board and they do want to actually help you…] 

We headed over to the ADO bus ticket office and I asked if there was anything earlier and she asked to see my ticket and then proceeded to tell me that you can’t get where I want to go directly from the airport, and that the ticket I had was from the Cancun central bus depot. But she could give us tickets to get there and we’d make it in time for the regularly scheduled bus. When I planned my trip, I didn’t really understand how it worked but I wanted the lowest cost option. At some point I’ll learn not to be so cheap, makes things pointlessly complicated. As it turned out, the bus took quite a while to get to the central station and we made it there just in time to board the bus I had already booked, so I guess that’s a win? Sam and Ava had wandered off to get food, only getting back with just a few minutes to board - it’s noteworthy if only because it was the first episode of a theme for the trip, Sam running to a mode of transit with food she just bought in hand. 

It was a 2 hour, relatively comfortable bus ride; although there was a bit of fun when a small town had closed the main road for a religious festival dance/parade of some sort, making this full size bus pull off some rather impressive maneuvering. Overall, I didn’t remember it being this long of a trip before, but it had been direct and in a van, so maybe more a matter of fatigue and perception. It was also during this trip that I wanted to check on the bus back that I had booked - was that going to the central terminal or to the airport? I swore it was to the airport… I checked what I had booked, yep, good, its going to the airport. But wait, why don’t I see the confirmed ticket? Oh, huh, in the junk mail is a notice that this bus has been canceled and my tickets would be refunded. Nice. Probably should have paid more attention to that.

We arrived at bus parking lot and walked to the ferry port. It was wonderfully sunny and hot. We bought ferry tickets (the 9 Hermanos ferry, great name versus their competitor, Holbox Express - bit too on the nose for my tastes) and waited a bit. A last minute decision here would have Sam running with Ava to get onto the ferry holding a mango on stick she bought from a lady with a cart.

We finally arrived at Isla Holbox. Holbox is a wonderful little island in the Gulf of Mexico. Calm waters, no cars - though plenty of side-by-side atvs, and great weather. Unfortunately, while I thought I had booked a hotel, it turns out I had booked an airbnb. I really, really need to pay more attention to these things, ha. In the end, it wouldn’t matter, as it was the best price overall for what we got - and the location ended up being fantastic. I had figured out that it wasn’t a hotel  on the ferry over (the bus didn’t have internet) and realized that the proprietor had been trying to contact me since we’d need to sort out how to get in since there wouldn’t be a front deck. I’ll spare the details, but we eventually figured out how to get there and get in to the Yum Balam condo building. Addresses were more or less pointless, taxi drivers (taxi yellow side-by-side ATVs) just asked for the name of the place you were going, so it was important to remember. 

After settling in, evening was approaching so we called a taxi and went to the town center picked up some groceries and headed to the beach to find a restaurant. The place we found was great and had a giant, instagrammable swing to which Ava made a b-line. We got a few tacos and cervezas, watched tide come in, and listened to the mariachi band that had wandered in. Quite a good way to end the day.

——-
2/21 - Beach Empanadas

We slept in a bit to recover from yesterday’s travels and to prepare for what we knew would be a late night. But we did eventually rise and decided to walk to the town center to get breakfast. All of the roads are basically dirt trails with giant holes randomly strewn about that are all well trafficked by atvs, bicycles, and walkers. With Ava, it was about a 30 minute walk in, not too bad, but long enough that we’d often take a taxi. 

We found a neat little cafe for breakfast that was tucked away in an open air courtyard behind a building. Food was actually very, very good - and healthy, which is nice for recovery. Sam had some amazing chiliquiles - basically breakfast nachos, which would become my favorite option on this trip. 

We headed out to the main beach area of Holbox. The water and beaches in Holbox are amazing. I had been here 7 years earlier with a buddy and more than anything else, this was my takeaway. The water is clear, it has beautiful, varying shades of blue scattered about, it’s very calm, and you can walk out 100 yards and the water will just be starting to get deep. Just off Playa Mosquito is a long sandbar right at the water level that allows you to walk out ½ mile into the bay while watching rays swim by and the occasional crab scurry past.

We set up on a mini-sandbar in a pretty central spot that was sparsely populated. Overall, it wasn’t a very crowded beach, though obviously a much more popular tourist destination than it had been 7 years ago. Within seconds of setting up, Ava was running towards the water and Sam would follow shortly. I held court and built sandcastles. While just chilling on the beach, a woman with a basket came by and asked if we wanted empanadas. Seeing no other reasonable possible option, got one for me and one for Ava (Sam opted out, who knows why). They looked fine, and I didn’t have the highest expectation, but I have to say, I think this was the best empanada I’ve ever had. It was fantastic. Beach empanadas - don’t pass them up.

