A snorkeller swims with a whale shark near Holbox
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Spend two nights at CasaSandra, a beachfront hotel run by an expatriate Cuban artist outside the centre.
In summer, migrating whale sharks make the island an important wildlife-watching destination.
The yellow city of Izamal is an essential stop
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Mayan Mexico
Transfer from Holbox to Mérida, passing through Izamal en route. The “yellow city” is a fascinating mix of pre-Hispanic ruins and a huge convent built on top of a Mayan pyramid.
If you’ve never visited Chichén Itzá, you can use this road transfer to spend a couple of hours at the biggest, best-known Mayan site. It can get busy but is well worth a look. Leave Holbox at the crack of dawn and you can get in Chichén Itzá with the first tourists and before the coaches arrive.
Chichen Itza can get very busy
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Continue to Mérida, which was the main city in northern Yucatán before the developers moved in on the east coast. It’s much prettier and calmer and far more authentic than Cancun. Take a stroll around downtown, including the cathedral. There are plenty of places to eat around the main plaza, and in summer music and dance events are often staged here. The Plaza Grande restaurant serves tacos and chilaquiles and has tables on a balcony overlooking the square.
Spend two nights at Casa Lecanda, a carefully restored historic property and the most romantic hotel in town – with seven rooms, a private patio and beautiful décor.
Tourists hunt for souvenirs in Merida
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Going underground
Visit the major archaeological site of Uxmal, 50 miles south of Mérida. Founded in the 8th century and formerly home to some 25,000 Mayans, this was an important astronomical and religious hub. The Pyramid of the Soothsayer is the centrepiece, surrounded by sculptures dedicated to Chaac, the Mayan rain god. Uxmal and other nearby sites dotted around the Puuc hills flourished during the Late Classic period (around 600-900 AD), before being overrun by neighbouring settlements.
In the afternoon, visit the smaller site of Dzibilchaltún. This was the longest continuously used Maya administrative and ceremonial city, serving from around 1,500 BC until the European conquest in the 1540s. Close by there’s a museum and the swimmable Xlacah cenote (water-filled sinkhole). Yucatán has around 8,000 cenotes, formed 66 million years ago when a six-mile wide asteroid impacted the region and created the Chicxulub crater. It wiped out the dinosaurs but left these beautiful natural pools.
A woman dons traditional garb in Oaxaca
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An entrancing city
Fly from Mérida or, if the timing is tricky, transfer to Cancun for the short flight to Oaxaca.
Check into Casa Oaxaca for two nights; it’s a beautiful 18th-century colonial house with a central patio, typical of this city’s historic centre. A minimalist design line has been offset by bright colours, potted cactus plants, flowers and natural light. The restaurant is helmed by the locally acclaimed chef Alejandro Ruiz, who also gives cooking classes.
Oaxaca’s historic centre is a Unesco World Heritage Site, with the requisite grandiose churches, crumbling palaces and leafy patios and plazas. Flowering royal poinciana trees set off the ochres, pinks and pastel blues of colonial-era buildings. Visit as many churches as you can; don’t miss the cathedral or the Santo Domingo de Guzmán.
The human face of the city is entrancing as the civic, architectural one. Come the evening and the paseo hour, strollers fill the streets, accompanied by barrel organists, busking guitarists, food vendors, and clowns entertaining the children. Sometimes a full brass band sets up in the ornate bandstand on the Zócalo (main square).
Have a wander around the Sánchez Pascuas food market, perhaps sampling chapulines (grasshoppers), try some artisanal mezcal at In Situ – a combined bar and shop specialising in this flavoursome firewater – and then take yourself back to the hotel for a slap-up dinner. Oaxaca is famous for its complex, flavour-packed cuisine; make sure you ask to try the moles (local sauces).
The sheer scale of Monte Alban is impressive
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Magnificent Monte Albán
Visit the ruins of Monte Albán, just six miles outside the city. One of Mexico’s most prized ancient sites, it’s a legacy of the advanced Zapotec culture that dominated the area over a thousand years ago. Take in the broad plazas, truncated pyramids and the court where a ball game called tlachtli was played. There are underground passageways, and some of the 170 tombs are among the most elaborate uncovered in the Americas. The sheer scale and mountaintop setting are impressive, and while the complex looks sombre and grey now, you have to imagine that Monte Albán was once vivaciously polychromed. Founded between the ninth and sixth centuries BC, the city was more or less abandoned by 950 AD – though the later Mixtecs used it as a magnificent burial site.
