I got to spend my birthday in Tulum! After Cancún and Playa del Carmen, Tulum is probably the third most touristy place in Mexico, but the hotel strip consists of beautifully designed boutique hotels, sweet cafés and individual shops, so it genuinely has charm!
I should add: the centre of Tulum lies about 3.5 kilometres from the beach promenade. There are lovely cafés and restaurants here too, but at the same time a four-lane (six-lane?) expressway (in Mexico you never quite know) runs through the town - so-so. And as soon as you leave the main road, the houses look very run-down in places. To say nothing of the rubbish lying about everywhere…
But as always I would rather devote my attention to the sunny side than the shady one.
If, like us, you are staying in downtown Tulum and not on the beach promenade, the number 1 means of transport is the bicycle. There is even a proper cycle path here!
So after a lovingly prepared breakfast from our host Ana, the first thing we did was set off to hire a second bike (one was provided by Ana). For a mere 4 euros a day we were in business!
Our first destination was the café Raw Love among the boutique hotels, since my resolution for the new year of my life is healthy eating (cue laughter from Jan).
And well, just look at the pictures: being healthy is not hard here!
From the café a sandy path leads to Tulum’s lovely beach. Incidentally, all beaches in Mexico are public. So you can lie down anywhere, even if the hotels with their loungers give the impression of a private beach.
After a few relaxed hours on the beach we wanted to cycle on into the Sian Ka’an reserve, because there was supposed to be a nicely laid out path there from which you could see many exotic animals. That is what I had read into our host’s (Spanish!) description, at least. Well, we cycled and cycled, but somehow nothing came except road with fenced-off jungle to the left and right.
As a plan B we wanted to take a picture of Tulum’s famous ruins at dusk, which of course lay almost ten kilometres in the opposite direction… But nothing came of that either, because the Mexicans were not born yesterday: while entry to the ruins costs 70 pesos, or 3.50 euros, during the day, they close the ruins in the afternoon for half an hour and then reopen them at dusk for three times the price. Er, no.
So after all that fruitless cycling we had earned a delicious dinner, and I finally dared to try the typical coastal dish ceviche (seafood salad)! And it all stayed down, too.
The next day we actually wanted to be at the ruins of Tulum very, very early, to be there before the crowds. Argh, but somehow we find getting up early hard, so we only arrived after 9. By then it was far from deserted!
One highlight met us before the entrance, where a coati had lost its way.
And in the undergrowth behind the entrance we spotted these beautiful blue-feathered birds.
The ruins themselves are a must-see above all for their unique setting. Who has not had the image of the ruins on the beach surrounded by turquoise water sold to them as the perfect holiday location? Well… somehow this was one of those ‘I have to have seen this’ experiences that then turn out to be not so spectacular… Perhaps my expectations were simply too high after a hundred postcard shots. Or there were just too many people.
The ruins are also all cordoned off. Which makes me curious about the ruins you are (still) allowed to enter.
Afterwards, at Jan’s request (!), we paid another visit to the vegan café Raw Love, whose chocolate fruit bowl ranks very high in Jan’s culinary top ten of our journey so far. And that despite the fact that we really did eat a good few burgers in New Zealand!
On our last day in Tulum we cycled a few kilometres out of town to the cenotes Cristal and Escondido, which lie only about 500 m apart.
The two cenotes/water holes are not a well-known tourist destination, so things were very relaxed there.
The highlight of Cenote Cristal is the 3-4 metre tower from which you can jump into the water.
Cenote Escondido is home to many small, curious fish that come swimming over the moment you put your feet in the water and start nibbling at you! Effectively a natural fish spa.
On the way home we had to break the healthy-eating resolution for the third time already: the ice cream at Campanella Cremerie is simply NOT OF THIS WORLD! ❤❤❤
To balance it out, in the evening we went - for the second time already - to El Vegetariano. At Jan’s suggestion, mind you! And here is the photographic evidence: his second vegetarian burger already!
At a most unwelcome 7 the next morning our bus left for Cobá, where we wanted to see the Maya ruins. That meant getting up at 5:45 - the bus terminal was a good half hour’s walk from our accommodation. So this time we really would be the first on the ruins site…
The bus arrived half an hour late, so we were not quite the first, but at least near the front.
Since the site runs fairly widely through the jungle, you can hire bikes at the entrance.
The main attraction is the 42 m, 120-step pyramid Nohoch Mul, which you can even climb. I say ’even’ for now, though, because it is certainly not doing the preservation of the ruins any good.
Past a few other ruins (which probably all look the same to you - to us as well) we went on to the Macanxoc group, which we had all to ourselves! All to ourselves? Well, not quite - a few monkeys were chilling in the trees of the surrounding jungle! Really a wonderful, authentic atmosphere and far more worth seeing, or experiencing, than the ruins of Tulum.
We were done with the tour relatively early. At the bus terminal in Tulum we had been told the bus to Valladolid, our next destination, would leave at 4:30 pm. At the bus information desk in Cobá they said there was also a bus at 12. Excellent!
Sadly it still had not arrived by 1 pm… There was a very professional, new poster with departure times and prices at the bus stop, but otherwise there was nobody who could tell us what was going on. So we gave up waiting and went back to the bus information desk at the ruins.
Yeeees, with the 2nd-class buses you never quite know whether they actually drive into the village or only pass by. The driver decides that himself if in doubt. Whether the 4:30 bus drives into the village they sadly could not guarantee either… Aaaah! And above all: he did not consider that information relevant the first time?!?
Alright, but we are experienced hitchhikers, so we asked the people leaving the ruins whether they happened to be heading to Valladolid. Sadly without success: everybody had to go in the opposite direction to Tulum. I had somehow imagined that would be easier!
We were about to bite the bullet and take an expensive taxi when the last couple we asked came to our rescue. Yeah! Together we drove on to a hacienda slightly outside Valladolid with a buffet and a large cenote. Not bad - worth bearing in mind should we extend our stay in Valladolid. Which looks likely, given all the tips from our Airbnb host.
