Sadly the time has come to pack up our rucksacks for the last time. What a great 4 months we've had away from the short, cold and gloomy, days back home in Scotland. Every day has been very different from the one before and we haven't seen rain since 2nd January in Costa Rica. Elaine's two years of planning has been a great success and my "package tour" has been better than anything that Thomas Cook has to offer. We've met a lot of like-minded ageing backpac...

We are back in Merida and after 1400km of trouble free driving we've handed the car back and hopped on a very comfortable ADO bus bound for Cancun 4 hours away. At Cancun, a short taxi journey sees us to the port and minutes later we're on a fast ferryboat across to Isla Mujeres ( Ladies Island ) where we'll spend the last 4 nights before heading home. The island is a very touristy place, the most touristy place we've been on our whole trip, but...

We have a couple nights at the coastal city of Progreso. Again our hotel has a balcony and overlooks the beach on a quiet side street with a good choice of restaurants nearby. Next day I go across to the huge beach for a swim to try out my new mask and snorkel in the sea. A bit leaky but wasn't expecting a Jacques Cousteau experience for £3 so not too surprised. Later in the day while Elaine was waiting for me to have a haircut, s...

Our route takes us north towards Rio Lagartos next day passing through quiet villages on our way. After checking out a a couple of hotels, We settle for a neat, modern place with balcony right on the waters edge run by Fidel, a friendly Colombian who speaks no English but his Spanish is much easier to understand than the Mexican Spanish all around us. From our balcony we can see lots of pelicans fishing and further out, ospreys diving from a great height ...

Chichén Itzá is the largest of the archaeological cities of the Maya civilisation in the Yucatan Penisula of Mexico. It is one of Mexico's most visited tourist destinations and a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was recently selected as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. As a result, it is visited by bus loads of tourists every day so to avoid the rush we stay in a nearby hotel the night before so that we can be there to start exploring after...