arrival at calakmul

So the last stage of the journey was a 3 hour trip from Tulum to Chetumal, followed by another 2 hour trip to Xpujil. Unfortunately the 3 hour trip morphed into an 8 hour trip due to an on going teacher's strike which includes road blocks of all major roads. The alternative route, through rural villages, was very interesting and I very much enjoyed 8 hours spent looking out the window watching the world go by. Slightly less enjoyable was when it started to pour down, and it turned out that the bus had a leaky roof. Consequentially I arrived in Chetumal after the last bus to Xpujil had left, closely resembling a drowned rat! The final leg of the journey, which I embarked upon the following day, was much less eventful. Xpujil is a long way from anywhere and it felt that way, as the road made its way along a progressively less populated and more tree-lined road. My first impressions of Xpujil were that it resembled the sort of frontier town that you would expect to see in a cowboy film set in the wild west. The main heart of the town is a long street that runs along the length of the main road. That is not to say the town doesn't have it's charms; the surrounding landscape is of course a plus, as is the very friendly and laidback atmosphere which the town abounds in.
I was met from the bus by the local project coordinator, Noe. The first place he took me too was a town called Zoh Laguna, a very interesting place about which I will talk a lot more about in forthcoming posts. After a very nice lunch where I discovered that people in Calakmul like their food almost as spicy as I do, we continued on to my new home: the small village (or Ejido as they are known here) of Valentin. My first impression was that the place has more chickens than people - which is lovely until they wake you up at 4 in the morning with their cockle doodle do-ing! Home for me here is a room in a community centre built by the Ejidos. It includes my own bathroom, which is a very welcome luxury I was not expecting! The place is painted in cheerful colours and has a lovely covered porch which contains possibly the most comfortable deck chair I've ever had the good luck to sit on.
So in synthesis - a very encouraging beginning to my time here!