Tulum

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For our first night we rented little cabanas on the beach right next to the ruins. You could see the towers from our beach which was also full of butterflies, very cool!
That night we were feeling a bit down about Dana's ipod getting stolen on the bus earlier, how it caused us to lose trust in these people, and the difficulties of getting around and with communicating with anyone. We discussed our fears and worries of the trip to come, something we had been holding in so that we had the guts to step on the plane. It was nice to get them out and know Dana felt the same.

We saw the ruins which were pretty unexciting, especially since it was deathly hot. There were hundreds of iguanas living at the ruins and were everywhere.

Our next few days were much better. We were reunited with Bob and Miriam and stayed at the coolest little place called Happy Gecko Eco Lodge. I felt like we were on Survival with the tiki torches everywhere and bamboo huts in which we lived. The communal shower had no roof and was salt water - our open air shower. Later we found a scorpion in another girl's cabana. There was no electricity at the lodge and they recycled and even composted! Out back was a beautiful cenote which we took kayaks onto. We went snorkeling in it but it was pretty murky and later when we were kayaking around I saw this large monster emerge in front of me which we later found out was a cayman. Someone had taken a photo of it with its jaws open!
I made a note to not swim in mangrove swamps.. Although we still jumped a few times every day to cool off.
Across the road was the beach. We had to walk through an abandoned house which we later found out was owned by Pablo Escobar! It was a totally private beach on the other side with a wooden canopy and swings.

This is when I slightly lost my sanity...

The heat was just so unbearable. We had no fan, and even the shade was no escape. My long hair was always stuck to my back even in a pony tail and in a desperate attempt to escape the heat I decided it had to go...
Unfortunately for my hair all I had was a swiss army knife. And so I cut my hair with the little scissors to shoulder length. Ahhhhh so much better! And it was pretty straight too!

With my new shoulder length doo, Dana and I set of for Chechen Itza. We missed the bus as our hostel owner Edgar got arrested "for no good reason".... but we made it eventually.

It was cool to see , but you can't climb any of the buildings and it was soooo HOT.

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