Yucatan travel movie | Carol Chapman

Yucatan Caribbean Sea Turtles Nest in the Summer

I knew that sea turtles laid their eggs in the sand along the Riviera Maya Caribbean coast but I did not know when. According to this 1 Person Tent blog, the time to see the nesting turtles is from June to October. The sea turtles come onto shore from the sea at night. However, it is important that you not use a regular flashlight if you want to see them laying their eggs, and no flash photography:

There are a few factors to consider when searching for nesting turtles. The foremost is never disturb them throughout the nesting process. That includes no flash photography and you will want to have a red lens or film paper over your ordinary flashlight. Regular light can disorient the turtles, but they cannot see the red filtered light. If you choose to go turtle searching, under the radiance of a full moon, a flashlight is not required.

Travel to the Yucatan and Step Back in Time

Carol Chapman

In the UK, they call it a Fly-drive

How interesting. In the United Kingdom, they have a type of vacation called a “fly-drive.” My guess is that this means that certain fly-drive travel companies book both your flight and your rental car and your lodgings and provide you an itinerary of where to go. Am I right? Here’s their listing for an exotic fly-drive in Yucatan.

Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula is the location for a new fly-drive this year from Journey Latin America (020-8747 8315; journeylatinamerica.co.uk). The itinerary weaves through Tulum, Chichen Itza and the lesser-known, jungle-enveloped ruins of Coba.

Hit the open road with a new breed of exotic fly-drives

From reading the article by Mark Rowe, it seems as if your rental car in a “fly-drive” is an exotic sports car. That makes me wonder because, on one of our filmmaking trips for shooting the Yucatan Travel Movie, we had the opportunity to rent an Alpha Romeo sports car. However, when we saw it did not have license plates, we declined. We didn’t want to be blamed for the missing license plates when we returned the car to the car rental agency.

“Behind the Scenes” Special Feature Completed

On May 6th, I wrote:

Last night I had three dreams telling me to work on the “Behind the Scenes” Bonus Feature of the Yucatan Travel Movie.

Behind the Scenes Yucatan Travel Movie Dream

So, that’s what I did. Today, I am happy to say that I finished “Behind the Scenes” of the Yucatan Travel Movie. I really enjoyed making this short video because it shows how we coped with the roads being ripped up on our second shooting trip to Izamal.

Chichen Itza Guide Possibly Written up in TimesOnline

Could this be our tour guide Victor Olalde, proprietor of Posada Olalde, the budget guest house close to the Mayan ruins in Chichen Itza? It sounds like Victor. Meera Dattani writes in the timesonline:

My tour guide Victor has Mayan roots and is worth every peso for his desire to inform, elaborate and entertain.

Mayan maths and eco-chic at Chichén Itzá

It sure sounds like Victor for his vast storehouse of knowledge and his willingness to share it with us. He also took us to a Maya home where I shot footage for the Yucatan Travel Movie.

Behind the Scenes Yucatan Travel Movie Dream

Last night I had three dreams telling me to work on the “Behind the Scenes” Bonus Feature of the Yucatan Travel Movie.

In one dream, I had a long 60 minute path to walk back to the beginning and was given a knife to take back to the beginning. I realized this dream meant I needed to cut the 60-minute-long feature down to a smaller size. I had just been throwing clips onto that timeline and, even though I had sorted through some of them, that had been about a week ago. I am amazed that my subconscious remembered that the “Behind the Scenes” feature presently was 60 minutes long. I consciously was not aware of it at all.

In another dream, technicians took me “behind the scenes” (that was the clincher that my dream night was about the “Behind the Scenes” feature) to show me a cluster of electric chords. I said that it would be too much work to fix them. But, the friendliest technician told me that it would not because they only needed a light dusting.

Well, my dream technician’s encouragement helped me to dive right into editing the feature and it was must easier than I expected. I’m not finished with it yet but it is cut down to only about 15 minutes now.

Teaching English in Yucatan

As a way of enjoying Yucatan travel, you may want to teach English in Yucatan, for example, in the Mayan city of Tulum.

The Mayan city of Tulum has come second in the TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice 2010 awards, which were decided on holidaymakers’ destination comments, favourite places and overall popularity.

