An icey river dip and a boiling Carribean island; Sarah & James’ Travel Blog

We left you in Cusco as I was recovering from my illness and overnight stay in hospital. Thanks to the doctor I was out and on the road to recovery very quickly, although not back to normal for a while.

We had planned an further 5 nights in Cusco as we had intended to chill out after doing the Inca Trail. As I was feeling a lot better we decided that we should make the most of our time and do something active. We had wanted to go white water rafting while we were in New Zealand but both time and money prevented it. We had read on TripAdvisor that white water rafting was a good thing to do while in the area of Cusco, so we booked onto a trip with PeruRafting. I was really excited about this as I have only rafted once before and really enjoyed it, but we were both a little apprehensive about safety standards. As soon as we got to the river and got kitted up these fears were quickly allayed. The safety briefing was extensive and detailed and all the equipment was new. The Urubamba River flows from a glacier higher in the mountains and so the river was rather chilly despite the sunny day. We were told that this was a category 3 / 4 river and I can say that it was really exhilarating and we had to work hard under the instruction of the guide to navigate the various rapids. Thankfully we had a bit of a breather half way down the river where we could leap from high rocks into the icy cold water. When we finally made it back to the camp at the end of the run we were able to warm up in a sauna and were treated to a freshly cooked meal of chicken roasted in a wood fired oven. We were both absolutely shattered by the time we returned to our hotel in Cusco.

The next day we had to say goodbye to Hotel Ninos, a charity which uses all the profits from their 3 hotels to fund the children’s charity helping kids in Peru. We boarded the airplane to head back down to sea level to Lima where we would spend the night before again flying to Cancun Mexico. We were wondering if we would have any reverse effects to going back down to sea level, and the oxygen rich air. In all honesty I was looking forward to it, as although we were adjusted to the altitude it was still rather draining.

The next morning we got to the check in desk and presented our passports for our flight to Mexico. We thought it was a little odd when the desk attendant asked us to confirm where we were travelling to, with a slightly worried look on his face. After nearly 5 minutes tapping on his computer I had to ask if there was a problem, as there was far more key tapping going than normal. Disconcertingly the response to my query was a smile and a nod, not what I was looking for! This set the tone for the next hour. We waited another frustrating 5-10 minutes before the chap told us in very broken English that the flight was full. Full?! How can a flight that we had booked about 10 months in advance be full, and they not have seats for us? But we were not so reassured by the “Don’t worry we’ll find you a seat”. How do you find a seat on a full plane, you can’t exactly borrow one from another plane? So followed another 10 minutes of key tapping, but apparently computer was saying no. After about an hour of being passed from one desk to another, and receiving no explanation of the situation, we were eventually given boarding passes at opposite ends of the plane; no seats together apparently. This was approximately 15 minutes before the flight was due to take off, and we still had to clear customs, go through security and pay an exorbitant departure tax. We were convinced we were going to be late! After rushing through all of these formalities uttering countless obscenities under my breath Hugh Grant style, we eventually reached the gate about 2 minutes before the flight was due to take off. There was no-one waiting at the gate so assuming that everyone had boarded we rushed to the desk and thrust our boarding cards at the attendant, only to be told that the plane hadn’t even arrived yet, and they would be boarding in about 30 minutes!! Wouldn’t it have been nice to be told this at the check in desk! To make things worse, when we got on the plane there were two empty seats near me, what was all the fuss about!

So we eventually made it to Cancun and caught the ferry for the short trip across to Isla Mujeres. Our farcical day continued when we arrived at our hotel, a mere stumble from the ferry port. We arrived in the lobby to a desk clerk with an expression very similar to that of the airport check in attendant. Of course they had no record of our booking. We were a little concerned as they also did not seem to have a booking for our friend Jon Guest who was flying out the next day to spend a week with us. Again we were told that they were full. After 10 minutes in the back office the manager appeared, however it seemed that all was sorted and they had found our booking, crisis averted. We were so glad to get into the air-conditioned room! After the incredibly dry atmosphere of the altitude in Cusco, the humidity of Cancun was almost unbearable.

The next day we awoke to rain but it was light enough that we set out to explore the area around the hotel before Jon arrived. Isla Mujeres is a small island about a mile off Cancun, which is only about 100 meters wide and 2 miles long. Guesty arrived on the ferry in the afternoon and brought the sun with him which was great. But like the true Brits we are as soon as it got hot we moaned that it was too hot. However I think we had some justification as when we checked the weather online it was recorded as 38 degrees, but it said feels like 46 due to the humidity! Which to be honest was a little too hot to be out in in the peak of the day. There was a fantastic sunset that evening though.

Jon and I were due to go diving, Jon enrolled to do the PADI Openwater qualification, while I wanted to put the skills I had learned in Thailand to the test and dive with him. We met with the English dive instructor Ed from Aqua Adventures, and Jon went off to do the shallow water training. Sarah and I headed to the beach to take advantage of the weather. Later that afternoon I joined Jon on his two dives of the day. On the second dive we were lucky enough to see a Nurse Shark, which thankfully was very docile and just happily hiding in a hole in the reef, but quite clearly visible. As soon as we broke the surface after the dive Ed the instructor whaled at the top of his voice “Shark!”. This had me reeling and searching the surface of the water for a telltale dorsal fin, but it soon became clear from his fist pumping, and singing ‘how much is that sharky in the window, shark, shark’, that he was merely pleased to have seen a shark. It turned out that after 250 dives this was his first shark. It was Jon’s 2nd dive and my 6th, so we thought ourselves quite lucky. The next day Jon completed the qualification and I joined him for his last two dives. That evening we went out and celebrated out shark encounter, and how do you celebrate on Isla Mujeres? With Corona and Cuban cigars of course! We we are only a short boat trip from Cuba!

The following day we decided that we would continue the watersports theme and so we hired a windsurf, and tried our hand at it in the expanse of the shallow waters off Playa Norte on the north side of the island. I think that all those on the beach got as much entertainment from this as we did trying to do it! About the only time I managed to get it going was just before we had to give it back, except I could only seem to sail it away from shore, and in a very short time I was a very long way out. Which meant a tiring swim back pulling the board and sail, I just couldn’t seem to get it to go in the other direction! Guesty was much much better at it than me, and Sarah had a brief outing too!

The following day unfortunately Guesty succumbed to the dreaded travellers illness, but we enjoyed the sun the best we could for the next couple of days. Guesty left on Saturday and unfortunately he seems to have taken the weather back with him as we have had thunderstorms and rain since, and now it is lovely in the UK! We have been keeping occupied watching all the coverage of Wimbledon that ESPN can provide, although we have had regular interruptions for power cuts caused by the storms. Today we took the opportunity of a short break in the rain to head out for lunch, which became quite eventful as we had to wade through water up to our knees in the main street.

We head up to the States on Friday and are officially on the final leg of the journey, and are looking forward to seeing Stuart, and Sarah’s parents in Seattle.

I wonder how many blogs we are going to fit in from here, we will probably be on the east coast for the next one.