Our second day in Tulum turned out to be much more productive than our first day, thanks in part to an early start to the day and in part to beautiful weather.
The group from the Italian restaurant the night before had decided to meet at 9:00 am to head over to the ruins of Tulum. I ended up getting up early, around 6:30 am, shortly after sunrise. I showered and went out to the beach, where I laid on a beach chair and watched and listened to the tide as I occasionally dozed off. At 8:00 am, the electricity in the hotel returned and I made it up to the restaurant for breakfast. Okay, coffee. We ended up heading out to the ruins at around quarter after nine.
I really don’t have too much information on the ruins of Tulum. After visiting places like Palenque and Chichen Itza in the prior week, the ruins of Tulum really pale in comparison. Their main claim to fame appears to come from the fact that they are right on the shore and include a public beach. We didn’t have a guide and the information plaques were not particularly helpful. We stayed for around an hour, took some pictures and headed back to the hotel.
In the afternoon, I stopped at the hotel bar for a few drinks and some lunch. Afterwards, I went and did some work for my soccer blog and got caught up on the internet. By mid-afternoon, the weather was still pretty good and the wind had died down along the beach, so it was finally time for me to get into the water. Since I don’t swim, the beach is the only place I really indulge and I had a good time although I did cut my toes up in the beginning because of some rocks hidden close to shore. All-in-all, it was fun.
That night, after dinner, we found out that there was a carnival in town, Tulum’s annual carnival. A few of us decided to check it out. There were a lot of rides (mostly for kids), food stands and lots of stalls with vendors selling stuff. We had some hamburguesas and tacos for dinner and then rode a couple of rides. My favorite, though I don’t recall the name of it, was the kind in which you get strapped down and then turned upside down about 40 feet in the air. The best part of it was that there was a moth sitting on the bar holding me in shortly before we started and he was still there when the ride was over. He was a true badass. We finished at the carnival by sharing a bag of churros and then we returned to the hotel.
At the hotel, we stopped at the bar for a nightcap(s). All was going well – meaning we weren’t attacked by snakes this time – until near the end of the night when we tried to pay the bill. Actually, we tried to pay part of the bill so one person to go to bed while a few of us wanted to stay and drink some more. The person in charge must have thought that we were arguing about the amount of the bill because when we tried to pay one person’s portion, he got really frustrated. Eventually, he told us not to pay and to just have a great holiday, though he was still obviously frustrated because I think he still thought we were trying to get out of the bill. Finally, we just settled up the entire bill, grabbed a couple more beers and mozied down to the beach where a friend and I just drank and talked. We ended up staying down there until about an hour after the electricity was turned off, making our quest to find our cabañas in the dark quite daunting. Fortunately, my trusty iPhone turned into a flashlight and saved the day. Is there anything the iPhone can’t do?
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