Holbox

We're back on the road again! After a long flight and a brief stopover in Cancun, we headed straight to our first destination, Holbox (pronounced hol-bosh) – as island off the northern coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Holbox, the so-called ‘magical isle’ is an up-and-coming destination. Its streets are made of compacted sand, the buildings are brightly painted with colourful murals on the walls and the main form of transport is golf cart or bicycle.

Brightly coloured buildings against a blue sky

One of the many wall murals in Holbox

A colourful pink cafe

The town sits on the northern edge of the narrow island, a white sand beach stretches most of the way along the northern coast and much of the rest of the island is jungle (we’ve already got too many mosquito bites to count!) 

Once known mainly as a haven for bird-watchers, Holbox is home to many large seabirds including pelicans and flamingos (though sadly we didn’t see any of the latter). 
Whale sharks are also spotted in the seas here – but we didn’t see any of those either! Instead we’ve mainly been relaxing into the first few days of our trip and enjoying the warm weather again (one cold month in London is enough to make us forget what summer feels like!)

Watch tower on the beach

Kev takes a dip in the Gulf of Mexico

We had a bit of a nightmare accommodation situation on arrival – a case of a badly managed (read: neglected) Airbnb house that had recently been trashed by a group of American ‘Spring Break-ers’. Basically, the whole house was left in a total state and not attended to by the cleaner. To make matters worse the power wasn’t working correctly, so no air conditioning, a fan which barely stirred the air and no working plug sockets. The final straw was popping out for breakfast and getting locked out of our room – where all our bags were.

We soon realised we needed to get us and our stuff out of there as soon as possible, but this was easier said than done as there was no management to be seen and none of the phone numbers we had for them worked! 

So, Kev channelled his inner Tintin/Columbo and managed to track down the owner by visiting a beauty salon who’s business card he found in the apartment. It turns out the salon was run by the owner’s sister, who directed Kev to the bar the owner hangs out at. The barman called the owner and arranged for him to meet us back at the house in five minutes. There’s thinking outside of the box for you!

The owner was really apologetic and quickly offered us a full refund – then announced that running an Airbnb was too stressful and that he was just going to sell the house instead!

Fortunately, we were able to find another (much cleaner!) place to stay without any problem and enjoy the rest of our time on the island. The only slight downside being the live music in the bar across the road until 3am every night! However, it was at least good Cuban/Latin style music, so there are worse things to fall asleep to (or be kept awake by!)

So far we’ve spent most of our time hanging out at the beach and enjoying the yummy Mexican food – tacos, burros (like burritos, but bigger), guacamole, fajitas and ceviche – we certainly won’t be going hungry!

Enjoying some enormous sundowners!

Tomorrow we’re heading to our next stop, Merida, the Yucatan capital – known for its art, music, museums and Mayan culture. I’ll write again from there…