Have another fine-dining experience at Criollo, which has a locally-focused, seasonal tasting menu curated by celebrity chef Enrique Olvera (of Pujol fame), young oaxaqueño chef Luis Arellano and architect Javier Sánchez. The venue is a stylish, bohemian house with a courtyard.
Surfers flock to this laid-back seaside town
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Beach bolthole
Drive south three to four hours along the recently upgraded Carretera 175; the project took 15 years but it has halved the journey time and the highway is much safer now. It’s one of the most scenic road trips in the south, passing between mountain chains on winding pass-roads, with some flat stretches as you approach the coast.
Puerto Escondido is a relaxing beach bolthole with a fairly cosmopolitan crowd of foreign surfers, expats and holidaying families. Playa Carrizalillo is a sheltered cove with thatch-roofed beach bars; Zicatela is the best-known surfing spot. You can dine and drink on the seafront or in the town centre.
Spot turtles hatching in the winter months
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Stay at Hotel Escondido for two nights. It’s 30 minutes from the centre but it’s a clear winner when it comes to service, setting and style. Operated by the Habita group – which built its reputation opening some of Mexico City’s hippest properties – it has 16 private cabañas set on a pristine beach. Cacti and agave plants decorate the architect-designed exterior and inside are cooling dark wood walkways flanked by channels of water. The pool is a stunner, stretching a full 165 feet.
This really is a secluded spot on the coast. You might catch sight of baby turtles between October and March.
Forget your preconceptions about Mexico City
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Capital cuisine
Fly to Mexico City and check into Downtown Mexico hotel for two nights. Occupying a 17th-century shell (a former palace and one of Mexico City’s oldest residences), the hotel has a contemporary, neo-industrial feel. The key thing is it places you right in the heart of the city, which is ideal if you’ve just two days and want to see key sights.
Explore the historic centre on foot from your hotel. Enjoy a stroll around the Zócalo, the heart of the capital, taking in 16th-century Catedral Metropolitana, Latin America’s largest cathedral, and Palacio Nacional, the site of Diego Rivera’s massive mural Mexico a Través de los Siglos (Mexico Through the Centuries). Go inside the Templo Mayor, an Aztec pyramid in the downtown area, and check out more big, bold murals from Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros at the Palacio de Bellas Artes.
Spend a few hours at the world-class Museo Nacional de Antropología, with fascinating objects from Mayan, Aztec and other pre-Hispanic cultures.
For food, you are spoilt for choice. To get a table at the kinds of restaurant that figure in the Top 50 Latin America list – Quintonil, Pujol, Rosetta, La Docena – you’d be advised to book well before you jet off to Mexico. But scattered around Polanco, Roma and Condesa you’ll find plenty of good places to eat and drink. You may also come across cantinas – old-school bars, which are worth popping into for a beer to soak up the atmosphere.
Set out early to explore the ancient city of Teotihuacan, 25 miles outside the city. Stroll down the Avenue of the Dead and climb the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon.
Ancient Teotihuacan
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On the journey back, see the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the most venerated shrine and pilgrimage destination in the country. Here, the Virgin Mary, disguised as native princess, appeared to Chichimec peasant Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, leaving her image impressed on his cloak. Juan Diego was canonised by the Roman Catholic church in 2002 – the continent’s first indigenous saint.
Make your way in the afternoon to the Museo de Arte Moderno, home to one of Frida Kahlo’s most famous paintings, Las Dos Fridas. If you’re a fan, squeeze in an hour at Frida Kahlo’s “Blue House”, where she was born, and later died. Numerous artworks are displayed. It’s in Coyoacán, one of the capital’s oldest and now most fashionable residential neighbourhoods; the fascinating Trotsky house museum is here, too, if you have the time for one more stop.
