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Our final stop before heading to San Francicso was a beach destination on the Yucatan Peninsula about one hour from Cancun. In my mind Cancun condures images of a crass type of tourism, so our expectations of Tulum were tempered somewhat. Setting the shadow of Cancun aside, we had heard great things of Tulum's beaches so we decided to see them for ourselves.
Our first night in Tulum wasn't great, we arrived late and walked to the nearest hostel. The room we were offered was astoundingly bad - it was basically a prison cell minus the barred window (as it had none) with the addition of bright pink walls. We declined that offer and found a marginally better alternative offer elsewhere. Tulum hadn't started out all that well.
We woke the next day and set about relocating from the township to the beach (about 5km apart). After some searching we found a small place with five characterful cabanas leading straight out onto the beach and settled into our beach chairs for a few days of quality beach time.
The beach in Tulum lived up to and exceeded its expectations. It's the best beach I've ever been too. The photos will tell the story better, but turqouise waters, soft white sand, palm trees and good weather captures our scene.
Tulum is a special part of the world and in the absence of well managed and tasteful development it too could turn into a Cancun monstrousity. Perhaps it's Cancun existence that keeps Tulum protected, the buses full of five star resort tourists have their destination and those tourists who like a quieter more gentle experience have other places, such as Tulum. I'm not sure what the reason is, I just hope Tulum can retain its character.
The Yucatan Peninsula is well know for having some of the world's best and most accessable cenotes. As I understand it, cenotes are formed when the roof of a series of underground limestone water channels collapses revealling a maze of caves and waterways. Anyway, Mexico has some of the best apparently. We visited one cenote site called Dos Ojos ("Two Eyes") and it really was a sight to behold. The water is crystal-crystal-crystal clear and when the sun breaks through the jungle canopy and hits the water 8 different shades of blue can be seen. Pretty special stuff really.
Tulum also has some prominent Mayan ruins located right on the beach - which is theorised to be the first place the Mayans sighted Colombus. The ruins were nice, but Em and I found a better attraction in the main street - Antojitos Chiapaneca, a restaurant serving the tastiest tacos in the world. We saved the best mexican street food for last and these only cost seven peso each ($0.50)!
Now we're off to San Francisco for my brother's wedding. Then to Colombia, which is were I'll pick this blog up from.
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