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Published: December 15th 2009
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Ok I know it's been a very long time between blogs. Nearly 3 years actually. I got a bit distracted, busy, lazy, whichever you want to pick but I thought it was about time for me to restart the blog seeing I'm spending 6 months travelling Central and South America. I may, if I remember do a summary blog when I get back about all the places I've been in the last 3 years but please don't wait in anticipation as I will probably forget. Anyway here goes with the updates on the next big adventures in the world of Sarah. Oh yeh, by the way, Princess Sparkle has not accompanied me on this trip.
So first port of call was Cancun, Mexico. I don't have anything nice to say about this place. It reminded me of Surfers Paradise but on a much larger scale. Absolutely no Mexican feel to it what so ever. I only really spent a day there which was more than enough and got mauled by bedbugs at the hostel. I really couldn't get out of there quick enough. As soon as I could I headed straight to Tulum.
Tulum is a little town in
the Yucatan region on the Caribbean coast. It may appear a little dodgey when first arriving from the bus as the town (which is a little shabby) is quite seperate from the beach (playa del Tulum) but it is all pretty chilled out. It has some seaside Mayan ruins right next to the beach and heaps of cabanas along the beach which I have been told were nice and cheap once upon a time but now not so therefore the lonely backpacker needs to be prepared to fork out a little cash or just settle for a hostel in town. I went the hostel in town, Casa de Sol. It was an interesting little hostel run by a local family. As well as providing me with a good introduction to the cold showers that I have now grown accustomed to in Central America I also got a front seat show on how labourers in Central America work. That would be in shorts, t-shirts, thongs (flip flops for the poms) and absolutely no protective gear as they used a massive jack hammer to rip up the concrete in the out door kitchen only to discover that this was not where the
problem was. But all in all it was nice little hostel.
After settling into the hostel I quickly jumped a bus and headed straight to Coba for a bit of Mayan induldgence. Coba is a Classic-era Mayan city set deep in tropical jungle. It apparently was home to approx 55,000 Maya at its peak (between AD 800 & 1100). I took the local bus to get there which was interesting as it just dropped me off on the street with leaving me with no idea as to where I need to go so I just wandered down the street and tried to make myself understood with my extremely bad Spanish to anyone I could find. Once I found Coba I hired a bike and rode around to check out the various ruins. Was quite a nice way to do it. After a couple of hours at Coba I decided to head back to Tulum, unfortunately I just missed the bus and the next one wasn't due to arrive for another 2 hours so I had to pay a bit extra and get a cab. Not my preferred option but it was getting late and didn't really like the idea
of hanging around.
My original plan was to stay in Tulum for a day or two before heading down to Belize but I ended up doing my Open Water dive licence there which took another 3 days. It was really good as I was the only student and it meant that I had the instructor, Leona all to myself. I learnt in a small Cenote which is part of the bigger ones so was pretty cool. As my days were pretty full doing the diving I didn't do much but did head up to Play del Carmen for two nights to go to the Riviera May Jazz Festival which was pretty cool. It was out on the beach so everyone just set themselves up on the sand and sat back and enjoyed. The main headliner was Herbie Hancock for those jazz lovers out there. He was pretty good for sure. I decided to stay one more day in Tulum just hanging out on the beach with some of my new friends and checking out the ruins. Nice day all in all even when the heavens opened and we got stuck in a bar on the beach as a result.
Can't say I was disappointed. While at the beach I met a Dutch girl called Pauline who was to become my travel buddy for the following couple of weeks. We left the following morning to make our way to Belize.
More diving ahead
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