Inside Kahlo’s Blue House
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Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios sits atop the Great Pyramid of Cholula
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A colonial-era beauty
Drive three hours to the Unesco World Heritage city of Puebla. Stop first in Tonantzintla to take a look at the unique Santa María church, celebrated for its intricate stucco interior – a beautiful example of indigenous artisan work combining Mexican and European Christian styles.
Continue on to Cholula to visit the remains of the Great Pyramid of Cholula, which measure 1,475 feet along each side of the base and is an impressive 216 feet high, making it larger in volume than Egypt’s Cheops pyramid. When conquistador Hernán Cortés stopped here on his overland expedition, he wanted to send a message to Montezuma – so he killed thousands of people, looted the houses and burned down the temples.
You’ll arrive in Puebla in time for lunch at the traditional Fonda de Santa Clara restaurant where you can try mole poblano, a thick, rich, chocolate-tinged sauce laced with chilli peppers. Explore Puebla’s colonial-era churches and mansions, some adorned with hand-painted Talavera tiles.
Stay at the Cartesiano hotel. Created from the remains of a historic mansion and tile factory, it’s filled with paintings and sculptures by Mexican artists, with top Mexican cuisine served in a restaurant with views of the city and volcanoes.
Fly from Mexico City to La Paz and spend three days exploring the southern end of the Carretera Numero Uno – Route 1 – in Baja California Sur which runs the length of the 775-mile-long peninsula of Baja California. A decade ago, it was fine to drive the whole length from Tijuana to Los Cabos but the (confusingly named) northern state of Baja California has become a no-go zone and Tijuana is orange-listed (non-essential travel not advised) by the UK Foreign Office.
Drive from La Paz to Loreto (221 miles), a well-preserved colonial town founded by the Milan-born Jesuit padre Juan María de Salvatierra in 1697, who established the Misión Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó. The pediment of the original church notes that Loreto was once the “head and mother of the missions of lower and higher California”; the town was the capital of the Californias until 1777, and its historic centre is low-slung, elegantly lined with topiary and paved with huge cobblestones.
The Posada de las Flores is a lovely small hotel with a good restaurant.
The Misión Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó
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Going grey
Continue north to Guerrero Negro (259 miles), a must-stop between February and early April, when you can take an excursion to see grey whales that migrate here from Siberia and Alaska. They bask in the shallow, protected waters and calve off Ojo de Liebre, south-west of the town. There are plenty of motels and cheap lodgings hereabouts. Los Caracoles is a clean, well-kept property.
A tour boat watches a grey whale
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A dash across the desert
Head south via the Vizcaino Reserve, a scalding caldron of heat and uncompromising desert. San Ignacio (93 miles) is a lush and shady place filled with date groves. The town hosts a clutch of thatched colonial buildings painted in pastel colours, bedecked with bougainvillea and sheltered by laurel trees. Don’t miss the mission here, completed by Dominicans in 1786.
Santa Rosalia (47 miles) is an ordinary enough town, but its metal church was designed by Gustave Eiffel and shown at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. It was meant for Africa but was left in pieces in Belgium. French company director Charles La Forgue bought it and placed it in Santa Rosalia, perhaps to cheer up the French mining engineers who lived here.
Requesón and the other beaches at Mulejé (39 miles) look amazing, but the water in the Sea of Cortez can be bath-hot in summer, especially in places like this where there’s hardly a current. In the centre of Mulejé, Los Equipales does a lunch platter featuring staples such as prawns, chicken strips, beef, tortillas, rice, brown beans, chillies, stuffed burritos, tamales – and ice-cold beer. A decent hotel here is the 50-room Serenidad, famous for its hog roast buffets.
Cortés came to La Paz (304 miles) in May 1535, after conquering central Mexico. He couldn’t be bothered colonising it because of its relative isolation. Today it’s a sport-fishing nexus, but it’s also a lovely place just to idle and drift and sip cold beer. The promenade is a palm-fronded strip – gorgeous at sunset – with shacks selling fish tacos and ceviches, young lovers on benches, vintage cars and the inevitable mariachis bar-crawling and hoping for tips after playing, for the zillionth time, Guantanamera and Cielito Lindo. You can go kayaking around nearby Isla Espiritu Santo and swimming with sea lions. Turtles come close in here, and large pods of dolphins can be spotted frolicking and leaping around incoming boats.
