Tulum, Mexico

We spent 10 days in Mexico as part of our my Uncles 50th birthday celebrations. We spent the first 3 days in the village of Tulum and then 7 days in the Crowne Palace Hotel in Cancun. Yip, thats right. The place where all the American youngsters flock to for the warm weather, huge parties and the main reason which is the drinking age is 18 instead of 21 as it is in the US.

Before I get started, take a look at the picture of the Gov and I on the front page. Who looks more dodgy and possibly suspicious? I think I win that comparison hands down. Clearly the yanks have had an influx of petit, innocent looking girls trying to get up to mischief in their country. Through our groups journey in and out of the states, the Gov was "randomly" selected and searched three times on different days. Work that one out!

We landed at the airport and organised a hire van to get our crowd down to Tulum which is about 2 hours south of the Airport. After avoiding a few scams from various shady locals we set off on our trip which is always fun with a car full of people who have never driven on the right side of the road before.

Le Nuestro Petit Hotel.

Tulum is a great little town. Its fairly rustic, especially when compared to Cancun and so was our accommodation at Le Nuestro Petit Hotel. You can't drink the water in the village and we were encouraged by the russian manager to not throw anything into the toilet, even toilet paper after its intended use. We should rather use the bin next to the toilet instead. Needless to say that none of us could actually bring ourselves to do this so we flushed the dodgy paper and left dummy pieces of clean toilet paper in the little bins. (Apologies to the hotel owner if she ever reads this.)

We were also asked to only run our airconditioners when we were in the rooms. This idea, too, did not last very long and pretty soon we had our own private fridges to sleep in while in the sweltering heat of Mexico.

You can walk around the village all day and all night long visiting bars, restaurants and various shops. Things are reasonably priced and a few late nights were enjoyed by all. In the morning we would have our free continental breakfast at our little hotel which was more like a B&B actually. Please note the "continental breakfast" in Mexico means a toasted roll with jam on it and some paw paw. The tea is weak and the coffee is so strong that it is probably used as engine cleaner if not consumed.

The main reason we used Tulum as our base was because the very next day we were all going to Xelha. (Pronounced Shelha.)

Xelha

This was a natural, supersized water park and for a certain amount you arrived at 8:30am and left at 6pm. You only wore your baggies, water shoes or slops and a rash vest if you had any hope of sleeping that night. It also included all your meals and drinks and you could borrow flippers and goggles there. Some of the crew also bought tickets to swim with dolphins which they really enjoyed.

The Gov and Flipper

After some greasy American and Mexican food and a few Corona's and Margarita's we tackled the Cliff of Courage" which was nothing more than a 4 metre drop into the river, we drifted down the river on tubes and stopped along the way to ride various slides and rope walks etc. Once at the end we topped up our drinks at one of the numerous Corona draught machines which were situated everywhere and climbed into some hammocks for an afternoon siesta.

The place to go after one too many Corona's.

A few water rides later and even more attempts to catch one of the numerous Iquanas that littered the place we made our way home. Back at the hotel I spotted the owner playing a guitar for his family and felt it only right to thank them for their hospitality with a South African love song. I snatched his guitar and proceeded to give my best rendition of Ryperd. The scary thing is that I dont know how to play Ryperd but these are minor details, it was the effort that mattered. An unimpressed owner claimed his beloved guitar back with a growl. I could have sworn that my coffee tasted a little more funky than usual the next morning.

Next we went to the Mayan ruins in Tulum and this was an incredible site even today long after the Spaniards had done their damage. We were encouraged to hire a guide as, we were assured, this would add to our experience as the Mayans were ahead of their time and super smart astrologists or something along those lines. In the end we got some short little old man who had a big head and even bigger ears and rambled so softly that we couldn't understand him. We named him Yoda for his size, his ears and for the way he constructed his sentences with complete disregard for the laws of the english language.

Yoda, in all his greatness.

As I said, the ruins were excellent but completely overrun by tourists. I dont think I have a single photo without a group of people in it.

Tulum Ruins

Our next stop was at the Grande Cenote. Now these puppies are natural underground caves filled with the cleanest and clearest water you have ever seen. You walk down some stairs, throw on your goggles and flippers and slowly make your way underground as far as you dare, swimming into the blackness. It is an eery yet breathtaking experience and my brother in law and I had to do our best to coax our respective Gov's into the caves.

We commented on the Scuba divers that we could see 10 or 12 metres below us who were swimming off into the kilometres of underground caves, to which someone said that it was just the other day that 5 went in and only 4 came out. Eish!

Top view of the entrance to Grande Cenote

With the rustic part of our Mexico trip completed we packed up and headed to Cancun and our stay at the Crown Palace Hotel.To be continued...