“A rare mix of beach, archaeology and village, Tulum is a romantic getaway like no other,” the judges concluded.

Teach English in Mexico and enjoy Tulum’s beautiful beaches

We included Tulum in the Yucatan Travel Movie and can attest to the beautiful white-sand beaches in the area. In fact, many people visit the Mayan ruins at Tulum to swim rather than to tour the ruins.

However, you should be aware that if you want to stay overnight in one of the rustic cabins on the Maya Riviera coast south of the town of Tulum, most of the places, including campgrounds, do not have a regular source of electricity and instead depend on generators, wind power, solar power, and, as Miriam Balsley, the narrator of the Yucatan Travel Movie says, “the dancing light of candles.”

Speed Bumps & Ruins in Yucatan

Such a fun article by Carolina Muscle, or “Yer Ole Uncle Nuts” about his Yucatan travel adventures. I can attest to problems with all the speed bumps from my experiences in Yucatan while filming the Yucatan Travel Movie.

The drive was long – about 5 hours from Cancun, or 3 hours from Costa Maya,
but the roads were great—

— if you disregard the hundred-some speed bumps on the highway – –

In the United States, we use radar to control speed-
…. in the southern Mexican state of Quintana Roo, they use speed bumps.

The speed limit on the Federal Highway was 100 KMH–
–but you had to slow down to about 5 when you got to the bumps.

And they weren’t the small ones either-
— these would tear the tranny right outta yer Jeep if you hit em too hard.

fun with yer ole Uncle Nuts in the Yucatan76
By carolina muscle

He also writes about visiting one of the Mayan ruins, including a description of his tourist guide, who is a retired Mexican teacher and very proud of his Mayan roots. Take a look at the article for a bunch of great photographs.

What do the Space Program and the Chixculub Crater have in common?

In the sequel to the Yucatan Travel Movie, we will visit the location where the Chixculub Crater on the Yucatan Peninsula.

We are almost certain that we know what killed the dinosaurs. Sixty-five million years ago, an object 10-15 kilometers in size impacted the Earth near the present-day town of Chixculub on the Yucatan Peninsula. . . .The Chixculub collision was more powerful than one billion Hiroshima bombs and left a crater more than 100 miles in diameter, now mostly covered by the Gulf of Mexico.

Why explore space? [Part I of II]

You may be wondering what space exploration has to do with the Chixculub Crater. As I understand J Klugler, the author of the above excerpt in the Houston Chronicle, since an asteroid once caused mass devastation on earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs, we need to have colonies in space so that should another asteroid collision wipe out most life on earth, human beings can continue on another planet.

Calakmul, Off the Tourist Path

Calakmul is the place to visit in the Yucatan if you want to see ancient Mayan ruins undisturbed by hordes of tourists. In addition, most of the structures can still be climbed as described in the following blog post:

Calakmul, lacking either buses or roped-off stairways, is proving to be the largest city of the Late Classic period (A.D. 600-925), when the Maya’s great accomplishments in architecture, astronomy, writing, painting and sculpture peaked. But only the most motivated tourists find their way to this patch of southern Campeche, two hours off the highway between the Yucatan’s two coasts.

Calakmul offers glimpse of ancient Maya history

While filming the Yucatan Travel Movie, we were strongly advised by people receiving my enewsletter that we must visit Calakmul. Unfortunately, we could not fit it into our itinerary. I hope that when we finally can get to Calakmul, it will still be as pristine and undisturbed as described in the above article.

Travel in Yucatan Safe According to U.S. State Dept.

In this excerpt from an online article posted by my favorite travel website, Smarter Travel, they suggest that travel in Yucatan and Cancun is safe:

State Department’s travel warning declares, “millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico each year (including tens of thousands who cross the land border daily for study, tourism, or business and nearly one million U.S. citizens who live in Mexico).” Caution is urged, but the country is still a good option for travelers to consider. The violence is worst in the border cities, but tried-and-true tourist destinations are generally considered safe. Hartshorne says, “It’s like saying ‘There’s lots of crime in Colorado, so don’t go to Boston.’ Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana might be dangerous, but Yucatan and Cancun are safe.

Five Common Travel Myths You Should Ignore

We felt safe while filming the Yucatan Travel Movie, especially in the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Copyright (c) Carol Chapman

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