Mexico

We landed in Cancún in the late afternoon and drove south along the coast to Playa del Carmen, our base for the first three days. White sand, blue umbrellas, palm trees and a warm sea: a gentle start to get over the jet lag.

On the way south we stopped at Dos Ojos, one of the cenotes of the Riviera Maya. The Yucatán has no rivers on the surface; the water flows underground through limestone caves, and where a cave roof has collapsed it forms a cenote. The water at Dos Ojos is so clear that the swimmers seem to float in the air above the rocks.

In the evening we reached Bacalar, far to the south near the border with Belize. Its long freshwater lagoon is known as the lagoon of seven colours, for the shades of blue and turquoise that change with the depth.

The next day we took a boat out on the lagoon and swam in the shallow, impossibly turquoise water.

Back north to Tulum: a relaxed town of jungle cafés and sandy streets, flooded after a rainstorm. The Maya ruins of Tulum stand on a limestone cliff right above the Caribbean, with El Castillo looking out over the beach.

A long drive inland through the flat green scrub of the peninsula took us to Chichén Itzá, the greatest of the Maya cities. Its step pyramid of Kukulcán is one of the most famous buildings in the Americas, and the great ball court, with walls rising on both sides, is the largest ever found.

We spent the night in Valladolid, a colonial town of pastel houses, a white-towered church on the main square and quiet streets that glow in the evening light.

The next morning, after a swim in the hotel pool, we drove north to a series of cave cenotes: dark caverns full of stalactites, lit in blue, with pools of still water at the bottom.

An early flight took us to Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world, at 2,240 metres in a high valley. We stayed on the edge of Roma and Juárez, with their leafy avenues and cafés.

We spent a day in Chapultepec at the National Museum of Anthropology, home to the treasures of the Aztecs and the Maya, and walked to Polanco and the shimmering Museo Soumaya. On the last day we saw the Centro Histórico, with the gilded altars of the cathedral and the view over the Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the colourful streets of Coyoacán.

Back on the coast we took the ferry from Cancún to Isla Mujeres, a narrow island seven kilometres long, with a calm Caribbean side and a wild one facing the open sea.

The last days were for the beach and the pool: Playa Norte at the northern tip, with its shallow turquoise water, and sunsets over the bay. Then the ferry took us back to the mainland and the flight home.