As I’m writing this, I’m looking out on the sun setting slowly over the city of Chetumal in south-eastern Mexico drinking a nice cold Pacifico beer and contemplating some of the finer points of the next two week’s travelling.

First of all, apologies to those of you that I’ve not not managed to respond to or indeed get round to emailing at all, but the Internet connections have either been sparse, or have costed the price of a firstborn!

We had an incredible wedding, it was a fantastic day having everyone that we love close by and helping us celebrate the begining of our lives together- we’re both still slightly stunned and are still talking over the minutes of the day and feeling like the luckiest people in the world!

We arrived in Cancun after dark on Sunday evening thanks to long delays at Gatwick, our spirits not being helped by the incredibly unfriendly staff that made up the Thompsonfly crew- I knew an upgrade couldn’t be guaranteed as newly-weds, but I wasn’t expecting the premium seats with extra legroom that we’d splashed out on when we booked to have been re-sold, which made me a bit grumpy to say the least! But we arrived in the end and checked into our posh ( very empty) hotel and tried to stay up as late as we could bearing in mind we’d had about five hours sleep in about fifty!

Monday dawned bright and clear and we were up super early thanks to jet lag, taking photos of the sunrise and having an early morning swim before a day of… Having swims and taking photos! We fell asleep late afternoon and when we woke up it was dark and neither of us could summon the energy to go out so we ordered room service and had an early night.

We checked out the next morning after seeing the sunrise again and set off for Tulum, a few hours coach trip down the coast. As we left Cancun, I was very aware of what a monumental waste of concrete the place seemed to be- hotels builts where mangroves once were, side by side and boasting of having thousands of rooms each. I also became aware of the fact Cancun was fast becoming a victim of it’s own incredibly fast growth, with many small malls perfectly finished, but standing empty with no tennants and fading signs telling people that they were for rent. At the same time, there were signs of people having lost everything during hurricanes, with falling down bars, hotels and homes dotted amongst the new shiny malls. It was a very strange place to have visited, but we made of it what it was supposed to be, a place of excess.

We arrived in Tulum after a pleasant, shorter than expected coach trip, and we quickly got settled in our beachside cabana and decided to go for a walk along the beach to orient ourselves. We found the beachside ruins that Tulum is famous for, and also found a dive shop, as the main reason we stopped off in Tulum was so I could do some cenote (cave) diving.

The Yucatan peninsula is mostly made of limestone, and as the water levels have risen and fallen over thousands of years, the water has dissolved and carved away channels under the land, and when the water has been at low levels, stalagmites and stalactites have formed, at the rate of about one centimeter every one hundred years, and one cave is home to the longest underwater stalamites and stalagtites ever discovered! Over time the roofs of the caves and channels have worn thin and collapsed, creating pools of water dotted all over the peninsula that seem to be small ponds on the surface, but in fact go down incredibly deep into the heart of the peninsula and connect with other underground channels and lakes. Once the pools are open at the surface, rainwater collects at the surface and doesn’t mix with the saltwater, so the cenotes are often freshwater at the surface and saltwater underneath.

A perfect example of this is at cenote Angelita, where I dived yesterday. It’s about 17km outside of Tulum, and you park up about 200m away and once your eqipment is all on you head into the forest down a small track where it opens up at the end to a pool of water of the most brilliant turquoise you’ve ever seen. Unfortunately there’s very little time to take in the incredible view as when you look down you realize your skin has turned black as every available inch of skin has a mosquito on it, so you jump about two meters down into the water. I was told that a crocodile has been living in this cenote for the last few years, so I was a little wary, but happy to be away from the mosquitos. Once I was ready, we descended into the turqoise that completely surrounded us, with no real reference apart from the limestone wall on one side. The pool of water is a conicle shape, being about 12m across at the surface and widening to at least 25m by about 30m down. The water until about 30m is very clear and is freshwater, and then there is a flat fog of hydrogen sulphide, with an island of debris seeming to float in the middle. This layer of fog is in fact caused by the vegetation that falls into the water and sinks, and at 30m the freshwater turns into saltwater, which is warmer. The vegetation then rots which produces chemicals that react with the water creating this meter thick layer of fog. Underneath this layer it becomes very dark and the light changes from turquoise to black, and the light that your torch produces only goes a few metres and the beam is an eery orange colour. The water goes down another 30m or so, but there is a pyramid of vegetation that has built up over the years, the top of which is just visible above the fog layer, creating the illusion of an island. As we slowly ascended we spiralled around the walls and went through a short but beautiful swim through- a channel in the rock that you could swim through and you’d pop back out into another part of the cenote. It was an incredibly breathtaking dive that was a real challenge mentally as it was quite creepy, but I’m so pleased that I did it!

I also dove in the casa cenote, which was under mangroves and mostly without overhead restrictions (like being in an underwater cave or tunnel) which had strange mixes of saltwater and freshwater, creating haloclines- a very strange shimmering effect which is very difficult to focus through! My last dive was in Gran cenote, which was a huge cave with lots if tunnels and chambers leading off it to explore. This is where the stalagmites and stalactites were at their most magnificent, and the incredible light and colour of the water followed you deep into the caves and tunnels and was creating picture perfect visions at every turn. There were stark reminders of the dangers of cave diving all over the place- you have to follow the yellow guide rope through different paths otherwise you run a serious risk of getting lost, and at the entrance to lesser explored tunnels with signs telling you there was danger of death and I even saw one sign with a picture of the grim reaper on it!

Obviously I’ve survived to tell the tale, and I’m incredibly glad I decided to give cenote diving a go, it was worth every peso, and it was a very welcome return to diving.

We moved further south again today, getting to the dull border town of Chetumal, which has little to offer except the museum of household appliances and cold beer. I’m sure you can all guess which we decided to persue! Tomorrow we’re getting up at 4am to catch the bus that takes us accross the border to Belize, into Belize city, then over to Guatemala and into the Mayan ruins of Tikal, which will be fantastic!

Early next week we’ll be heading to a small village in El Peten to go and visit Hugo, the Guatemalan boy we help send to school, and give Action Aid, the people that work with small communities all over the world, the £110 that was put into the collection box at the wedding.

Photos to be posted soon!