My first taste of Tulum. Tasty!

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Our day started with a 0645 Hokey Pokey to the mainland, and Noa and Angela and I settled back into the bus routine quite easily. Sharing snacks, limited water, and smiles over the sonic boom of our headphones, we rolled into Tulum after dark. We managed to find a cute cabana hostel for $250pesos/night ($18USD) and quickly dropped bags, changed drawers, and found the nearest taco stand! Yes! Mexican tacos! I had been looking forward to this all day, and Noa remembered a remarkable stand near our place from her visit to Tulum last February. I could not repeat the establishment’s name, but it’s a red concrete façade with a tantalizing donor kebab spit spinning a juicy, crisped pork leg on the street side. Over the next four days of meals I tried that pastor on a taco, a tostada, an empanada, and finally, ultimately, and always after, the Gringa! A flour tortilla with Oaxaca white cheese and the delectable pork with a flick of grilled pineapple ... fill it will all your favorite fixings and throw down 50 cents! It can be yours! Ohhh man I am still dreaming about these Gringas! I must return soon for them! (BTW I now know the name – Antijitos de Chiapaneca!)
So we stayed in our own cabin, and just shared a fantastic hot shower with the other cabins. I am happy to report the hostel had another cabin that was louder than us – there was the really drunk girl yelling Happy Birthday to me two nights in a row and hugging out of control! Our first day we were able to convince Noa to blow her budget, (her last week on the road!) and we went snorkeling in the cenotes! I had been hearing a lot about these flooded cave systems, and was really looking forward to checking them out (from the surface first, I’m sure not ready for cave diving yet!)
A cenote is a flooded sinkhole of a cave entrance – usually a place where a cave ceiling has collapsed and now it has surface exposure. The water is unbelievably clear and clean, as most of it enters the cave through limestone filtration from above. None have river or lake sources, although some of the caves are anchialine, which means they lead out to sea. This is confirmed by the fluctuation of tidal levels and the density stratifications seen between the lighter fresh water and deeper salt waters. The cenotes of the Yucatan are particularly interesting, because when viewed from space you can see the distinctive semi-circle shape they form over the entire peninsula. These immense cracks in the crust are believed to be the imprints of the massive meteorite that struck Earth 65 million years ago and killed the dinosaurs! So cool for us, we can strap on a mask and snorkel the Dos Ojos (Two Eyes) cenotes to view the cave formations -which first took millions of years of drippy droppy water to form- that are now flooded with perfect blue water and teeny tiny fish. I now can see the appeal of wanting to dive down into that exceptionally clear water and explore the cave from a neutrally bouyant perspective….maybe another year.
On our cenote trip we met a fantastic Austrian couple, Hannes and Anna, and afterwards, spent as many dinners and dance floors with them as possible. Hannes always wore a shirt in a shade of blue “so they always match his blue hat” until he wore the electro pink shirt! Yeah! And Anna had dance moves and facial expressions that were as rich as Christmas morning every time! I really loved the live music and dance scene of this town. In addition to 70’s, 80’s, reggae, and late night techno, there was lots of salsa dancing and the rest of us having fun pretending we know how to salsa dance! A hot spot in the middle of the town, Charlie’s had the entertainment we craved every night. In our week in town, we saw a flamenco show, a smoking hot jazz band, live salsa music, and just missed the carnival show!
Our second day in Mexico we spent hours on the beach in Akemal just spinning our fire poi and playing volleyball with all of our new friends. Akemal is a beautiful beach an hour north of Tulum and it is a breeding ground for sea turtles. They are supposed to have some amazing snorkeling right off the beach, but the visibility was about two inches and we couldn’t see a thing! I will definitely return to this small village soon! As the sun was setting, a huge scary rain cloud came out of nowhere and began to pour on the perfect beach! So we all ran out to sea and jumped in the water – the raindrops hitting the crystalline blue made diamonds glitter all over the surface of the water. It was sooo beautiful and fun!
We caught a collectivo back to Tulum and went home to shower and change for our Playa del Carmen adventure. We were going to go up there for a few days before Noa left for Cancun, but decided we liked Tulum too much and it would be much better to use Playa for its dance floors only! So after eating at our favorite taco stand again, we jumped on an 11pm bus for an hour ride to my favorite musical escape – the Blue Parrot beach club – where we jumped, swung, and even salsa danced to the dirty bass! Yay! The DJ stopped spinning at about 4am, and we were led to another fantastic dance floor until we almost collapsed over our street corner pizza at 6am. We proudly retrieved our long sleeves we left in the unlocked bus station locker, snuggled on a bus seat, and arrived back to our Tulum beds at 7:30am. Good job on Noa’s last dance party night ladies!
That day was our dear Noa’s last of her yearlong Central American Exploratorium, so we slept for a few hours, and hit the streets early for souvenir shopping! I remember that last city before I returned home after traveling so long….after not buying anything non-essential, months of eyeing memorable items …. You now think -- TODAY! Today I’ll buy everything! I’m going home! Except we got about two blocks from our hostel and I see the Vikings game on TV! WOO HOO! We sat there for the afternoon, reviewing travels, cheering, and being merry. We did a little bit of shopping, and were impressed with the abundance of local artisan and unique products! That night we dressed up for a fancy steak dinner, Noa’s Last Supper. Our chosen restaurant served the pico de gallo and bowl of pickled carrots/peppers/garlic cloves that Angela had been eyeing all week! YUM! We had one final night of dancing, and a sad departure at the bus station at 5am. We sent our Noa on a two day travel challenge back to her home in Jerusalem, with promises of an E’Scarlett Fire Troupe reunion in 2011!
Angela and I were stunned without our third heart that next day, and we thought a visit to the famous ruins in Tulum would be the perfect activity. The ruins are unique in the Mayan World because of their Caribbean beach location. That being said, we got to the beautiful beach and thought, well, I’ve seen lots of ruins before, let’s go practice poi on the beach instead. We were able to see some of the ruins while swimming next door, and the view from the water was impressive!

After our brush of cultural and city life, we decided that it was time to move on to the “small villages” of Mexico. And into the jungle we went….
 

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