Author Archives: Pavane Mann

The Mayan Riviera, Yucatan, Mexico

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What I like about this itinerary is to have found a perfect combination of stays that are split between jungle lodges, luxury haciendas and beachfront boutiques. Plunge pool at your hotel in Playa del Carmen!

WHAT’S INCLUDED

7 nights accommodation in the listed accommodations
Guided tour of Chichen Itza Archeological site and Cenote ik-Ill
Privately guided excursion to Uxmal & Kabah
Celestun with private boat tour and Merida city tour
Biking tour of Coba
1/2 day Tulum trip
Private transportation in deluxe vehicle with driver as mentioned

WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED
International or Domestic Flights
Meals and drinks other than those mentioned
Tips or personal expenses
Travel insurance
Any items not mentioned

Day 1 – Arrive in Cancun

Meet your bilingual driver at Cancun airport for a 2.5 hour drive to the lodge at Chichen Itza.

Overnight at Lodge at Chichen – Royal Mayan Bungalow

Day 2 – Chichen Itza & Cenote
Early today after breakfast you will explore Chichen Itza in a privately guided excursion to the most famous Mayan temple city, which served as the political and economic center of the Mayan civilization.

After visiting this archeological site, you will stop for swim and refresh in one of the Mayan Cenotes, natural underground rivers that were once the only resource for fresh, sweet water in the local Yucatecan jungle. After a refreshment and lunch in a local restaurant, you will continue for a 2.5 hour transfer to your beautiful and romantic Hacienda Santa Rosa located 45 minutes south of Merida, and your home for the following 2 nights.

Overnight at Hacienda Santa Rosa – Superior Room with Breakfast

Day 3 – Day Trip to Uxmal & Kabah
You will be met by your guide in the hotel lobby this morning for a full day excursion to Uxmal & Kabah. A World Heritage site, Uxmal is one of the most magnificent and best restored ruins in Yucatan. Kabah is a city known as the second greatest religious center of the Puuc style. It connects with Uxmal via a sacbé (Mayan road) that originates in El Arco, main door to the city.

Return to your hacienda and enjoy the evening at leisure.

Overnight at Hacienda Santa Rosa – Superior Room with Breakfast

Day 4 – Excursion to Celestun & Merida City
Today after breakfast and check out, you will be picked up for a privately guided tour of wonderful wildlife sanctuary, Ria Celestun Biosphere Reserve. Celestun is home to one of the largest migratory flamingo populations in the world. Continue your Journey with an afternoon City tour of Merida. Founded in 1542 by the Spaniard Francisco de Montejo over the ruins of the Mayan city T’ho and receiving its name to evoke the conquerors the city of Merida in Spain. Merida is known as the White City, her remote Mayan roots, superb colonial monuments and the splendor of her turn to the XIX century architecture, has made Merida a captivating and charming mixture of cultural influences.

Overnight at Hacienda Xcanatun – Superior Room with Breakfast
Lush gardens surround Hacienda Xcanatun, an exclusive small hotel converted from a traditional hacienda

Day 5 – Merida/ Coba / Riviera Maya
Early this morning after breakfast and hotel check out, you’ll continue towards the Riviera Maya, visiting the Coba archeological site in route. Here you’ll get to enjoy one of the greatest archeological sites on a private guided bike trip.

After departing Coba, you’l enjoy a tranquil evening along as you transition into the magical Mexican Rivera.

Overnight at Playa Del Carmen: Hotel Esencia – Garden suite with plunge pool and Breakfast

Day 6 – Day at leisure
Enjoy a beach day at leisure in the Mexican Riviera

Overnight at Playa Del Carmen: Hotel Esencia – Garden suite with plunge pool and Breakfast

Day 7 – Half Day Tulum Visit
Today you will visit Tulum Arqueological site, considered to be one of the most beautiful Mayan archaeological sites. The only Mayan archaeological site to be in use at the time of the Spanish conquest, Tulum, means wall in Mayan. Also known as Zama, or city of dawn, this beautiful site sits on 50-foot high cliffs above the sea.

Then head back to your hotel for an afternoon on your own.

Overnight at Playa Del Carmen: Hotel Esencia – Garden suite with plunge pool and Breakfast

Day 8 – Departure from Cancun
Today is departure day. At the appropriate time, you’ll be transfered back to the Cancun airport for your flight home.

A Magical Land

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Many years ago I walked across a pass into a magical land of coloured mountains and silver rivers, I thought I had never seen a place of such wonder, and it was true, i have never again found such a spot.

Today I have just returned once more from the same valley and though I have seen some amazing sights since that first vista, it still does not fail to amaze, awe and uplift my very being and there has never been an equal.

Spiti, a land of spearing peaks slashed with snow, sheer fortresses of rock, wearing skirts of scree in swathes of colour..(I once filled a pot with bronze dust that I used as a cosmetic glow maker!)

Waterfalls cascading down sheer rock faces, prayer flags fluttering from ancient monasteries. Mud homes, emerald meadows dotted with ridiculously bright flowers. It is a land indescribable in it’s sheer grandeur. That the head spins with the height and un – oxygenated air is but a small discomfort, it is spinning in so many other ways too.
These mountains make the soul soar, the heart sing and the spirit revive. Trying to chart the track, draw a road book and generally answer a heap of sometimes irritating questions in no way took away from the fact that I was back in this sublime part of the world again.

So often people have asked me ‘what is the best place you have visited?’ I have never had an answer because each place has it’s own magic.

