TULUM + PLAYA DEL CARMEN

Day 14 24.07.15

Today was an early start. Very early. 06:00 to be exact. That way we managed to be at the ruins of Chichen Itzá before any one else arrived, to be precise we were the fourth car in the line for the park / ruins to open.

I feel really bad for writing this, but we are gradually getting a ruin overdose. Yes the ruins of Chichen Itzá were impressive, and yes it is the 7th world wonder, but we seemed to rush through the areal loosing more and more interest.

We have seen the ruins of Teotihuacan and Palenque, which have impressed us a lot more than Chichen Itzá. Then again we weren’t as observant as during the last couple of times. I for example missed out on the arena where they used to play ball games.

However the pyramid was well preserved and we took some wonderful photos at the nearly completely site. We also checked out the pyramid of the warriors with a thousand pillars. I always find it very impressive how this sites and buildings still exist, are in such good shape and just show so many spiritual or political buildings of these old civilisations on one little piece of earth.

We moved on from Chichen Itzá to the town of Tulum and better said to the Papaya Playa beach club. What a change in scenery. We have pretty much only seen proper towns, colonial buildings, markets and plazas.

So therefore heading down to the beach, having a breeze sweep through your hair, hearing the waves roll on the beach, sitting in the midst of palm trees and having a great lunch topped it all off.

Unfortunately, it seems as if this is a repetitive thing on our trip, the wonderful blue waters were dyed brown by algae that are dying and drifting towards the shore. Therefore the water is just one big brown mess. As we didn’t go swimming but just enjoyed the sun and the cool breeze that was alright. Lets see what else will be brown instead of blue :) …

We then headed onwards to Playa del Carmen where we checked into our new hotel. It was still quite hot and we decided to quickly hop into the pool, seeing as we couldn’t go swimming in the ocean. We all met in the water and enjoyed a short dip, but unfortunately the water was really warm – almost like a bathtub and not really as refreshing as we would have hoped.

We all got ready for dinner and to go out and met in the lobby “one last time” since this was the end of the Mexico group. We went for dinner at a restaurant right next to the beach with live music which was just the best way to finish a great two weeks with everyone.

Email addresses and playlists were exchanged, and it was just a great time with everyone together. We then headed back to the hotel, where some of us decided to hit the liquor store and continue the evening together with predrinks in the hotel room and then preparing ourselves for a proper night out in Playa de Carmen. And what a night out it was!

We had so much fun dancing around and just thoroughly enjoying the nightlife in this town. The good thing was, at least I thought, that there was quite a large proportion of Mexican people going out at the same places – which to me is always a good sign of a party worth going to. We stayed out long to indulge in every last minute. Just such a blast. I am sorry for the blurry pictures.

Day 15 25.07.15

Today was changeover day and those of the “old group” that were leaving or still staying on did and met for breakfast at a place along the street. It took forever for us to get served and so we came back to our state of “hangry”… We passed the time playing hangman and Pictionary and then we got served the first part of the order – our drinks and a bit of bread. A fellow traveller from Switzerland and I were amazed to see German bread and we really took our time eating it without anything on, just bite for bite. What a sight after so many days without it. That was a great example for being appreciative :) …

We then just walked around – wanting to go to the beach (which wasn’t an option, as the seaweed was drifting to the shore too here) and therefore just wandered about doing a bit of window shopping and buying lost and new sunglasses. I even managed to bag an English book at a store, cause not having a proper book in my hands is something I do miss. I will probably hand it to someone else after I have read it, but I needed that little bit of luxury :).

We came back and relaxed by the pool just going over the great things about the last couple of days until it was time to get ready and meet the “new group” of people I would be travelling with the next couple of days.

After the meeting the group it was quite hard, because we had the old group come over for a last get together and the new group bonding together at dinner. We didn’t all go to dinner together but we quickly said our goodbyes, wiped away some tears and moved on to each others dinners. Its all happening so fast at the moment, that you don’t really get to have these emotional times that you might need to appreciate a situation.

I am really interested in the new group dynamic, the last group was just extraordinary - thanks again guys if you are reading this! Muah!

The new group is bigger with 16 people (vs. the former 11) and with several couples and an entire family travelling with me for the next two weeks. It is going to be an exciting time and I can’t wait for it.

We all went for dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and I tried a special Mayan dish – Molcajete. A dish served in a volcanic stone, which is so hot the food in it is still bubbling. It comes with tortillas, cactus, some pickled onions, and I opted for Cochinita Pibil (Unfortunately not as good as the one I had in Merida, but hey – the food can’t be the same everywhere). After that we decided to go out for a few drinks, returning to the hotel first and finding another traveller who told us about her whale shark snorkelling experience. Man, I was so envious of her!

We went out for the drinks and got to know each other a bit, which is always a nice thing to do. We even met another group from G-Events that were doing a similar trip to ours, but leaving out Tulum for example. I decided to leave after a couple of Tequila shots, and to return, as the next day I would be having a sunrise date at the beach with Kate.