Colectivo, Cenote, Ruins, Turtles, and Coba

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Colectivo Ride

Once we'd had our holiday in Playa del Carmen we headed out to Tulum. This was our first experience with the Colectivo; a bus/taxi hybrid. It has a set route and picks up multiple people like a bus, but doesn't seem to have set stops or a schedule like a taxi. It may have places where it will often stop since the one we took was common for locals to use to get to work at the resorts between the highway and beaches. It was a fun ride down a relatively major highway (the 307) with frequent and fast deceleration to stop for someone flagging the colectivo on the side of the road; also surprisingly frequent deceleration for speed bumps on the highway. With few overpasses over the highway for turning left, places for u-turns were necessary and were in what I would consider the passing lane again causing unannounced braking as someone in front of us was pulling a u-ey. Anyways, it was an unfamiliar experience, but an entertaining one and it only cost us MXN40 each for a 60km ride where we could just ask to get dropped off as close to our hostel without turning off the main drag (just took some planning on google maps to know what shops to keep an eye out for as we approached our 'stop').

Cenote Time

Arriving at our hostel earlier than we expected left us with the afternoon to head north of town to a cenote, La Calavera. Since we didn't plan that one very well we ended up walking half way then taking a MXN40 taxi ride that lasted about 3 minutes. It was more expensive than we had expected at MXN80 each, but it was a nice quiet place behind someones house; we got to hang with their ducks and geese (not in the cenote, just around it). The water was in a hole about 3 meters below ground level and very fresh.

There were bats living on the roof and fish in the water. The fish would nibble at you if you sat still for long and made us think that must sort of be how the things in the mall must feel, but we were getting it full body instead of only on our feet. With our sunburns starting to peel the fishies had a hay-day. At first it sort of tickled, then after you noticed and it went on for some time it started to feel like loads of little electric shocks. Dan would spend a lot of time on the rope swing letting them nibble away.

Until one bit his nipple.

That was quite a shock and he started moving around a lot more after that. We were able to borrow some snorkel gear from some other travelers there and got to see the big fish at the bottom. Glad they didn't come up for a nipple nibble. Some time passed and a couple SCUBA divers emerged. They had been down at about 55ft and seen were the salt water and fresh met, seeming not to mix. Apparently the cenotes are all connected to each other through 240km of tunnels, and eventually to the ocean. They were a big part of the Mayan civilization's rise in that it let them get fresh water all over the peninsula

Tulum Ruins

We woke up early on the 19th to beat all the tourists to the Tulum ruins (I am reminded of the saying, 'You're not stuck in traffic, you are traffic.' But whatever.). We were there shortly after the gates opened and we able to see them sparsely occupied. It was impressive to see so much still intact. Apparently very few Mayan cities were walled; this one may have been since it was part of major trade routes in Central America?

The signage was very limited and we could have done with a guide on this one. Still, we spent several hours here before walking to the nearby public beach where we spent another couple hours huddled in the shade of a 7 foot palm tree. Apparently most people will hire bikes to get to the beach, but we were up too early for the shops. That made the walk back particularly long; another 2 hours though, we stopped for shade a couple of time. A bike ride would probably do it in 30 minutes.

Sea Tortles

For the 20th we headed to Akumal which has apparently grown loads in the last 5 years. That was when there was only one dive shop on the beach; now it's lousy with them. There is some concern for the health of the turtles and their habitat. They encourage the use of life vests to keep snorkelers horizontal in the water and to prevent people diving down and touching the turtles; but rental for the full gear was USD35 (no price in pesos displayed). We felt a little bad for skipping the gear but had been able to pick up some goggles at the supermarket for MXN38, and didn't feel bad enough to pay the rental fees there.

We headed out into the water pretty quick to see what we could see. Ashley was turtle hunter extraordinaire while Dan couldn't tell if it was a turtle or just a shadow. We spotted the one and were tuckered right out; thank goodness for the salt water to help us float otherwise we never would have made it as long as we did. We relaxed on the beach in the shade of a palm tree for a while and reapplied sunscreen before going again. This time when Ashley pointed out the turtle Dan actually saw it and got a couple pictures.

Coba

Today we hit up Coba, a ruin 40 minutes north of Tulum. We took the ADO (main bus) service there and back, and it cost us MXN112 each for the return trip. It cost MXN64 for a ticket to go in. It had a massively impressive pyramid that reached well above the tree tops and we could see for miles around, the tallest Mayan ruin still standing I believe; though how any of them could get knocked down is beyond me. It was apparently a big player in the civilization before Chichen Itza showed up, and then lost it's influence.

There was a lot of walking in this batch of ruins, but with the bus times dropping us off at 1000hrs and our return not being until 1500hrs we had plenty of time to walk instead of using the 'limosines' or renting bikes. Again we don't really know much about the whole of the ruins but it was cool to see everything and have that time to wander.

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Photos

Akumal
Swimming with sea turtles.

Coba - Nohoch Mul
We climbed that! And it was pretty steep.