Cancun Clipper Club - 6/8/06 - 11:52 pm

As Anthony Bourdain has said, “be a traveler, not a tourist.” The latter puts one in mind of a 1960’s dad, clad in tiny little shorts, sporting a huge camera and sun block on his bald spot, bellowing that everyone has to pile into the station wagon (sans A/C) because if they don’t get going right now they’ll miss seeing The World’s Largest Ball of Twine or some other piece of roadside kitsch on the way to WallyWorld.

Sitting there on the couch, toasting my television with whatever random poison I happened to be sipping on, I wholeheartedly agreed and joined my surly TV personality friend in heaping distain and pity upon those unenlightened fools who pony up to a counter and purchase tickets in order to see their vacation of choice from the window of a tour bus. So imagine my surprise whenever I found myself suggesting that we take an all-inclusive tour to natural aquarium and park Xel-Ha (pronounced SHELL-ha) and the Mayan ruins of Tulum. I blame the sun, cigarettes and tequila.

It seemed like a good idea; I challenge anyone to o to the Xel-Ha website and not come away thinking “free booze, snorkeling and site-seeing at the Tulum coastal ruins? What god did I please?” The advantages of taking a tour bus are that you can drink as much as you want without worry about driving, you don’t have to brave the slalom-like lane changes of Mexican traffic, and no worries about getting lost. Sure, there’s not much chance of anything surprising or interesting happening, but you’ve also got the safety factor. As a lone, rather unimpressive member of the male species traveling with 3 females, this was not an insignificant factor. Oh, and should your bus be modern enough to be outfitted with video equipment, you get the delight of watching quality films such as Sky High. Kurt Russell was a delight. (On a side note did Russell sign like a lifetime contract with Disney? Seriously, the dude has been doing their pictures since he was like 8 years old. . . .)

The disadvantages? Well, aside from the negative bragging rights about how you braved the great unknown and nonexistent possibility for getting off the beaten path, there’s the fact that you’re shackled to the tour’s schedule if you expect to avoid hitchhiking back, and you sort of feel like you have to do everything possible in order to get your money’s worth.

For example, we boarded our very comfortable, air-conditioned super bus at 8 a.m. for the 1 ½ hour ride to Xel-Ha. However, after road delays and time schedule instructions, we actually got into the park proper around 10:45. Not too bad, except that we had to be back on the bus at 2:50. Having 4 hours at this place is something akin to cruising past the Grand Canyon in a turbo-charged golf cart driven by a coked-up madman, just screaming and holding on for dear life as rocks and sky whizzes by at dizzying speeds. As you might imagine, it’s difficult to enjoy the sheer pleasure of the place with a clock ticking like some psychotic game show countdown.

Our main point of interest at Xel-Ha was the snorkeling which boasts such cool aspects as swimming into an aquatic cave and sticking yourself smack in the middle of a swarm of fish the size of motorcycles as people stand up on a bridge throwing food just to make sure the fish stay at peak frenzy.That was pretty cool. The snorkeling took at least two hours, not counting the wait in line for the gear and a valiant attempt by yours truly to make the proprietors sorry for the “alcohol included” portion of the admission price. The rest of the time was taken up with racing across the jungle portion of the park at a breakneck pace before toweling off and being herded back on the bus for Tulum.

Why I feel the need to not offend perfect strangers is beyond me, but after about 10 minutes of listening to the tour guide at Tulum say the same thing three different ways, none of which had anything to do with the actual history of the site, I was ready to detach myself and just go off wandering around. I wagered I could glean about as much information by consulting one of the local trees as this fellow was dishing out (why was he obsessed with describing the 2 seasons?) but I stuck in there for a full half hour, until I could tell he was winding down the “lesson” before I finally relented and went exploring with Hanni. For some reason, I guess I imagined our guide perhaps lying in bed at night, wide awake wondering “Why didn’t the short American with the unbuttoned shirt like my story?” Seriously, this is a sickness.

But the site was pretty damned amazing, even with the truncated archeology lesson. It’s not a big city, which is good considering our tour running down like a time clock in a game show, but it is the only Mayan city on a coastline, and just being around something that’s existed for some 800-1000 years from a mysteriously disappeared culture is pretty spectacular.

My recommendation? Take a sober friend and rent a car.