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Published: January 12th 2011
Calavera Cenote
Entrance to Calavera CenoteThe last few days have been fun. We've stayed in Tulum at Casa del Sol, which is a great little find here. The daily breakfast has been different every day & delicious. Probably because Geoff & I are totally in love with the hand made tortillas (pancakes one day, tortillas with cabbage & beans, tortillas with eggs, beans & catsup). Yummmm.
On Monday (1-10) we went diving in Cenotes. It was really different & beautiful. It's a challenge to maintain your bouyancy. I managed to hit a few stalagtites, oops! We went to two Cenotes. The first was Gran Cenote & you could see the light from the outside the entire time. It was amazing. Not a lot of fish but the structures (stalagtites & mites) are incredible. It sort of seems like you are in outer space underwater. The second Cenote we went to is called Calavera, it's the one that looks like a hole opening into the ground. It was very very very dark & I didn't like it. I tried twice to go into the deeper caverns where there was no outside light (we had flashlights) but I couldn't do it. My nurse brain went into overdrive
Calavera Cenote
Calavera Cenote & I started wondering how anyone could help me if I freaked out & needed help & there was this huge ladder you had to climb out to get out. No land at all to stand on. Honestly, I was tripping out about it! I managed to stay calm but didn't like the idea of being caught underwater, underground.... We had to jump about 10-12 feet to get into the Cenote & I couldn't get over it. Oh well. Geoff & Edgar (our dive master) went on & I went out bought a delicious torta (sandwich) & waited. Geoff said it was pretty amazing. They went into a pitch black cavern & then came back out. He said it was super dark! Yikes. I'm glad I didn't go through with it... Safety first, right? But Geoff had fun on the second dive, so that is good. He also went through a thermocline where the salt water meets the fresh water & when they mix together you lose clear visibility momentarily. It's pretty interesting. I got to see a moment of it before I said "adios"!
That evening we had the most delicious tacos al pastor (pork) & a fanta
Our Room #11
Our room #11 at Casa Del Sol (yummm) & read our books & were asleep early. The pig (not sure which part of the pig) was on this huge spit cooking & they just cut the meat right off it & onto your taco. Deliciouso!
Diving takes a lot out of you, even if you only make it through 1.5 dives. 😉
It's been fun to sit on the deck here & read in hammocks. It's also been interesting to hear the multitude of languages in the hostel. Just walking to the bathroom I heard German, French, Spanish, English (with an Aussie accent), a language I didn't recognize...
Yesterday (1-11) we took it easy. We rode bikes to the beach & poached some chairs on a beach near where we spent our honeymoon. It was so hot & beautiful. We read our books & just enjoyed the time & the sun. Soooo warm!
We've been sleeping about 10 hours a night. I honestly love it. It feels so good to wake up when you want & sleep when you want. What do we really have to worry about except the next leg of our journey. Awesome!! Also, it's very normal to sleep next to my hubby & feels like normal life at home (except warmer). It's comfortable & reassuring to have eachother for sure.
We went to the Supermercado & bought a bunch of canned food & bread & such to get us through the next leg of our journey. We're heading out to Punta Allen in the Sian Ka'an Bioreserve & apparently there aren't any supermercados, just mini-supers. Tonight we are supposed to camp (of course it decided to torrential downpour last night & still looks ominous so far today..) so we'll see how that goes. We catch a van at 2pm in Tulum & travel 39 Km which apparently takes almost 3 hours. It's a terribly difficult road to travel & from all our reading requires at minimum a large car & 4WD is recommended. But once we arrive it's a very very small village & pristine beaches & not many people because of the road. We'll be staying tonight at
www.cesiak.org (in our tent, with the rain!) & tomorrow we have a Palapa for 3 nights at
www.casasirena.com. We're hoping to maybe find a hammock somewhere with cover if it continues to rain. We'll see....
Oh, & on the domestic side, we've already washed our laundry in buckets & hung it on lines to dry. We did make the mistake of choosing the one night that it rained to do laundry. Oops. But it's now haning on lines under the roof. hee hee hee. Not much warning here in the caribbean with the weather changes. We also made a delicious lunch of potatoes, eggs, cheese, beans, salsa & of course home made tortillas...
So, we are off today, leaving the comfort of our hostel, which we have both fell in love with. It feels like home, except you share your space. Oh, & we have plenty of bug spray for Punta Allen. Everyone has talked about the bugs....
& yes Lely, my Spanish is coming back to me quickly. It's amazing how all those words are stored away somewhere in your brain & come back when you hear them all the time. It's been pretty fun & challenging at times. I get stuck on a word & that halts the conversation here & there. It's definitely helpful to know the language of the country you are in. We've watched a lot of people struggle because not a lot of people speak English. What's impressive is how many languages people from other countries speak. We Americans could really take a lesson from them. I've heard people switch from (for example) French to Spanish to English without a problem & speak all three well.
Also, I must say, my germophobia is not taking over. I'm proud of myself so far. It's basically a matter of survival. I can't dwell on the fact that there isn't soap & towels in all the bathrooms. Although I want to...I have to just go with it. What else is there to do?
Ok, time to pull Geoff away from his book (which I must say is a weird thing to say, he's not usually much of a reader) & pack our backpacks again.
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Rasta Wayneo
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The Hole
That's one big Hole!......not sure I would go in it either....