Tulum

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Hello everyone!
If any of you happen to have had a look at my planned itinerary and compared it with the blogs I'm posting, you may have noticed that I'm not where I should be...
Today I'm writing about what I have done on the 1st and 2nd of February. The plan by that point was to be in Tikkal (Guatemala). As I write this, I am waiting to leave Mexico in the next few hours. So I am a few days behind, but I've also had a slight change of plan.
First of all, I'm behind because I stopped for an extra day in Campeche due to my poorlyness, followed by an extra day in Merida due to its loveliness and then a day in Valladolid because of my poor planning of the required Chichen Itza visit. But after that, the plan was to go to Cancun for 2 days. That changed over the recent past to a visit to the village of Tulum. The first time I heard about it was when I spoke to a French guy in Guanajuato and he told be this was a wonderful beach, not the typical resort I would find in and around Cancun. Then, as I talked to more and more people, everybody seemed to either be coming from or going to Tulum, so it became obvious that this was the place to go. As a result, I decided not to go to Cancun as I wasn't super keen on it anyway (I kind of wanted to see it, just because it's such a well known name).
Going back to the end of my last blog, I was about to depart Valladolid. I got the 2.45 bus as planned and everything went smoothly. The ride was only a couple of hours, getting me to my destination at a reasonable time. Having read the guidebook, the best bet for accommodation seemed to be a place called the Weary Traveller, 5 minutes from the bus station and popular with backpackers.
Tulum, as far as I'd heard/read was a little peace of paradise on the Carribean Coast, something along the lines of a small fishing village with the most beautiful beaches around and ruins on the seaside to top it up. Sounded like the dream so far. I also knew that the village was not next to the beach, but about 3km inland, which meant you had to choose to either stay in the village, which is cheaper but you might have to pay to get to the beach, or on the beach but then you have nothing to do other than being on the beach or visiting the ruins. I opted for the village for price reasons: the hostel was 130 pesos a night (which I didn't think was particularly cheap, but couldn't find any better) and including transport to and from the beach twice a day on a shuttle bus. So I turned up and got a bed in what seemed like a very busy big hostel, buzzing with happy party people. The best I can describe it is “Backpackers Central” aka, not where I'm going to experience what Mexico is about. It was full of cool people wanting to be cooler than the next person and talking about their cool travels (OK, maybe I generalise a bit, there were some nice people I got to know there!) The other way to describe the place would be as “The Ryanair of hostels”, for 130 pesos you get a bed, bedsheets, hot water, basic breakfast, limited wifi and shuttle bus passes. What more could I ask for I hear you say? Well, that's a fair point and if that was all that had been on offer I would have been quite happy. What I didn't like was the fact they were trying to flog you extra stuff: an extra 20 pesos for extra toast at breakfast, a bicycle for 70 pesos a day, day trips, sun-tan lotion, booze, food, you name it, they had it. I think it's great and it makes perfect business sense. If I was going to run a hostel, that's exactly what I would do. But seeing as I visit the hostel rather than run it, I didn't like it so much... And after 3 weeks of happy chilled places, being back to something that felt like a business (someone described the place as “industrial”) was a bit of a shock to the system. I seemed to be pretty much the only one to feel that way though, so I can only congratulate the owner for doing a very good job.
So for my first of 2 nights there, I went for a walk in the village (pretty much 1 long street with shops, cafés and restaurants catering for the foreign tourist) and bought some food from the supermarket, which I then cooked in the (very well equipped) hostel kitchen, before eating on my own and feeling like I really wasn't in the sort of place I wanted to be in. On the bright side, I got to watch some English football, so it wasn't all bad, but quiet little fishing village it definitely was not!

The next morning, I got up for my reasonably sized free breakfast and off to the beach and ruins on the 9AM bus. A guy on the bus started saying that you could get to the ruins from the beach and didn't have to pay to get in that way, while another guy was saying that you definitely couldn't do it. So I decided to go and find out for myself (and it also meant I got to see the beach straight away). This took me for a slightly tricky walk on the rocks (thankfully I had decent shoes on) until about half an hour later I reached the ruins, with the only thing between me and them being a barbed wire fence. So I turned back (I wasn't particularly trying to get in for free, more to take the scenic route) and went the normal way and paid my 51 pesos.
The place was absolutely heaving with tourists, clearly one of the stops on many tour operators list, so full buses of guided tours were meandering throughout the site. The ruins themselves were not bad, but nothing absolutely fantastic either. What made them unique was the sea view and the cliffs dropping into the water. It was a shame that there wasn't a lot of shade and I was REALLY far too hot. So in the end I didn't spend maybe as much time there as I would have on a cooler day. After that I headed back to the beach. Now, what I'd heard about the beach wasn't lies. Think postcards with palm trees and fine white sand. It truly was beautiful. The water was also turquoise and very hot and I got in super fast (anyone who knows me will realise this is not the norm!).
I had the option to get back to the village on the shuttle bus at 12.15 or at 5pm and it was about 12 by that point, so even though I would have liked an extra half hour in the water, I headed back to avoid getting too burnt by the midday sun.
Back at the hostel, the internet wasn't working (it had been patchy the night before) and after a bit of patience and moaning I finally managed to grab hold of the owner to ask him to sort it or pay for the internet café. It eventually turned out that the provider had made some changes the day before so no guests could connect any-more. He sorted it eventually, but it wasn't until the evening that I managed to get online again. So after a spot of lunch and a bit of chilling out watching yet more football, I headed back to the beach at 3pm. I could have walked (although it was closer to 6km from the hostel to the beach than the 3km they advised on the map) but I got a taxi instead for 45 pesos. It had gone a bit cloudy by that point so it wasn't too hot and I enjoyed a walk along the stunning beach and a couple of dips before waving goodbye to Tulum playa and catching the 5pm shuttle to return to the village.
Once I'd returned, I tried to do some catching up with the blog (but didn't quite manage as much as I had hoped) and e-mails. That kept me busy until gone 8pm, when I got talking to a guest who had just arrived: an American called Mark. He suggested going for something to eat and even though at first I said no (I had all my food in the fridge), it was nearly 9pm by then and I couldn't be bothered cooking (+ it was nice to have a chat with someone). I ate chicken Mole (a Mexican speciality) and it was pretty good. We spent the evening chatting in Spanish as we both knew we could do with the practice and had a good laugh along the way. Still, I was in bed before midnight, ready for what looked like a long day of travelling coming up: going to Caye Caulker in Belize – another added destination which wasn't in the original itinerary...

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Photos

Tulum
lots of iguanas everywhere

Tulum
at the ruins

Tulum
ruins

Tulum
ruins

Tulum
ruins

Tulum
Hurray for the timer on my camera!

Tulum
life's a beach

Tulum
postcard anyone?

Tulum
iguana

Tulum
ruins

Comments

[delphine]

est le paradis?? tu l'as trouve... SUBLIME