Tulum #2

Hello everyone! Kyla here this time round, for part two of our adventures in Tulum.
Having made it safely out of town with our newly hired car (Jem and I only just), we headed "into the jungle" according to Mama Sue. To be clear, this was the very edge of the jungle about 50 meters from the beach and bordered by a strip of Tulum's renowned healing retreats and exhorbitantly-priced hotels. But yes, a bit of jungle did surround.

We had managed to find one of the few affordable options in this area, a handful of small cabañas on the edge of Cenote Escondido, a large fresh-water sinkhole, one of 10 000 that this region in the South of Mexico is famous for. For a very fair amount, we had two interconnected rooms with a nice bathroom between them, and breakfast cooked by the owner each morning. Granted we ate breakfast at the table in reception, but the beans were very nice! Jemma and I stand by this being a great option, with beach access just down the road and the cenote surrounded by small wooden platforms from which we could watch sunset. However, as we also have to admit, the three days in our "Jungle Hut" (Mama Sue) did not go exactly according to plan!

For one, the heavens released the Wrath of Tlaloc (ancient Mayan "god of rain") upon us within hours of arrival. We had wondered what it was like to see the coast during a proper storm. And we found out! It rained for nearly three days straight in extended bursts that feel a bit like someone emptying a bucket of water onto your head. Let's just say we found ourselves Googling "Is this a hurricane?" once or twice. Pair this with  driving dark, water-clogged streets on the wrong side of the road, not seeing a single sunset, my laptop breaking, and feeling rather permanently damp in the humidity, and we were running rather low on Alzam.

One particular day ended with Jemma and I stripped down to our underpants because we got so wet fetching the car all clothes had to be abandoned. Just a little earlier that evening, coming back into town on the bus with my blessedly mended laptop, I'd encountered Mama Sue edging her way down the drizzly sidewalk looking lost and miserable. Poor thing had been sent in search of our restaurant but in the wet and dark had clean passed it only 10 meters out the car. To top it all off, in the course of that day Jem and Sue had missed the turnoff for their cenote, arrived at the Tulum ruins too late for entry, AND been ripped off by the coconut man (although they could not fault his coconuts).

Our slight comedy of errors did offer up a lot of laughs and some truly beautiful experiences of the South, though. To fix my laptop we had to venture into Playa del Carmen, a slightly bigger seaside town where Mama Sue was able to visit a friend of dear Meynell's for lunch. To skip rushing to Cancun for an early morning flight on a highway prone to aqua planes, we drove the day before, and found the most stunning seafood restaurant in the fishing village Puerto Morelos where we had our best meal yet. And to avoid some of the rain, we ventured beyond the cenote we planned to see to visit one that was more covered instead: Cenote Caracol. Wow, what an unexpected gem! There were two sinkholes, one fully covered and one semi-open, plus an ethereal walkway through impressive caves that reminded us of the ancient cisterns beneath Istanbul. 

All in all, our experience of Mexico's ritzy Riviera Nayarit wasn't exactly the Carribbean beach holiday we had in mind, but it was very much "us" - a little ridiculous, lots of laughter, and decidedly down-to-earth.Leggi altro