We’re sad to leave our jungle cabin, with the marvelous bird songs, flowers, agouti’s, and crickets. There was some heavy rain last night and Tim tries to capture the dark clouds with his drone, before we pack our bags.
Our first stop is the next door supermarket, as we expect to be in a food dessert the coming days. We’re in a hotel without cooking gear. We buy apples, avocado’s, bananas, yoghurt and bread. And ok, also a bag of jalapeno chips.
Then we start our 4 hour trip to Balamku, a small Maya site on the way to Calakmul, one of the biggest sites that we will visit tomorrow.
As usual, there are many police controle posts on the way. After an hour drive we are stopped by a national police man quite late, we already passed the post. He points at Olga’s seat belt, that is below her right arm instead of over her shoulder. 2000 pesos. He asks for Tims drivers licence and Olga looses her calm. She throws the cash angerly to Tim, pissed because this is so unfair.
Tim asks for a ticket. The police man says it’s only 1000 if we pay now. Tim keeps calm and asks again for a ticket. The man threatens that we have to wait until Monday to get a ticket. And that he will keep Tim’s licence in the meantime. Tim agrees, and asks again for a ticket. Olga is still frustrated and her raised voice is noticed by the police man. The police man threatens to increase the fine to 5000 pesos.
Tim again asks for a ticket. At their request, we show the papers of the car and the rental contract. Tim continues to ask for a ticket. The man says we have to go to the police department with him to write the ticket. Tim agrees. It seems we called his final bluff and we get all the papers and licenses back and can continue our drive without paying anything.
After the incident, it’s a nice flat road without many speed bumps or road blocks and the drive goes smooth.
The highlight of Balamku is the inside of a pyramide that we can enter. The sculptures are in a really good shape, we can see the colour variations of the paintings on detailed stoneworks. There are more pyramides, we can even climb them, but we don’t feel in the mood and after a stroll we go back to our car and drive for a final hour to our hotel.
We arrive at 1430 at our « hotel », a kind of a park, with small cottages close to each other and a swimming pool. We take a dive and relax at the pool side on lounge chairs under parasols. After an hour we get back into our car and drive to a bat cave, famous for 3 million bats that are leaving the cave at sunset.
We arrive at 17:15, the time we’re usually going inside to avoid the musquitos. The parking is full with cars and guides to assist us to the bat cave. We have to wait 20 minutes before the tour starts and we see all other visitors putting on mouth masks and hats. We still find 3 hats in the car, but we did not bring any masks.
Anna is our guide and it’s a short walk to the forest to get to the cave. First, we see the branges of the trees moving. and then we see three monkeys jumping around from tree to tree, shaking the branches and making the leaves fall like rain drops.
When we arrive at the huge, huge cave, and we stand on the edge, behind a simple rope to avoid us from falling down. Not Zeno-proof at all. It’s mostly Olga, but one time also another tourist that catches him before he runs behind the rope. Tim also sees a taruntala spider behind the rope. Another reason to keep the kids close to us. No problem for Cleo, but Zeno ruins the video footage of the other tourist by shouting that he wants to go home.
Anna is the first one to spot the Tucan. We forget about the bats straight away and stare at the sky. Many birds fly screaming above us, waiting for a nice bat meal. And then we also see the tucan flying over. And another one! You notice them straight away with their huge beak.
When the sun is set, the first bats fly from the cave. More follow, and more and more, until it’s a true whirlwind of bats coming from the cave. We hear the wings of the millions of bats clapping. They fly into the sky as streams of water following different routes, staying under the trees as much as possible.
After 20 minutes, the children are done with it and we decide to leave the bats and walk back to the car. What a special experience!
We ride back with the full moon as our street light. “Moddermaan” according to Zeno. (And: “why does the moon not have wings?”). We eat at the restaurant opposite our cabin and go to bed as we will have to leave at 6:30 already tomorrow…