However, this valley is magic. I thought so the first time I stepped across the Pin Parvati Pass and reaffirm it every time I return. So here I am reiterating once more – magic mountains – a most spectacular part of the world and I am blessed to keep returning there.

That some hordes of women will follow the route that I have charted, makes me shudder, while at the same time, knowing that they will go back changed and magicked too.

For the last month I have been trying to lead this group of myriad ladies up and down our mountains. They are used to driving automatic cars on flat roads, now these intrepid beings have got into good old Mahendra Scorpios and Boleros with stick shifts and steering wheels on the wrong side ( for them), yet they have driven the dirt tracks, taken two point turns and avoided falling down the ‘khads’ of some amazing himalayan tracks.

It has been a bit like ‘mid term trips’ back in school with the girls, music, hilarity, dancing in the streets and stories.

Nuns in ancient nunneries – that have a communal solar bath, a green house where they grow vegetables all year round, but also use as a gathering spot on cold winter afternoons, and a constant sense of naughty humour. Who would have thought it!!

Tiny little monastaries with painted frescoes fresh and bright of colours that have lasted more than 800 years. Every corner holds a surprise and a discovery.

This is a land to smell, to soak and absorb and then to do it all again. It is of subliminal enchantment!

Back to the river

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The nostalgia of a trip up to the river. The strangest feeling coming home but not. Stopped at Pundir out of habit, but felt almost a stranger because I am no longer a prized customer of his. I will not be sending store lists and meeting him every other day. He is not a part of my life any longer. Bad feeling, but strangely I seem to be viewing it all like an outsider, as though this isn’t really me driving up this road, talking to Pundir, buying some token goody, getting in the car, driving through the barrier and it is not I the police man is acknowledging, I don’t seem to exist.

Akshay’s Aaranya, where no one knows or recognises me. Did I really live here for so many years? Is it me who feels I have abandoned here and so would rather not be recognised even? Strange, strange feeling.

It is lovely to be in this camp, lovely to be in the area, I love the river, but this camp…. The site is beautiful… It is not mine.

I miss my camp and the loos and the beautiful showers, I wonder if I will ever stop missing it.

 

That was all written a few months ago, I have since that day merged my expertise with that of Akshay’s to help run his little empire. His company MHE is a vast conglomerate compared to our little OAI. There is a fleet of people doing all sorts of things and I am trying to figure how they get co ordinated, as they willy nilly seem to. Also I have taken over the Himalayan Outward Bound programmes, which are so very much what I loved to do: introduce young people to the ways of nature and a different environment and the possibility to do what you did not imagine.

It is a challenge and fun. The best feeling is I have not lost the river or a camp. It may not be mine own that ran exactly to my specifications and had the magic showers. But this has the potential to have all those things too, so let’s see if I can create for myself and others another spot on the river where magic happens.

The greatest thing is we have so many more trips to offer and so much potential to do all the things that I always dreamt of being able to do.

So a challenge and another adventure begins. Toall my friends who loved sharing the river, come again, the river flows on and the weather is getting rather perfect to be up here.
Sent from Pavane Mann’s iPad
Ph: +91 9810184360
http://www.pavanemann.com

Africa tit bits

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Travel news from my wandering family. Africa this time, my young sister works at making a better world and travels to interesting parts of it while doing so, here are some tips from her.

 

A lovely little boutique hotel in Cape town that she loved staying in, this is what the hotel says about itself, and she pretty much agreed:

 

“Set in the heart of the urban trend-setting district of Green Point, dysART Boutique Hotel

offers a uniquely tranquil environment with modern facilities designed to ensure your well-being.

 

Myriad restaurants and bars are with-in minutes of our front door, on Main Road and beyond in the renowned Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, the focal point of Cape Town’s day and night life.

 

Nearby is De Waterkant, the “Village” of Cape Town, which is packed with bars, music venues and eclectic eateries. A few minutes by taxi is Long Street, the inner city’s most charming road, full of inter-esting shops and restaurants housed in historic old-Cape architecture.

 

And just up the hill is the winding Kloof Street, with its array of shopping and dining emporia. And the ocean is just a few minutes’ walk, with its promenade and the promise of unforgettable sunsets.”

 

Now she is on the Shuttle bus from Arusha, Tanzania back to Nairobi, she reccommends it as a good way to get there. They have been visiting a bar called the Via Via, inside the natural history museum, apparently the museum after closing time turns into a bar till 12.00 and then a disco, all out in the open. Great barbeque and a lovely vibe. Sounds like fun. Nanki, you certainly are having some.
Sent from Pavane Mann’s iPad
Ph: +91 9810184360
http://www.pavanemann.com

The Sea

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It’s a smell of fish and sea weed. Low tide, when all the treasures on the shore are revealed. Even in this urban jungle the sea and it’s shore, the sounds and the sky above manage to make a kind of magic that is attracting, soothing, inspiring. Something beautiful that makes one want to celebrate it; write about it, paint it, capture it somehow to pass on while trying to relish the moment. Lying gently on rocking waves or being thrashed by rollers. Exploring the amazing worlds beneath the waves.

Even that lumbering big tanker has grace and a sense of adventure, if you will, it is going sea faring and will see marvels and encounter the unknown before it hits another port.

The call of the sea? Is it changeability, beauty, mystery or is it the attraction of the beaches and palm trees… synonymous with the good life and plenty? Polynesian islands and coconut water, toddy and grass skirts, balmy breezes and no worries? Undefinable but oh so enticing.

I love the sea.

Sent from Pavane Mann’s iPad
Ph: +91 9810184360
http://www.pavanemann.com