Day 4
I could really get used to waking up to that sound of the waves. Spectacular. The sun was rising behind some clouds today, so not as nice a sunrise as yesterday, but I took a coupla’ pics:
I loved the big windows in the rooms.
As the sun came up I took advantage of the early morning lighting conditions to take a few photos of the beach:
This is looking down the row of rooms:
We woke up the others and got ready for Tulum. We decided to do Tulum first and then have breakfast. We drove to the end of the beach road and parked at the gate. We then just had to walk down the short road to the ticket hut.
At the ticket hut were about five cats, all the same age and seemingly from the same litter.
I thought it strange for them to be hanging out in the morning, right amongst all the people who were waiting for the ticket guy to show up. Usually the wild cats stayed in the jungle – or wherever – until after dark. As soon as the ticket guy showed up I realized why they were hanging out. As soon as they saw his car pull up they all bolted toward the car. The guy got out, and all the kitties followed in a row right behind him like he was the pied piper!! The followed him to the side of the building where he took out a bag of cat food and poured it onto the ground for them to eat.
They all ate hungrily. He must have fed them regularly, they all looked pretty healthy. I wish I had taken this photo better, gotten more cats in it:
We got our tickets and walked up the path to the ruins.
Inside we were some of the only people here, and it was very nice to be here when it wasn’t jam packed. I was able to take some good pics that way.
We were a little surprised at all the areas that were now roped off. We could hardly close to anything. But the grass looked nice and green! I had to resort to my zoom lens to get some photos.
This was the only iguana we spotted, which I was surprised about being so early in the morning. He was more than happy to pose for the camera, though, and even spun around so I could get his good side:
I wouldn’t want to fall off the cliff on these rocks:
The beach below and the stairs going down are great:
I don’t know what kind of tree this was, but it was neat. See the moths in there?
I also wondered what these were growing on the palm tree:
I took a few more pics, and then we headed out for breakfast.
On the way, we stopped at Zazil-Kin so I could take some photos of the beach huts there:
We decided to stop and eat at La Vita e Bella. Reason being that I had to run an errand here for someone on the tulum.info board. Apparently a few people had been trying to get hold of them without success. So we went in, and it was really a nice place. It had some real clean public restrooms, and the pathways and everything were very nice.
I made the reservations for the person I needed to, and then got some contact information from the manager. Then we sat down to eat. I had the usual OJ and some pancakes. All of our food was very good, and the view was spectacular. I spotted these nuns walking the beach, don’t know where they were coming from or going to:
a closeup:
I walked out to the beach to take a couple photos there:
We returned to the hotel intent on sitting on the beach for the day. We lasted a little while, then the wind picked up really strong. You can see it in the palms in this pic:
We were being sandblasted, so decided to make a trip over to Dos Ojos and show our in-laws their first cenote. We drove in, and they both had to rent equipment. The equipment was absolutely horrible, I wouldn’t recommend renting there at all. We went in to the main cenote first. I love this place, and first took them through the cavern and into the bat cave. But neither of them seemed to enjoy it very much. Part of it is that they aren’t strong swimmers, another part was that their equipment sucked. Other than that, they just didn’t enjoy it much, but I sure did! I think this place is spectacular.
So we didn’t stay long, and John went back to the car to get my camera from the trunk so I could take some photos.
I had hoped to try the other caverns, but they weren’t interested so we decided to just return to Tulum. On the way out, I snapped a photo of this beautiful sleeping babe:
As we neared the turn off, the phone rang. I looked as saw that someone had phoned 15 times! I answered and it was Jorden. He was crying and told me that he had tried to call 20 times and when I didn’t answer he got worried and puked. Kelsey confirmed it. Yeesh! I felt horrible. I talked to him for awhile and explained that we didn’t get reception in Tulum, and I would call him back in a day or so. Turned out I would have to call him almost every day we were away, just to reassure him that we were okay. Poor guy!
We went into the San Francisco for some more beer and assorted beverages, and picked up some pan dulce (sweet breads) that I love so much (and missed!). We got some other snacks, and returned to our hotel. We sat around on our porch and vegged out, the wind was still enormous. The in-laws were so surprised to see these guys walk by:
We all went to bed early again as we were going to wake up early and drive to Cancun to shop a bit, and perhaps a trip to Isla Mujeres for the day.