Cancun Trip Report, Day 5: "Visit Tulum, For Sure!"

Monday:

The final full day of our trip, was a visit to the historic Mayan ruins of Tulum. The morning was a bit of a blur (mercifully, for you blog readers). We grabbed breakfast quickly at El McDonald's and met the tour group. We rode the hour and a half to the ruins with an interesting group of people. There was a couple in the front from Atlanta who kept mostly to themselves, a "FAB-U-LOUS!!!" gay couple from Manhattan, a British couple celebrating their retirement by traveling the world and...us. The tour guide (Arturo) was a nice fellow who accentuated every phrase with "for sure" the same way a girl from the OC would say "like, totally". We were amused. He was also adept at educating our group while also building up to a sales pitch for some cartouche pendants with your name on them in Mayan heiroglyphs. A great deal, for sure (or so he told me). We passed.

The most valuable thing we bought when we arrived wasn't the jewelry but the bottle of water. I don't know if it was the particular temperature that day, the humidity, the lack of shade, the jungle area surrounding the site or what, but it was the hottest experience of the whole trip. And that's saying a lot. My light blue shirt was drenched before we even got to the ruins site (it was about a 3/4 mile walk), and I wasn't the only one. I ended up at one point going around without a shirt on, not something I usually do even at swimming pools.

Once we arrived at the site, though, it was worth it. Not having traveled the world much, the oldest structures I had seen up to that point had been at St. Augustine and along the coast of Florida. Seeing these ancient Mayan ruins was astounding. And when Arturo explained to us how every architectural detail of the Great Temple Castle was influenced by the Mayan calendar, down to the number of the steps and the placement of windows to have light shine through them during the summer and winter equinox, I was astounded. To think they had to work out these calculations before they even started to build these temples is amazing. The grounds was interesting, including an entrance to a beach down a set of stairs on a cliff. Reminded me of the beaches in California, but the water was the beautiful blue of the Caribbean. An amazing site. We also saw a great number of iguanas here at the site, and they definitely had made the Temple site their home, sunning themselves on the rocks strewn about, blocked from the people by railings.

We walked around for a little while after Arturo gave us a brief tour of the site, but the heat got the better of us and we headed back to the shopping plaza by the parking lot before too long (getting a little turned around along the way). We had some Mexican ice cream cones and found a gift shop to cool off in while we waited for the van to return. We also met up with some of the members of the tour group, getting some good advice for future travels by the British couple. They were great... so friendly and full of stories. Hearing them talk about their travels on the drive home was worth the trip in my opinion.

After a return drive through Playa del Carmen (which appeared to have some amazing, and surprisingly contemporary, furniture stores), we were dropped off at Le Meridien and made a bee-line for the beach in an attempt to cool off. The waves were ideal for playing around in that afternoon and we grabbed the waterproof camera and snapped away. Then back to the pool where we ordered our prerequisite guacamole & chips and settled in for a few hours.

Later, we went upstairs and got cleaned up and decided to have dinner at Kukulcan Plaza. We were going to try an Italian restaurant, but changed our minds and went to the Mexican restaurant Casa Maguey once we got there. The food was very good, I had some salmon and Jen had her only fajita of the entire trip. We also ordered Key Lime Pie, which was our only dessert we ordered for the entire trip. We shopped a bit for souveniers and beverages and headed back to the hotel room to pack and get to bed early, since we had a full day of traveling ahead of us.