Playa El Cocal

After the remains of some coco pops and a banana, we hired a golf cart (550P) and set off to explore the island. I had wanted to hire a golf cart for a while now but Utila was too small to make it worthwhile and Holbox was too puddly. At 7km long with proper roads, Mujeres is perfect. The lady said that Anna could drive even though she doesn't have a licence which is slightly scary as the roads are quite busy with taxis and mopeds overtaking the slow golf carts all the time. After a close encounter at a roundabout, the driving was left to me.

First we visited Punta Sur, the southernmost tip of the island which has a tiny Mayan ruin surrounded by some bizarre rusting sculptures. The ruin is barely worth visiting, but the view is stunning, the sea is a magnificent colour, and the 30P fee gives you access to walk below the cliffs along a walkway that gets pounded by the surf.

Then we drove north up the West side of the island, looking at the sea views and numerous lovely houses. We had a look around the cemetery for a pirate's grave but couldn't find it - they have a lovely view of the sea though! Since the cemetery is on a slope and our cart doesn't seem to have a handbrake I had to guard the cart. Then we found the Shell house, a beautifully designed white house in the shape of a shell. After stopping by the roadside to buy a conch (30P), which Anna assures me is a byproduct and legal to bring back, we went in search of the Crayola house - a funky rainbow coloured place. With no map and only a few vague screenshots of where it is, this took a little while but we were successful.

After stopping for iced tea and cheetos, we went to the turtle farm (30P) where they remove the eggs from the beaches to protect them and hatch them and then transfer them back to the sea when they are bigger. This all sounds great but there were several small tanks with large animals in which looked plenty big enough to fend for themselves and we got the impression they are kept for tourism purposes. There are also some aquarium tanks and an open tank where a guy kept lifting out various animals for people to hold, which I wasn't keen on. Outside there was a big pen in the sea and we saw a few nurse sharks, some rays and a dozen or so big turtles, all swimming back and forth along the barrier as if they wanted to escape :(

We got back in our cart and it wouldn't start. It had been making strange noises the last 5 minutes drive to the turtle farm but now it wouldn't move at all. A nice lady phoned the rental company and they promptly delivered us a new one within quarter of an hour but it was time to head back. Sadly we didn't find the bottle island - a self sufficient house floating on the lake made of recycled stuff.

We had dinner at Jardin Mayan, a slightly more expensive place than usual but it ended up being one of our cheaper meals due to my poor ordering (200P). I ordered pork pibil, probably the most famous Mayan dish, for both of us - I meant 2 portions but only one came out. Anna was initially disgruntled at the potential lack of food but we barely managed it after the free nachos starter. There was tons of pork, beautifully presented on a banana leaf, with pink pickled onions, beans and rice plus a spicy sauce and far too many tacos. Anna finally found her modelo negra beer and I had a Mayan drink: lemonade with chaya, which is like spinach. Delicious meal!Read more