Om Tulum Hotel Cabanas and Beach Club

... ride to Tulum and a short taxi ride to our hostel…. Whew! There was a severe temperature change upon arriving into Mexico. The heat was pretty unbearable, especially while we had on our packs. Also, contrary to all our other destinations, the heat did not settle down in the evening.

We arrived around 7 PM in the evening and checked into a hostel recommended by a traveler we met along the way called the Papaya Playa. We were ...

... have been around for thousonds of years. The Myans believe they are the enterance to the underworld where devils and evil spirits live.

It was a cool little drive through the scrub to get to the cave system and I realised this is the first time I have really been off the paved roads on this trip. After we got in to our gear and walked down to the cave enterance I was a bit underwhelmed. The enterance to the first cave looks kind of bright ...

... Ha, which is a national park and lagoon. The river and ocean here is STUNNING! We spent the day going down the river on the tubes, eating, jumping from the "cliff of courage" (adam wasn't very impressed with its height), eating, drinking, eating, snorkeling, relaxing, eating, drinking. So you pay like $100 aussie and its all inclusive. All drinks and food included!! So needless to say, Reen ...

... her house keeper we where on our way. I just want to put in perspective how wonderful Janet and Jack are. It was almost as if I had know them for years, as if I could trust them with life. So Janet takes us to the Bus station to buy our tickets, my Spanish is utterly broken and I am never sure if the " Uh Huh..Uh huh's " that I get from the locals are understood or they are just being polite, So we leave it up to Janet to buy our tickets for us. Just our luck ...

... view it... I do this for about 3 hours (well, in that heat, 3 minutes really does equal 3 hours). As I stopped for yet another photo op, a couple of iguanas come out from within, one making strange Iguana-Mayan warrior sounds at us onlookers, then, head held high, gracefully walks over to the stele and regally poses for us. Enchanting to witness the oldest species of Mayans still occupying this city of dreams! Most impressive of all is El Castillo, which ...

... limestone walls and beautiful water. Then at about 18m/60ft i began to see what allthe fuss was about with this dive site. A a strange wispy bottom appearing below with a few ghostly, bare limbed tree trunks and branches sticking out. As it becomes clearer you begin to feel the first effects of narcosis at the same time as you see an expanse of wispy fog below. At the top of the cloud you stop and look around, everything appears surreal and a spooky feeling ...

... it costs around 35 pesos each. the visit timetable is 8am to 5 pm, everyday. The whole site is amazing, it's set between small palm trees and other exotic plants. Buildings are well preserved. I liked it much more than the whole Chicken Pizza thing which I found a little bit too commercial. Tulum is more natural and the setting of it is breathtaking, so even if you're not ...

... means right. Yeah it took me a while to figure that out haha. After meeting up back at the bike shop we watched a beautiful sunset from Playa Norte which includes some of the pictures. Friday: Hammock all day. Absolutely exhausted from the biking and swimming and boozing. favorite new saying: "Que Honda Whey" The food here has also been very good and cheap. Eating outside the hostel we did pretty well by ...

... him to leave it longer that the longest layer. He ended up cutting it shorter than the SHORTEST layer. Itīs up above my ears. I havenīt had it this short since I was six. It was all fine until a Mexican shouted Muchachos at us which technically means "boys" I then started to react a whole lot differently to Collinsīslagging. So welcome to my new home page. From now on, you can call me Ross. The worst blinking thing is that itīs still bloody electric!

... We hadnīt spent more than about 1-2 nights at any location at this point and were starting to burn out from all the bag throwing and packing-unpacking. A week on the beach sounded fabulous so we went on into caye caulker and san pedro-ambergriss islands in belize. Unfortuanately the high season started november 19 the day that we arrived and priced went up about 5 times as much as before. a yucky room with fan and questionable flushing toilet went from 39 ...