We must be honest, we stopped at Tulum for the beach but it is also home to another famous Mayan ruin. So we decided although we had seen our share of Mayan ruins we would definitely check this last one out. Tulum is a funny kind of place being a very small, almost one street town. The beach is about 4-5km away and is really just a long road set almost out of site of the beach with small beach huts and resorts very spread out over 10kms with the ruins lying at one end. The Yucatan Peninsula in some ways [View Full Entry]

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Mexiko Nach unserer Ankunft in Cancun haben wir dieses Tourimoloch gar qnicht erst betreten, sondern sind direkt weiter nach Playa del Carmen, was zwar auch sehr touristisch ist, aber das angenehme Backpackerhostel "La Ruina" bietet. Nach unserem Checkin sind wir sofort zum 25 Meter entfernten Meer und haben die letzten Momente in tuerkiesblauen Wasser mit weissem Sandstrand verbracht. Absolutes Karibikfeeling kam auf und wir genossen die erste Nacht in einer privaten Cabaña. Am Folgetag waren wir nach vorhergegangenen 28 Stunden auf dem Beinen mit einer Zeitverschiebung von 7 Stunden noch nicht wirklich fit die Kueste weiter in den Sueden zu bereisen. [View Full Entry]

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Mexico 27-06-08 Mayan Ruins. 29-06-08 Sunday. Gabriel arrived at 9.00 am to take us to some Mayan temples. As we drove he explained that Mayan is the most common language spoken in the area, with the people bilingual, speaking Mayan and Spanish. Uxmal. The first was Uxmal, a temple that had been largely restored. The restored pyramid was built in 3 stages, each stage being built over the previous building. Behind it was an accommodation building in the form of a hollow square with small rooms along the outer and inner walls. The rooms were all constructed in the same way [View Full Entry]

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Mexico Haciendas Hacienda San Jose Hacienda San Jose appeared to be away from any towns. It was a sugar plantation but the buildings had fallen into disrepair. Their reconstruction is shown in photos in the reading room. There are extensive gardens, aqueducts and facilities that suggest the hacienda's former glory. Some of the footpaths were made of slabs of limestone with gaps in between them. Since they were not smooth they were difficult to walk on, especially at night. Most of the buildings were painted a bright blue with white trim on the outside and an orange-brown on the inside. There [View Full Entry]

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Day 14: Sunday 13 July - Mission Accomplished (3 bus journeys and Uxmal ruins) Another early start today. The plan is to get a bus to Uxmal (3 hour journey), visit the ruins, get a bus from Uxmal to Merida (1 hour journey) and then to get a bus to Chichen Itza (2 and a half hour journey). I don't know if this is feasible as I set out but I'll give it a shot, and find somewhere to lay my head if I fall short. Leg 1 is easy enough, get a bus at 9:15 which drops me off at [View Full Entry]

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Day 15: Monday 14th July - An early morning at Chichen Itza Nearly got locked out of my hostel last night - would probably have been a blessing because its a dump, but all my gear is inside so have to wake the owners up (and probably the whole neighbourhood) to get in! Get up early to beat the crowds at Chichen Itza - not with a baseball bat but there are a few obnoxious tourists there on day trips from Cancun who probably deserve it!! - rather to get there before its swarming with tourists. Chichen Itza is probably the [View Full Entry]

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Well after a week of Spanish and exploring Merida, we were fairly tired so on Friday we went to the local university and saw some traditional dancing and retired fairly early. The dancing turned out to be amazing, and extremely impressive; incredible tap dancing with Cuban heels, men and women, extravagant, highly colourful dresses, and it was sweltering so I felt the dances were really impressive if they could preform such energetic routines with zeal and enthusiasm, while streamng in sweat under such heavy costumes. It was just as well as we needed all our energy to travel to Uxmal on [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone,! I survived my first week in the yucatan and i must admit i love it! I spent 2 days in Cancun and then 4 nights in Playa del carmen. When I first got off the bus in cancun, i met this nice argentine girl. we were both traveling solo and had similar interests, so I have been traveling with her. Its great, i have to use my spanish to communicate with her and she corrects my grammar. so in advance, i apoligize for a not so well written blog becuase for the past week i have been thinking so [View Full Entry]

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test [View Full Entry]

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Mambo Cafe was just as much fun as sounded, and my slasa moves weren´t too bad. It was a massive club, with tables and chair where people drank while we waited for the salsa band. It was all very civilised. The band started and a few couples took to the floor and I could not stop staring, their smooth moves and elegance were amazing. I can´t say the same for when we go tonto the floor and proved how white and western we were. We danced as long as our legs would carry us, which was only till 1:30, knowing that [View Full Entry]

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