Can you think of anything better than sampling authentic Mexican cuisine, listening to live Mariachi music and dancing the night away? If you plan on visiting Cancun or the Quintana Roo area of Mexico, look forward to experiencing an evening of stereotypical Mexican fiesta!
Whether you are a party animal or somewhat laid back, you will find the authentic Mexican experience at Xoximilco to be worthwhile and entertaining. We recently visited Cancun for the TBEX bloggers conference held at Moon Palace and were invited to experience Xoximilco on the pre-BEX Tour.
Xoximilco History
Let’s start by giving a little history on Xoximilco. Unless you are a Mexican native or somewhat familiar with the detailed history behind this, you will likely be asking how on earth do you pronounce Xoximilco. Thanks to our awesome host, Yosef, he delighted in telling us it is very similar to ‘chocolate milk’ with a little extra twist to it.
Still confused? It’s ok, we were too but after a while you learn the art of pronouncing this awesome word without making a fool of yourself in front of your Mexican counterparts.
Xoximilco Cancun is a homage or genuine representation of the original Xoximilco traditions of Mexico City. The idea of bringing this same authenticity to Cancun clearly helps tourism but also enables locals to really experience the traditional fiesta with friends and family.
Xoximilco Experience
Before we arrived at Xoximilco, I was questioning how exactly the evening was going to be structured. Upon arrival, it doesn’t take too long to figure it out. After taking an initial picture, you are guided to the docking area where all the ‘trajineras’ are located. A trajinera is a flat-bottomed boat and is your home for the duration of the 3 hour experience.
Our boat, Viva Michoacan, was full of fellow travel bloggers from around the world and it was great meeting some new friends along the way. After introducing ourselves individually with a brief background on where we are from and of course the embarrassment of shouting some weird yet wonderful sound, we began the tour.
As I mentioned, our guide for the evening was Yosef and steering our vessel around the waterways was Yosef’s compatriot, Josef (sorry, no pun intended with the names I am sure!) The basic structure of the evening involved learning about Mexican culture and experiencing a variety of events such as live music and sampling typical Mexican cuisine.
Live Music
Throughout the evening, the Viva Michoacan docked to various other trajineras, many of which featured Mexican musicians performing admirably into the evening. I couldn’t imagine spending an evening in Cancun any better than listening to live Mariachi music among many other genres which are stereotypical in this part of the world.
Watching the charismatic performers on the Marimba (a Mexican style xylophone) was particularly intriguing and I have to admit that all of the performances left a memorable image in your mind to take away with you.
Mexican Cuisine
The best advice I can give you before taking part in the Xoximilco experience is go into this with a very open mind! I am so glad that I followed my own advice here because otherwise this could have turned into a painful experience, primarily because of the local gastronomy that you are encouraged to sample along the way.
Mexico is famous for many different cuisine types along with a variety of beverages, and throughout the evening you should be prepared to indulge your tastebuds in many of these. The trajinera is packed full of Corona and of course El Jimador Tequila.
Heather can be proud to say that she was the only person on the boat to be a complete ‘newbie’ to tequila but even I can say that she handled it very well throughout the night. Four shots later and she was still upright and dry, so surely this deserves some recognition!
Let’s talk about the cuisine. Have you ever sampled baby crickets before? Sound tasty! I didn’t think so and neither did I prior to this trip but I can now say that I have tried ‘chapulines’. They have a very distinctive taste and honestly the sound of them is much worse that the actual taste. A savory almost spicy texture is the best analysis I can give of chapulines. My advice is try them…close your eyes if you need to but you will likely be pleasantly surprised!
The evening’s cuisine is broken down into three different courses and on each course you are given a platter to sample a small portion of unique Mexican flavors.
Here are the first course options:
- Tamales
- Oaxaca cheese ball
- Fried silversides
- Cactus pad salad
- Corn on a cup and pear squash
- Baby crickets
Here are the second course options:
- Steamed fish with wormseed
- Pork in green salsa
- Chicken in mole sauce
- Beef roll with corn smut sauce and cotija cheese (on banana leaf)
- Shrimp with tamarind sauce
- Barbecued mutton
Here are the final course options:
- Corn flan
- Milk caramel
- Coconut sweet
- Pine nut milk fudge
- Amaranth sweet
- Wafers
- Oaxaca milled chocolate
Take your pick from any or all of the above samples and you will be whisked away on an adventure of Mexican cuisines.
Entertainment and Celebrations
A Mexican fiesta would not be the same without traditional celebrations thrown into the party atmosphere. The distinct blend of cultural learnings combined with dancing to Mariachi music is a perfect way to spend your evening in Cancun. Learn about all of the Mexican festivities that correspond with daily activities such as harvest, rain, birth and life among many others.
Throughout the journey around the canals, Yosef introduced a variety of games we all had to participate in, some of which required a little more tequila than others (I won’t go into detail, rather I will encourage you to experience Xoximilco to find out exactly what I am talking about).
A Memorable Evening
I will be the first to admit that going into this evening I was a little skeptical about what to expect! Expanding my taste palate was something I wasn’t particularly looking forward to, especially after reading some of the descriptions of apparently edible creatures you are able to sample.
