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Bats were everywhere. I heard and felt their wings flapping around me, breathed in the stench of guano rising from the sinkhole where hundreds of thousands of them lived.
But here's the thing: I could barely see them.
It was pitch black as my fiancee Megan and I stood in the Yucatan Peninsula jungle with no flashlight, no guide. We'd come to see the bats, but sure enough it got dark and now we couldn't. That made things a bit freaky.
Our car was parked on Highway 186, and we were a half-mile away from it, down a faint foot path we'd been told was filled with snakes. And the bats were all around. We half-jogged back the way we'd come. Bats, still. I dodged twisted tree roots that looked way too much like serpents. More bats.
And then we were back on the road, enclosing ourselves in the rental car-slash-bat shield. Time to breathe.
My close encounter with thousands of nocturnal mammals was a few hours' drive away from the sun-and-cerveza resorts of Cancun and the Riviera Maya. Unfortunately, it's a drive that few who visit the area ever make.
There are certainly reasons to stay in the resorts or on tour buses instead of striking out on your own: potholed roads, corrupt policia, the language barrier. The rewards, though, easily outweigh such risks.
On our 10-day counter-clockwise tour of the Yucatan, we found ourselves alone on glorious, recently discovered ruins, wandered wide-eyed through bloody butcher shops, dodged traffic along narrow pastel alleys in a seaside city. And yes, we fled bats in the dark.
Though Cancun's beautiful white beaches are now fully restored after being torn up by Hurricane Wilma last fall, you might find a trip through the inland region an even more invigorating vacation than lolling on the beach all day.
We did, at least. Here's how, broken down by the places we stayed:
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CHICHEN ITZA
After arriving in Cancun and attending a wedding at an all-inclusive resort south of the city, we took a toll road (pricey, at more than $20) west to the home of the Yucatan's most-recognized site. Influences from both Mayan and Toltec cultures can be found in its elegant pyramid and massive ball field. Take a tour early in the morning to avoid crowds. The top affordable restaurant in town is Mestizas, where the waiter kindly and painstakingly explains each dish, from pollo pibil (about $7) to sopa de lima (about $5). We cut him off when he earnestly began telling us what tortillas are. He was too kind.
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MERIDA
Farther to to the west is the Yucatan's cultural center. We joined several hundred locals on the main square at dusk for a traditional dance performance, which included what I'll call posture-focused dancing: girls and guys try to keep a rhythm while balancing trays of drinks on their heads. The most unexpectedly tasty food of the trip was here. First, a street vendor sprinkled my popcorn (palomitas) with chili sauce. Then, a young boy prepared what they call marquesitas by freshly pressing waffle cone batter then rolling it tightly around shredded cheese. Delicious! The modern art museum is worth a short visit, and we picked up several fairly-priced souvenirs at the state-run shop off the main square.
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CAMPECHE
Southwest of Merida we wandered to a butcher shop where I saw a severed, skinned cow's head for the first time in my life. Tasty. And farther along was the most glorious of the ruins, Uxmal. Dozens of iguanas guard a sprawling range of buildings, and we tempted vertigo by climbing the steep steps of this site's Great Pyramid for a gorgeous view. Farther to the southwest, we wandered past pastel-colored homes in the walled seaside city of Campeche. Splurge if you can at the luxurious Hacienda Puerta Campeche hotel, which features a classy version of those Lazy River pools, with the water running between several rooms.
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CALAKMUL
A long drive south and then east into the least-developed part of the peninsula brought us to Calakmul, ruins set deep into a 1.8 million-acre preserve that's home to jaguars, howler and spider monkeys and tons of birds. We were among a total of about seven tourists on the day we visited the remote site, which features one of the largest pyramids in the Mayan world (I had to climb that one). The bat cave was nearby, as are several other Mayan sites.
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TULUM
From Calakmul, we drove back east on Highway 186 to Chetumal, where a dinner of make-your-own tacos was made memorable by greasy chorizo and yummy melted cheese. From there, a drive north in the dark brought us to Tulum, where our on-the-beach cabanas featured no electricity and lots of mosquitos. A full-day eco-tour here was highlighted by swimming in a cenote, a limestone sinkhole filled with fresh water. It's both exhilarating and bizarre to be floating in the dark in a cave; if you do nothing else in the Yucatan, swim or dive in a cenote.
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ISLA MUJERES
For your beach-going fix, skip Cancun entirely for the much more friendly and manageable Isla Mujeres. It featured our favorite hotel, a very Zen place called Elements of the Island, as well as the peaceful North Beach. A reminder that we were just a 20-minute ferry ride from Americanized Cancun: We were served Costco-brand Kirkland bottled water at dinner. South of the main town is a sea tortoise shelter and unique vacation homes -- including one shaped like a giant shell that my fiancee had seen featured on HGTV. The best way to tour the tiny island is by renting a golf cart for about $25. We made a full loop, with stops, in under two hours.
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asap staff reporter Ryan Pearson wants vendors with marquesitas on his street at home, too.
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