Blogs from Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico, North America - page 11

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 ... read more

While in Playa del Carmen, we also took a daytrip to Tulum. Tulum is just about an hour bus ride from Playa del Carmen, so it was an easy trip... or at least it should have been. :) We ended up going into the city of Tulum after missing the bus stop for the Tulum ruins. This was good and bad. The good was that we were able to walk around and see the city. The bad was we ended up walking about five miles (at least) to the ruins. You may ask "Why didn't you take a taxi?". Well, my handy-dandy Tulum map was not drawn to scale and, so, the distance from the city to the coast was three or four miles but appeared a short walk away on the map. By the time ... read more

Liz woke up early to head down to Belize and Sarah would follow a little later in the day. We missed the morning bus to the beach but we had a great breakfast of egg/avocado sandwiches at a little diner. (we missed most of the morning sleeping) Following breakfast we hopped on a bus with Avi heading to the beach. It was a free ride because we were staying at The Weary Traveler. On the bus we met up with 4 new friends Morris (Irish), Isabelle (Australian), a Danish chick (her name alludes me right now but we will meet up with her down in Guatamala) and Martin (wandering man). The group of us relaxed on the beach and played some volleyball before heading back to our hostel at 5pm. From their we all had showers ... read more

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 ... read more

12th MAY 2009 - BEAUTIFUL BEACHSIDE RUINS!! I woke up at around 7.30am but after glancing at my watch, I kept my eyes firmly shut. I could hear that Phil was up and about as he was going on a diving trip at 8.30am and so I stayed in bed until he had upped and left. It may sound harsh but I wasn’t in the mood to chat to him as he pranced around in those tight white pants. He really was more of an oddball that the famous Daniel San (the guy we met in Fiji) and I would be glad when we parted company. Nat must have been feeling the same way as me because although I could hear her stirring she too stayed in bed until he had left. As soon as I ... read more