Playa del Carmen and Tulum

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Claire:
after a day of playing on playa delfines in cancun and visiting an iguana infested mini ruin opposite it, we met our tour group in downtown cancun and went out for dinner. the next morning we headed down the coast for an hour to playa del carmen, another tourist type resort. its still quite american here and reasonably expensive for food, etc. we spent the afternoon after we arrived on the beach with a little snorkelling just in the shallows (i found loads of little fishes!) then had dinner with our tour.
the people on our tour all seem very nice and are mainly aussies/kiwis with a swedish couple and a girl from kent thrown in. we have more trouble getting them to understand our scottish accent than we do getting the locals to understand our rubbish spanish!

theres not much to do in playa del carmen that cant be done better and cheaper elsewhere (mainly the snorkelling trips that we're planning on doing in belize) so we are mainly bumming about in town, drinking cocktails and waiting to move on somewhere more exciting.

today ross and i (and another girl called claire from the group) went a little further down the coast to Tulum, a ruin site right on a beach. the weather was stunning and we had a little wander around the ruins in the sunshine before heading down to the beach there for some swimming. the beach was gorgeous but a bit busy with other tourists. i snorkeled for aaaages but didnt see anything more than a few fish and ross tried out his new goggles. we might have spent a bit long in the water as ross is a bit pink and im lobster style red.... oops!

nicely burnt, we got the bus back to playa del carmen to find the rain hammering down with thunder and lightning to boot so it was just as well we went to Tulum for the sunshine really! (the girls on the tour who had stayed in playa del carmen to laze on the beach seemed highly unimpressed)

thats about all for now other than the cocktails here are fantastic... pina coladas for 2dollars! heaven!

next stop belize (after about 11 hours of travelling!) for paradise islands, world-class snorkelling and hopefully some more sunshine...

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Photos

us at tulum
us in front of el castillo. its bloody great to have someone to take pictures of us together!

big pyramid thingy
El Rey ruins in Cancun

ruins with tree
El Rey ruins in Cancun

another iguana...
El Rey ruins in Cancun

playa delfines
ross playing in the surf... in a manly way of course.

first ruin we saw...
ruins at tulum. these didt have good little signs to tell us what they were so we just took some preety pictures of random things.

tulum ruins
a view of most of the ruin site with el castillo (another one!) in the middle.

tulum iguana
ross just cant seem to help himself..

close up of mask
this was a mask of some god or other on the side of the building. i took a close up cos i wasnt sure how well u lot would be able to see the face on the further away shot.

claire in front of el castillo
claire from our tour group.

tulum beach 1
tourists everywhere!!

claire in sea
ross got hold of the camera. i hit him for this later..

claire on rock
i got the posing on the beach fever.

claire in rocky surf
this was a bit scary but ross said it would make a pretty picture.

tasty rocks
look craig... how fun to climb does this rock look? we didnt try it though cos the rocks at the top looked a bit ominously loose and heavy.

wasp thingy
a waspy type thing we found building a nest on the rocks on tulum beach. we thought it was pretty cool but havent a clue what it actually is. any ideas anyone?

Comments

[Craig Webster]

Tasty rocks!
I thought you were going to say "these rocks are tasty; we tried eating them..." how big are the rocks? No sense of scale. I'll be visiting there in a few years to do the climbing thing I think ... when I own a plane and can smuggle myself across the Atlantic. Yay! Gorgeous pictures!

[mum]

Fantastic beaches!
The beaches look amazing. Your wasp thingy looks a bit scary, how big is it? I thought your trip was going to be hard work, lots of climbing hills and lugging rucksacks! It doesn't look very hard at the moment relaxing on the beach and drinking Pina Coladas. Loving your photos!

[Big Col.]

Cmon Ross, Shows the burdz
Ross, Im very disapointed. All those fit Ladies and no pictures? (only kiddin') When are you due to go further south? And as for the rain comments, it hasnt stopped here since you guys left so a wee down pour or two over there really aint to bad. That piccy of that wasp thing is pretty cool it looks like it needs a cuddle :o

[Clairewebst]

Re:Cmon Ross, Shows the burdz
Sorry man been distracted with all the sunshine an takin it easy, i'll try harder for you. spent last couple of days in Belize on a chilled out wee island and now in the jungle near the border with guatamala. only been here a few hours and had to rescue Claire from a massive spider in our bedroom an a turantula. gonna go explore some caves tomorrow. pictures to follow.

[Clairewebst]

Re: Jealousy!
i wouldnt be too jealous if i were u... we're staying in jungle huts in western belize just now and have found a tarantula in the main hut and so far 2 wolf spiders (one 3 inches long, one about 4) and a normal spider (that was only about an inch long) in our bedroom hut. cant wait until we move to the next hotel. am off to attempt to go to bed now with my can of bug zap in hand that im assured will kill 4 inch wolf spiders. oh to be back in scotland with only the 2 inch meager house spider! claire x