We had a great day at the beach and decided on an early dinner since we had an evening kayak planned. For some reason we ended up at a sushi restaurant. Ava’s choice. I wasn’t involved, as I was on a side quest to get some pesos. It’s odd. For some reason its a real pain to get pesos. There are a bunch of ATMs to offer american dollars - which realistically you can use anywhere, but if you want to get pesos, the only place we could find was at the ATM of the one bank that was quite the walk away. And even then, it was a 15 minute wait in line to actually get it. Very odd.

Later that evening, back at Yum Balam, we jumped into an taxi to head to our stargazing, bioluminescent kayaking tour. We stopped by another hotel to pick up a couple more, but they were no shows, so off we went to Playa Mosquito to get our Kayaks. Diego was our driver, born in Austin, but had come back to Holbox when he was young and has been here ever since. It must have been interesting seeing the changes here. 

When we arrived at Playa Mosquito, we met Omar and Gustavo, our guides for the night. Gustavo was the old pro, but Omar was learning and fluent in English. We got in our kayaks, Ava with me and Sam with Omar, and headed out. We paddled quite a ways to get near the end of the long sandbar.

I’ve always wanted to see bioluminescent waters. I’ve had the opportunity before in both Thailand and Puerto Rico, but never capitalized on it. For it to really work, the conditions matter a lot. We had just a sliver of a moon when we started, and that had a pretty big impact early on. However, as the night went on, the moon set, the stars became bright, at the water started to twinkle. It was really very cool. Stomping on seaweed that would light up and when back in the kayak, waving your hand in the water and seeing a trail of light following it, bringing a big squeal of happiness from Ava (and myself really). We also had Gustavo use a laser pointer to call out various stars, planets, and constellations. He also found a horseshoe crab that was none to happy to be picked up for examination. When Omar asked is she liked it, her response was, “it’s interesting but terrifying”. 

At the end of the tour, the tour taxi didn’t bring us back to the hotel - many of the tours were happy to pick you up, but less happy about the drop-off - but instead brought us to the town center. The town center was bumping with it being Fat Tuesday. It was definitely the family version of it, however, as it featured kids dancing and street venders selling very delicious food. I had a giant quesadilla that was absolutely what I needed. We called it a night and crashed quickly.

——

2/22 - Beach Bums 

Sleeping in again, the plan for the day was to stay closer to Yum Balam and visit the beach of Punto Coco (basically the opposite side of Playa Mosquito). We walked a few minutes over and walked to the end of the point, which was a mini peninsula with the gulf on one side and a small bay on the other side. It was a windy day so we set up on the bay side. Sam and Ava had just stepped into the water and were messing around a bit a few feet into the water when a woman passing by began talking to us and said that we really shouldn’t be swimming on this side. She said it was, “un poco peligroso porque estan los cocodrilos.” Huh, crocodiles. Well, that seemed like a good reason to move to a new location.

We relocated to Holbox Magico and rented a beach bed setup and started the day off with a couple of cervezas. Punto Coco is really very picturesque. During certain seasons we would have seen hordes of flamingos as well - but not now. It was also a particularly windy day, which didn’t really cause problems, but was a bit annoying. 

At the end of our rental slot, we decided to walk back to Yum Balam - but this time we went along the beach, which might have actually been a quicker way to go. Right near our apartment we found an empty slice of beach with near empty waters. This was the place to be. We spent the rest of the day there, even getting to see a ray swim by.

On our taxi ride the night before with Diego, he mentioned one thing that was unique to Holbox was a specific type of Pizza - pizza langosta, lobster pizza. Apparently, in the 80s an Italian man moved to the island and opened a pizzeria. It was a small, very local place back then and everyone knew everyone. Some of the local fisherman would end up with extra lobster tails, being the less desirable part (I guess?), and so they offered them to the Italian. He, in turn, created a unique pizza based on lobster. The place we ate at this eve called it Pizza Holboxiana. It was actually very good, interesting, but good. I’m not sure I’d want it a lot, but it was worth eating.

After dinner we wandered onto the beach to catch a rather spectacular sunset and then off to bed, as we had an early morning ahead.

—-

2/23 - Mangroves

We woke up at 5am for a 5:45 pickup time - still in the dark. We were off to a morning kayak through the mangroves. Without really trying - using separate booking websites - we ended up using the same company as the night kayak. Even better, when we arrived at Playa Mosquito we saw that our guides would be Omar and Gustavo again. However, this time we would not have a private tour - two 50 year old Swedish couples and a Mexican woman named Carla would be with us for this one.

