Tulum

Our first stop for Spring Break was the coastal town of Tulum. It's south of Cancun, towards the end of the Riviera Maya (the Caribbean coast area). There's a large ruin site there- the Toltec city of Tulum.

Our hostel in Tulum was pretty neat. It was a little resort set in the "jungle" aka woods outside of town. Our rooms were little cabanas on the beach. They weren't very secure, as I could see through my walls, but it was a neat experience. Our beds even had mosquito nets over them. I liked that- no bugs could drop on me from the thatched roof.

Right outside of our cabana was the beach, which was beautiful. It was a private beach owned by the Papaya Playa Resort (where we stayed), so it was calm and not busy. We enjoyed being able to walk out of our rooms down to the beach. The negative part was that several people treated the beach as a nude beach. So when we got up early for the sunrise, we saw an older lady doing Tai Chi on the beach- completely naked. That was unexpected!

The town of Tulum was about 3 km away from the Papaya Playa, along a highway. We planned on renting bikes, but that never worked out. So we just got taxis when we needed to go to town. We found a nice bakery in town with super yummy treats for 4 pesos- or 25-30 cents. So both days we got rolls for breakfast, and saved a lot of money on that meal!

The ruins at Tulum are absolutely gorgeous! They are right on shoreline, up on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Very tropical and beautiful, and completely different than the things we've seen at other ruin sites. Tulum has strong Toltec influence, while most other sites in the Yucatan are Mayan-Puuc influence. So we saw some interested structures.

There was even a beach at the site where people could swim. We didn't bring swimsuits, since we had our own beach, but we sat on the cliff watching the ocean and swimmers for a while. It was so tranquil and beautiful!