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| Central America - The Journal |
Ruins on the Beach
Day 46, Tulum
Tulum is a smallish coastal town which, due to it's beautiful beach and excellent ruins means it is always overrun with tourists. Our hostel provided a free bus to the beach (about 15 mins away) at 9am so we got up early to make sure we didn't miss it (the mafia like taxi service have succeeded in preventing a public bus service being started and in keeping taxi prices high).
With little else to do in town we spent the whole day on the beach, a wide, sweeping, golden-white strip of sand lying between a warm turquoise green sea and a quiet green jungle dotted with huts and a few simple bars. The beach area has repeatedly turned down attempt to develop, modernise or even provide it with all day electricity! Although this means its a bit basic, the rustic charm is kept and the beach does feel isolated and idyllic, despite the crowds of local and foreign day trippers.
The intense heat of the sun and the lack of man made structures meant that the small patches of shade provided by the few trees dotted along the beach were prize commodities and we were lucky enough to get one, meaning we could spend the whole day there.
As there's only so much time I can spend lazing on a beach, I left Parki basking in the sun for the end of the afternoon while I went to check out the famous ruins, still beach side, but about 15 minutes walk away in the searing heat.
The ruins were quite impressive, the temple complex still very intact and well preserved. However, the tidy and well laid out complex, bustling with noisy families and bathed in an intense sunlight definitely gave the place a very Disneyworld like feeling. After a little exploration I soon found out why the seemingly dry ruins were so popular...at one end of the ruins is a steep set of wooden stairs which lead down to a small beach protected by a rocky cove on each side. The beach was packed with locals, almost on top of each other as they enjoyed a family day out. For some reason, this beach was infinitely more popular with the locals than the wide and relatively uncrowded beaches along the road. So, the families plying the ruins were simply making their way to the beach and not really looking at the famous historical monuments!
I only spent a short while at the ruins, the lack of English signs and the intense sun which I could feel was burning me meant I was soon keen to return to the shade of the tree on the beach.
Later on, back in town, we had a quiet evening drinking cheap beers and eating DIY barbecues at the hostel while chatting with some people who'd just been to Cuba, our destination in a few days!
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To know the road ahead, ask those coming back
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