However, all of my fears and misconceptions were immediately thrown out of the window as soon as we arrived at Xoximilco and stepped on our trajinera. The experience is amazing and definitely worthwhile to learn about the true, authentic Mexican traditions.
Xoximilco Cancun may be a homage to the real experience in Mexico City, but credit must be given to the organization and performances that ensure you leave with a truly memorable evening.
Disclaimer – We would like to thank Experiencias Xcaret for organizing the pre-BEX tour.These are solely our personal opinions/experiences and we were not financially compensated for this post.
Looks like such a fun night! I love the idea of having the tasting plates so you can try a bit of every dish.
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What bright colors! I think I would like to visit Xoximilco, I love bright lights and boat rides, this looks like the place for me! How was TBEX? I think I will try and go to one of the conferences next year.
Thanks for sharing,
Katie
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It’s really great to see Mexico thriving. What’s on the news right now here in Canada – especially about what happened on the Baja Peninsula and the rampant lawlessness, it’s nice to be reminded that when things run smoothly, when there’s no impending natural disaster, economic or political crisis, or social unrest – Mexico can be very relaxing.
Ohhhh I feel like I can taste that food – damn shame we cant get Mexican here in Croatia. 🙁
I have got to stop reading posts with food in them when I’m hungry. 🙂 This looks like a really fun and colorful experience! It’s great that you got to connect with other travel bloggers while experiencing some of the local culture. Thanks for sharing!
Oh, goodness. I don’t think I can eat crickets, even if I close my eyes. Other than that, and the fact that I can’t hold my liqour, this sounds like an incredible evening. If I ever get down to Cancun, I’ll definitely look into going here. I enjoyed Xcaret in Cozumel, and I see that this is part of the same company. If it’s as good as Xcaret, I know I’ll enjoy it.
Great pics! The food sounds good 🙂
People say Chinese would eat anything, but I couldn’t imagine myself eating baby crickets. Looks like you guys had a wonderful evening! Surrounded by lively music and yummy food!
Sounds like you had a great time at TBEX!
Presumably the ‘X’ is pronounced in a similar way to the Basque pronunciation? 😉
Wow, this seems like a great night out! I have never been to Mexico or a Mexican fiesta, but I love Mexican food! That Mexican band looks amazing too.
This looks like so much fun! I love Mariachi music, and Mexican food is so yummy. Congrats to Heather who handled the tequila really well – I don’t know if I could have done that!
This sounds fun and like it was quite an interesting experience–it would be fun to check out someday! I can just imagine how wrong I am trying to pronounce Xoximilco–I’m always so horrible at pronunciation, lol!
That looks like so much fun! What a great experience- and I LOVE all the bright colours. PS Heather: well done with the tequila!
Looks like the two of you had a blast. Those photos are so colourful and fun and I’m glad Heather is no longer a newbie to tossing back the tequila 🙂
Looks a really interesting and colourful experience!
I think you’ve been brave to try the baby crickets… but then again I totally believe you they can be tasty: it’s all about cultural biases when it comes to food – my coworkers always pull me faces when I say I love haggis 😀
Looks like I missed out on all the fun in Cancun! Will have to get down to Mexico!
Sounds like a great night out, even more fun as you got to do it with fellow bloggers. I would love to try chapulines, but tequila really disagrees with me!
I’m a sucker for Mexican food and should’ve come to Cancun instead of going to Athens. Such a colorful place!
Nice shot! It really looks like a real version at Mexico City!
Wow!! This place looks really cool! I definitely made a note of it for future!
You won’t regret it Christine, definitely check it out for some authentic Mexican traditions!
That was such fun. It was great meeting you guys. And yes Heather did quite well for her first tequila shot (and her 2nd-4th)!
Great meeting you too Mags!! She survived the tequila experience quite admirably I think though perhaps that was just because of those crickets that she sampled that helped soak the alcohol LOL! It was a really great night and would definitely recommend folks to check it out. I wonder what the original in Mexico City is like.
Hopefully we will meet up with you again on our travels! How was the post-TBEX culinary trip?
Wow I can’t believe they have replicated Xochimilco in Cancun. I have been to the original one in Mexico City and I loved my experience. I think a big part of that was because it was authentic and there was some very interesting history behind it. I’m not sure how I feel about a replica although I am sure it would be fun, but in a theme park kind of way. You should definitely check out the original if you are ever in Mexico City
We have traveled to Mexico many times and the X’s are just now becoming second nature. I remember getting ribbed about how I pronounced a popular Mexican beer, Dos XX. You have to be careful about those games you play the require copious amounts of tequila, you never know where the evening is going to end up. Great read guys.
Thanks so much for your kind comments guys! We had a great time at the Xoximilco experience and we still reminisce about Heather’s tequila adventure that night…it was all good fun though 🙂
You can’t go wrong with good Mexican food and a Mariachi band even if you can’t pronounce the name of the establishment. It reminds me of a restaurant that used to be in Little Rock called Casa Bonita (the one in Denver has a guy that dives into a pool inside the restaurant.