Once again, Ava and I were partnered up, but this time Sam would paddle with Carla. Sam and Carla as a partnership were an absolute, though hilarious, disaster. Sam was the front paddler, so it wasn’t really her doing, but they went from point A to point B like drunken sailors until eventually they were split up, with Oman joining Sam again and Gustavo partnering with Carla. 

We entered the mangrove as dawn was breaking. Might be the first time I watched the sunset followed by the next days sunrise. We slowed our paddling and went into stealth mode, which let us see jumping fish, birds all over, and just great views of how cool mangroves are. Plus, we crossed paths with a baby crocodile. Gustavo mentioned that deeper into the mangroves - where tours aren’t allowed to go - there were maybe hundreds of giant ones swimming around. Sam learned about the pelicans all around, the bigger white ones are the Canadians ones, and the brown ones are the Mexican ones (Omar - “Hey, I’m not being racist, its just that way!”). 

After 3 hours of kayaking, we were back at Playa Mosquito, we found a breakfast place (Mosquito Bar) that had a rickety second floor with tables overlooking the beach. An ideal spot for a meal. We made our way back to the town center by wading in the water all the way back - a long, chill walk in beautiful water.

We did a bit of souvenir shopping and then went to grab lunch. Sam had pointed out the lucha bar on one of the first days and now seemed like the time to go. We sat on swing overlooking the town center park eating ceviche and tacos. 

After that, it was back to the beach, but we decided to go back to the beach near Yum Balam again. Once again, it was a near private beach. Swimming, shell collecting, and splash wars ensued. We ended the day and caught the sunset before a dinner of tacos and tostadas. We headed home under the stars. And Sam and I passed the night with beers on the balcony.

—-
2/24 - A Three Island Tour, A Three Island Tour

For our last day we decided to do a more typical tourist type thing and went on the 3 island tour where you get on a boat that they buzz around and see some different places. About 15 of us piled into a boat and headed off to Bird Island first. It was by far the least impressive, though it was an interesting concept. To not impact the actual island itself, they built an observation deck alongside it where you can go and look at the birds. It was neat. 

After bird island we went to a nature preserve island. After disembarking at the dock, we saw one of the other boat captains cleaning fish and throwing the left over parts to a giant croc hanging out nearby. Lots of crocs here. The big attraction on this island is a freshwater pool in the middle of internal mangroves of sorts. We all jumped in for a bit, though I got bored quick and went up the observation tower that overlooked the pool as well as getting above the tree line to let you see the rest of the island as well - it was actually quite large. We grabbed some snacks here and hung out in some hammocks until the boat was ready to leave.

The last stop was a sandbar/island off of Punto Coco - this is the place often filled with hundreds of flamingos in the summer. Now it was a bit calmer, but still full of nice views. We ended the tour and grabbed lunch on the beach - I was still dreaming of those empanadas from the first day and was really hoping to stumble onto them (or a restaurant that had them), but alas, no dice.

We were back at Yum Balam in the early afternoon and went back to our private beach for the rest of the afternoon. Really quite idyllic. I kept up my shell collecting and managed to find a fairly large conch shell out in the water buried in the sand. When I pulled it up I went to show it to Sam who asked if it was still alive. I said no, as it had the telltale hole in it, but when I turned it over to double confirm, I saw a few legs poking out. Apparently the conch was gone, but a rather large hermit crab had taken up residence.

We got ready for dinner and came back out to the beach for another sunset by Yum Balam. Another spectacular one. The best part was as we were watching, a young lady near the end of her day was walking past, with a basket, with empanadas in the basket… We each got one (Sam couldn’t pass it up this time after my raving). They were delicious. 

Given that luck was on our side, we decided to try going to the restaurant that had been closed for the two previous nights. It was an outdoor place with a kitchen in a camper trailer parked on the lot. It was open. A great place for a last dinner in Holbox.

—-

2/25 - Homeward

We left in the morning, a taxi to the ferry. Ava was heartbroken to get on the ferry. I think she’d have happily moved there forever. We made it to Chiquila without issue and went to find our ride. After having our bus canceled, I took my own advice and made the ride back simple, getting a van to go straight to the airport. It was an easy though long travel day - taxi, ferry, van, flight to Charlotte, customs there, back to JFK where the cold and rain hit us the moment we walked outside to get a ride home. Long day, but without incident. Usually I’m happy to be home, and to some extent I was - but I wouldn’t have minded a few more days in the sun.