UnorthodoxY Archive It's wasn't what you thought

At the end of my last long holiday I ended up in Hong Kong, it was a brilliant three days. More by luck than judgement I’d found the perfect place to end a long trip.

Today should, hopefully, find me having the same great time just in a different city, Las Vegas. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to Vegas and I’ve wanted to return since the moment I left.

My plan for Vegas? Gambling, food, booze, maybe some shopping in some order or other. I also have a ticket for Penn and Teller at the Rio which should be fun but I’m mostly here to try and get in some decent sized poker tournaments and see if I can’t make some money.

And in two days, I start the long journey home, almost twenty-four hours of travelling, good excuse to stay up all night …

So today finds me in Piste mainly because it’s one of the closest places to Chichen Itza.

Some of the descriptions of Chichen Itza describe “busloads of tourists” visiting there each day so I’m not sure what the place will be like. But it’s considered one of the seven new wonders of the world (although that whole site is a bit dubious) and it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site so I thought it would be silly not to go see it when I’m in the area.

I’ve never considered myself to be a ‘sit on the beach holiday’ person but, in truth, I’ve never tried it.

So today is my chance as it should, all being well, find me on the Caribbean island of Caye Caulker in Belize. Hopefully I’m going to sit on the beach, with a book and drink something suitably tropical. Of course it might decide to rain all the time I’m here, in which case I’ll just have to find a bar to sit in instead. And considering it’s possible to walk round the island in an hour or two I should be able to thoroughly explore and still spend most of the day relaxing.

I might even overcome my general dislike of water and go snorkeling.

Ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to visit rainforests, jungles, ancient buildings covered with green, exotic noises all that business.

This should be my first taste of it, I’m in Chiapas near Palenque, it’s not the Amazon but does look like it’ll have some of what I want. I did a bit of searching and just look at what I can expect, this:

or this

(from magnusvk‘s flickr Mexico Set.).

’nuff said.

We’ll see if my pictures compare when I get back.

Only a few minutes to spare but time for a quick update. The wedding was excellent, everyone had a great time and I enjoyed myself throughly. Hopefully more about that when I get back or when I have more time.

And so now I’ve joined my tour group, already it’s clear that this will be no VodkaTrain. Things started with breakfast at 7AM (which I skipped in my Tequila induced slumber). It may all be a bit more organised and respectable than I’m used to.

It seems a nice enough group, only one American — I expected more, but it does skew towards the older end of the spectrum. There are a handful of younger poeple, but just a handful so it may be everyone early to bed and early to rise. I’m told that that’s what the VodkaTrainers thought I’d be like at first, so we will have to see. I wanted to post this now so that I can be proved wrong or right later, I intend to enjoy myself anyway, even if I get frowned upon.

There are a fair few solo travellers, all older, comparing which tours they’d been on and which coutries they’d visited. I can’t decide it that’s a bad thing or not …

At the moment it kinda puts me off doing more of these tours because it makes me wonder if that’s what I’ll be like if I do. Just early musings, we’ll see how it goes, journey of discovery, etc, etc.

Normally I preface these posts with words to the effect of “everything going well I should be in …” but this time I can say that barring complete disaster I’ll be in Mexico City. Why? Because this trip has been arranged around Mexico City so that I can attend a wedding on the 3rd and I’ve allowed a fair amount of wiggle room if something goes wrong.

The wedding should be … interesting … considering I speak very little Spanish and I’m not sure who else is making the journey from the UK. But I was invited, and I was very flattered to be invited, so I’m going. By the now the wedding will be over, hopefully I’ll have recovered and I’ll have joined a tour of Mexico and nearby countries with will take up the next few weeks.

Aside from that I’m not planning the rest of my free time in Mexico City in advance, I’ve got a guidebook and I’m sure I’ll find something to fill me time with.