A Taste of Mexico - Markets and Mayan Sites

This is a tour of archeological sites mixed with typical mexican dishes and exploration of Mexican Landscapes and sometimes even birdlife. We began in Mexico City - where I would recommend to arrive 1-2 days early Try to book tickets for night performance at Palacio de Bellas artes & if you like Frida Kahlo. Coyoacan itself was very turisty - too crowded (did not like that so much). We loved the new feature -the excellent Jamaica Market in Mexico City - which is an amazing food- flower - fruit market. Some of the rides between Mexico City- Puebla-Oaxaca- Chiapas- San Cristobal-Palenque-Campeche and Merida can be rather long - around 5-6 hours in a bumby buss, so although the pace is moderate be aware that you are driving long distances. We loved Puebla - an old colonial spanish city, Oaxaca - nice colorfull - the sumidiero canyon (amazing boat ride along grand canyon like landscape). Of course the archeological sites are great and impressive (I liked Palenque). The food is a majority of meat but you do get to sample a lot of different foods - fruit & fish included, some I liked and some were not to my taste (but all good quality). The cooking class was great. The good part is that all breakfast is included and some of the lunches or diners too. Don't expect much of the swimming pools - they are rather small. The last day we went to swim in a cenote - which was awesome - a sort of sinkhole. Our tourleader gave us detailed explanations about archeology - he has a university degree in this. The advantage of this tour is that you get to stay in some places for 2-3 nights so this makes the tour more relaxing than others. There are no beach opportunities, unless you go the last days to Cancun. I would definately recommend this tour as I think the combination of food - markets and archeology is more varied and offers a more interesting perspective than only the archeology.

Mexico exceeded all my expectations. The diversity of the people and culture held a surprise every day. The local people are so pleased to be welcoming tourists to the areas we visited. There was a strong police presence particularly on highway 99 in the Chiapas area but not threatening and indeed, in other areas, made us feel safe. The tour was very busy with early departures in order to be able to cover the itinerary. Nothing was too much trouble for our guide - Tacho, he was proud to tell us of his Mayan ancestry and history of Mexico. I would have liked to spend a night on the Chocolate farm in the highlands and Maybe, just one night in San Cristobel but other than that can’t see how you could cover the trip length without that long drive to Tuxtla (nearly 11 hours for us due to road blocks and minor bus problem).

I’m not a big ‘foodie’ but my partner is, so I was expecting to just tag along for the ride. However, I absolutely loved this trip. It had the perfect mix of relaxation, food tasting, adventure, independent exploration and educational visits. We visited a few weeks before Día de Muertos and each place was busy putting up decorations and preparing for the celebration. I’m glad we got to see these. As a wildlife lover, the speed boat trip through the Sumidero Canyon was a highlight for me. And we were pleased we opted to go on the Mount Alban trip as we had the whole site to ourselves for a while! Luis our guide, was friendly, funny and very knowledgeable. He went out of his way to make the trip memorable for each person and we were very well looked after. There were a couple of long drives, but our minibus had reclining seats, USB charging ports on seat backs and we stopped frequently for comfort breaks. The scenery along the way was incredible and the journeys flew by!