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Published: March 21st 2009
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Tim Version:
* Whiled away about 5 days in Tulum, beautiful perfect uncrowded golden sand beaches, tourquise warm caribbean water, and happy people.
* Checked out the chilled beachside Tulum ruins, tiny but pretty, and the Coba ruins too with another good tall temple to climb.
The chilled out beachside carribean version:
When even the ruins you visit have private beach access to pristine clear beautiful carribean waters with views of the coast worth millions, you know you're in a good place! Tulum, not too crowded and not yet big enough to be spoilt. Its a gem.
Staying here about 5 days was all too easy, and I had to really remind myself at the end that there is more of Mexico to see. One thing however did help, and helped me mentaly figure out more what it is about the ocean and beach that I love - while sitting on the beach on the 4th day, with a totally uncrowded beach, cloudless sky, chilled reggae playing behind me, beers served from a chilled bar behind, and clean beautiful wide sandy beaches, a single thought popped into my head "Where are the waves? Im bored!". Heh
I guess there is no pleasing some people eh... having said that, the placeis magic and so damn pretty.
The food, great. The supermarket, large and airconditioned but well laid out and cheap. The street vendors, not so good, but that kinda comes with wealthier areas... it also means you aren't getting hassled on the street though. I thoroughly enjoyed cooking for myself most of the time I was there, with some pasta and rice dishes, some salads and fruit platters for the heat, and just loving so much having a fridge with yoghurt and milk all around! Unfortunately they still don't have good real milk here.
The beaches were a little bit of a walk away, maybe 15 minutes from the hostel, but with free bikes it is a fun cruisy ride. I ended up riding heaps in my time there getting in a good bit of exercise too to try and burn off that beautifully tasty but seriously fatty and sugary mexican food. Fat mexicans, I now understant why. The beaches, as they are famed to be, are golden and beautiful, with noticebly soft sand and that beautifully coloured crystal clear water that the Caribbean is
so famous for. Many beach fronts are privately owned but there is enough free to use that its not too hard to get through. It does however also mean though that you have a large choice of hostels, more fancy places, restaurants and other stores alll on the beach so you really need to choose and here services and money has won.
Blocked private beach access in the future will be a very big issue here I think, as it is in many other places throughout Central America and other parts of Mexico already. Its an issue that shows of money grubbing government policy to me and is one that will seriously stick in my mind. While they claim the area next door to be an eco reserve, and that beach front properties are eco friendly, you can still easily see the negative eco impact that it all has. From trash from the goods sold, to isolation on the beach for people from certain economic brackets (the beach is something I belive strongly in being free and easy for all to access, especially to those poorer who can't afford other activities, and private beachfront access has the ability to
kill this), I personally don't feel the positive side of it. Much better to push the buildings a good 100m back and if need be, build a road that far back as well to create an obvious point where commerce cannot cross. If you want a drink or some food or to buy a necklace, walk over the road you lazy good for nothing &%$&! I don't think any of this can be blamed here on large foreign investment either, as it can be in other areas in Central America, as many places were Mexican and just full of Mexicans.
Anyway, besides whiling away countless hours at the beach, I checked out the Tulum ruins. Beautiful and small, they're a breeze to walk around and are a different style with an incredibly beautiful tropical setting, well worth a look! With a few interesting carvings and buildings with pillars of a new style to me, its buildings made mainly of limestone (I think) rock, it blends well with its surroundings with its shorter tropical architectural style, surrounded by bright green scrub, with deep green and brown tones in the surrounding trees, a sandy floor. The sight of the contrast of
colours, combined with the beautiful blue sky, white clouds, golden sun and sand, all projects an ultimately happy and healthy picture with so much good energy! This kind of place is what truly makes me happy, and I hope it did the same for the Maya and all those who have and will visit here. Being stationed here as a Mayan must have been the posting of a lifetime! Nothing to climb and muck around on (this meaning it is also well protected), it doesn't take long to cover but also has a good selection of animals hiding around the place if you get there before the crowds and walk quietly, unlike the Russians (2 bus loads, all big camera toting, loud, rude to other tourists, and climbing where they're not allowed and chasing the animals, they created a very bad impression on me as they have in other areas... the most destructive breed of tourist it seems). I know I make a reasonable amount of nationality based generalisations here, but they're true to me based on my observations, i.e. this counts for russians of the type that want to go to a place like Tulum to me, I don't
mean to make a judgement of all russians. Keep this is in mind when I talk of other nationalities and races too... I don't care much for political correctness and would rather voice my opinion and have it challenged and possibly changed.
My last day I cruised over to the Coba ruins, having to catch a first a first class bus as that is all there is (*sigh* rough life eh?), though I found it basically the same as the second class. Its a nice site on the side of a smalll lake, nestled in the jungle with a feel a lot like Tikal, wandering through shaded jungle paths, which keeps the noise and crowd factor down. The pyramids are much like those I have seen before except a little more square at times with much more use of pillars. The highlights of this place for me were the 42m high temple you can climb giving a wicked over-the-treetops view much like Tikal, and another smaller really beautiful temple with rounded edges in a very different style to the others, much easier on the eyes, which really made the site worth the visit for me.
Besides that, I
cranked out a whole bunch of internet time in Tulum while either sunburnt, at night, or while sunburnt. Did I write blogs much? Heh no, I get too easily distracted by other things... but I did get a whole lot of Mexico research done! Next stop, Chichen Itza, then on to Merida for some Flamingo fun!
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evZENy
non-member comment
Hm...
We discovered Tulum 5 years ago and it is still our favorite place to go (less than 2 months to next trip). Was surprised by your last picture. Mexico has some bad beers, which tastes like the usual US crap - Corona, Sol, Tecate, Superior). But XX is not among them. I would say Bohemia and XX are the best Mexican beers, that we drink even in the US. Negra Modele - close behind them. One of the discoveries I made in Tulum was drinking michelada - try it, if you haven't. For me this is the best way to drink beer now in warm weather. Cheers!