Warm seas and cold beers

Tulum, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

Our first stop in Mexico after leaving Belize was the town of Tulum on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Most famous for it's Mayan ruins sitting atop a cliff overlooking the ocean, but most folk stay here to spend their days sitting on the miles of stupendously fantastic golden sandy beaches. We planned on renting a beachside cabana for a few days while we were there, but after walking the beach and checking out a few of the available options, we discovered our money would buy little more than a dilapidated allotment shed with half the roof missing. We further ascertained that the same cash would buy a large cabana in town, complete with bathroom, kitchen, mezzanine bedroom and not a swarm of mosquitoes in sight. Sold to the gringo with the ginger face whiskers. We would take a taxi down to the beach during the day and eat our way through the restaurants in town in the evening, not to mention guzzling our way through plenty of excellent, ice-cold bottles of Corona. Not a bad old life. Cara even got into the spirit by making us some of the best tacos I have ever had in my life. We'll definately be enjoying those again when we get home.

The beaches here really are fantastic. Mile after mile of white, powdery sand and turquoise water with the sun beating down all day. What wasn't so impressive though was our visit to the ruins. They are decent enough, but a bit of an anticlimax after the other sites we've visited in the previous months (I'm trying desperately not to sound like a spoiled little tosser, but I can see I'm losing). On top of that, to protect the site from the coachloads arriving hourly from every point north to Cancun, most of the structures are roped off and you can't ramble all over them as you can at most sites in the Americas. The location is pretty impressive though, overlooking the ocean with the waves crashing onto the cliffs on which the site stands.

We spent a few days in Tulum then jumped onto a bus north up the Yucatan. So there you go, short and sweet.

Mik