Tulum – 
Yesterday, there was a short, but heavy cloudburst for 5-10 minutes almost every hour. Kinda crazy and sort of disturming – I just hope it won’t stay like this. As we get up, we notice that we were almost eaten by mosquitos on the first night here. Those critters bite you in a way, that it really hurts – and they don’t seem to care if it’s day or night.
We decide to walk to the city. It may be drizzling, but we feel that this is rather refreshing. But first, lets find something to eat: We find us a cafe at the main road and have a super huge breakfast with tortillas, salsa, jalapenos, beans, bacon, coffee… Satisfied, we withdraw some money at the nearby bank, rent bicycles to get to the ruins of Tulum and buy a sim card in a mobile store. Yet, charging the mobile credit is only possible in supermarkets such as for example OXXO. Before we cycle to the temple, we pick up our swimwear from the bungalow – maybe we can swim at a beach close to the ruins?
The bike path we are taking is full of giant rain puddles. After some time, the puddles on way get so deep, that our feet are almost constantly underwater. While this is quite refreshing, you have to struggle more to overcome the additional resistance while driving. I really hope the weather will bet better soon since we cannot go scuba diving like this – or maybe it doesn’t matter for the cenotes anyway? Actually this should only be 3km to the ruins… yet, it feels like way more. Unfortunately we even lose our way and arrive further in the south (the sea should be in direction of travel). Damn .
A thunderstorm is coming closer – before we can turn back to take the right junction, we end up in a bar at the sea and order us some maracuja-mojitos with chili – Nice combo . After a while, the sun breaks through and we hurry up to get back on the road. The weather seems better now. Quite some tourists are on their way to the temple as well. The temple site of Tulum appears kinda calm though as the number of people scatter, the lawns are well looked after, so we can rest on the green and take a break. Some relaxing atmosphere . Between the stones, dozens of iguanas are crawling around. Today it’s not allowed to go down to the beach – the waves are way too high, so no swimming for us.
The way back feels much shorter. We return our rented bicycles and stroll through the city. I’m quite surprised by the amount of colorful graffiti ! Since we start to get hungry, we get into the “Caballo Blanco”. The waiter is extremely lively and is sharing his good mood. They seem to have corn tortillas here without any wheat. Generally good for Celiacs like Ena – compared to the north of Mexico which shows many influences from US, here the people will ridicule you, if you want to eat wheat tortillas .
Though there are several shops for souvenirs, basically they won’t talk to you to sell you something here… and if they do, not in a harassing way. There are quite a lot of handicraft stands: “Dia de los Muertos” ceramic sculls are being handmade and painted by an old man here. I admire how easily this complicated painting looks, when he does it. There is a lot of effort put in this. “Spend your money now or later? “, he says grinning. I decide for a honest “later” (with the expectation that the sculls might break while traveling – we want to return to Tulum anyways to scuba dive at the cenotes). Before we fall into our bed, we book the bus for Chetumal and the water taxi for Caye Caulker.