The Posada de las Flores – it’s a two-property “chain” – is again recommended here.
Unwind on the beaches of Los Cabos
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Back to the beach
Baja is full of atmospheric little towns. El Triunfo (32 miles) is an impressive old-style Spanish town of single-storey, plain houses, a cream-and-chocolate church and cobbled streets.
Los Cabos is the generic name for the cluster of beach towns and hotel developments at the southern tip of Baja California. Cabo San Lucas (92 miles) is the built-up, US-style mega-resort beloved of spring breakers. It has a picturesquely rock-framed cove called Playa del Amor and sunset cruises with all-you-can-drink open bars staffed by pirates. But it also has frigatebirds wheeling overhead, cormorants gliding on the surf and, in the right seasons (May-July and November-January), thousands of mobula rays breaching the water, shooting up vertically and thrashing the sea with a slap as they dive back into the water.
A breaching mobula ray
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San José del Cabo, next door, is the “European” resort, with charming cobblestone streets and Spanish architecture, art galleries and churches, rooftop bars and wine bars. It’s a perfect place to stretch your legs after a long road trip and the whirl of impressions and sensations that Baja, and Mexico as a whole, will have been. Celebrate your success with a cool glass of guadalupe vino.
Spend your last night at chic Casa Natalia, which has cosy rooms, a plunge pool, breakfasts that don’t do too much arterial damage and a lovely al fresco restaurant serving “Mexicarranean” cuisine. Don’t miss the oysters and hibiscus martinis!
Vamos a casa… Fly from Los Cabos to Cancún or Mexico City for your flight home.
Mexico is in the northern hemisphere and shares our seasons. The Tropic of Cancer runs through southern Baja and the central highlands. Like most subtropical countries this is a year-round destination. Altitude matters more than latitude. The main rainy season is May to mid-October, in tandem with the cyclone/hurricane season in the Caribbean; occasionally the tails of storm systems mean it lashes it down for days. November is an excellent time to visit, with the Day of the Dead celebrations taking place. Winter is pleasant with March-May usually fine. September 16 is Independence Day – the festivities are great fun. Hotel rates go up around Christmas, New Year and Easter.
Journey Latin America (020 8747 8315, journeylatinamerica.com) has an 18-day holiday that includes Isla Holbox, Mérida, Oaxaca, Puerto Escondido, Mexico City, Puebla, La Paz and Loreto (but not northern Baja). From £5,582 per person, including transfers, domestic flights, good-quality hotels, car hire in Baja California and excursions including Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, Kabah, Monte Albán, Teotihuacán, Cholula and Tonantzintla. International flights are extra and start from £800 per person.
Last Frontiers (01296 653000, lastfrontiers.com) can arrange a two-week holiday taking in Holbox, a night at Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, Mérida, Oaxaca, Mexico City, La Paz in Baja California and a full day guided whale-watching tour. Puerto Escondido and northern Baja are not included in this itinerary. From £7,700 per person based on two people sharing, including breakfast throughout, domestic flights plus international flights with British Airways from London Heathrow into Cancún and out of Mexico City.
The Maya ruins at Uxmal
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Expert tips
Keep an eye on the Foreign Office’s Mexico page. The map is quite a patchwork of orange and green and the FCDO advises against travel to some once mainstream destinations such as Acapulco and Zacatecas. Make sure you confirm your itinerary with your insurer.Mexico is served by several airlines, with Volaris and Viva Aerobus now competing with older flag-carriers Aeromexico and Mexicana. Many flights go to Mexico City and crossing from one domestic region to another is not always non-stop. This itinerary is based on current services.Mexico has pretty much ceased running its tourist boards. No physical overseas representation has existed since 2019. The official website visitmexico.com is out of date. The UK Twitter account is dead. Contact the Latin American Travel Association for tips and travel agents.The Yucatán area is slowly rolling out the new tourism-oriented Tren Maya – a 966-mile railway loop that will connect Cancun, Mérida, Tulum and Palenque. The opening has been stuttering but once it’s up and running it will be an alternative to driving/flying.
Source link : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tours/ultimate-itineraries/best-mexico-holiday-itinerary-tour/
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Publish date : 2024-06-07 07:00:00
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