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Published: August 29th 2007
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They call the stretch of land down the east coast of the Yucatan peninsula the Mayan Riviera. It is a great spot on the carribean sea with white sand beaches, the most amazingly blue sea bordered by jungle.
Ben was dreading the thought of ´beach days´ but I really wanted to stop here and enjoy the coast.
Our first stop was Tulum, and we picked up an overpriced cabaña on the beach. Cabaña sounds reasonably romantic, but it was little more than a concrete floor (some were just sand), some sticks for walls and a thatch roof. We walked in to find a crab had already claimed the room and it snapped at our toes before scuttling under the bed.
The setting was superb. We were right on the beach and we could see tracks in the sand where the sea turtles come ashore.
Unfortunately, it was the middle of the rainy season. The next morning at breakfast, a huge storm blew in. The staff had to batten down the hatches of the bar and resaurant (i.e. put up some plastic sheets, while all those who were on the beach ran up and huddled by our tables
in their bikinis clutching their towels). The wind got up and the rain was coming in sideways. We had to wait a few hours for breakfast because the cooks were busy trying to stop the flow of water getting into the kitchen. After some time, the wind and rain died down and the sun came out.
In an attempt to avoid further beach time, Ben insisted we go and see the ruins at Tulum. The rulers of this place picked an awesome spot, up on a cliff overlooking a beach.
That night, we lay awake under our little light. We couldn´t figure out how to turn it off without touching live wires, so waited, watching the geckos eat mosquitos, until the generator turned off. During the night, the wind and rain started up again. It was blowing sea spray in off the beach and onto us in our bed. We raced around and tried to plug the gaps between the sticks using any item at our disposal - mostly items of clothing and the odd shoe. We stayed dry for the rest of the night, but must have upset our mosquito defences. Ben woke up with a swollen
eye - so much so that it looked like someone had punched him.
The next day was my birthday, however, by the end of the day I decided to postpone it. It rained all day. We got hustled by a mexican waiter who gave us the wrong bill, and shortchanged us. When the weather looked like it was going to clear, we tried to go to this nice private beach a bit to the south. We ended up stuck on a small rural road, just as the skies opened, with only a little broken upbrella, a large dutch guy, and no taxi in sight. Finally, some locals took pity on us bedraggled souls and picked us up. Me, Ben and the large dutch guy were bundled into the back of their tiny fiat uno. At some point during the trip back to Tulum, Ben got a numb testicle. And so it was that I ended up at an internet cafe, watching the rain, on my birthday.
We decided we had to make a little detour and go up and see Cancun in all its developed grandeur. We stayed in the seedy downtown area, but caught the bus to
´the strip´ to spot rich tourists. The beach is public there, so we found a nice spot right in front of the Hilton. The beach is pretty scabby though. It looks pretty, but the sand is sharp and grazing and the waves dump you on the beach and rip your bikini from your body. We later learnt the red flags were not saying ´swim here, there is a lifeguard´, rather it was saying ´dont swim, too dangerous´. We ate lunch while watching people getting spanked in the waves.
Isla Mujeres is an antidote to Cancun. It is only 45 mins or so by ferry, but the place was small, nice and the people friendly. We spent most of the time swimming and snorkelling. Anything else more energetic would have been suicide in the heat.
As an afterword, our little cabaña on the beach is probably somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico now, as the area got smacked by Hurricane Dean.
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