Rancho Tranquilo Tulum

3-2-09 Tracy and I are just sitting down to our last coffee at Uolis Nah in Tulum be fore moving to our cheaper accommodations at Rancho Tranquilo which is also in Tulum. This was all part of the plan to stay in a nice place to get us started, then move to a more budget oriented vacation. Yesterday was a full day of walking. We checked out the ruins in the north end of Tulum, which were built right on the beautiful cliffs of the Rivièra Maya. The pictures don't do it justice of course. After ...

We've covered a lot of ground in the last few days, but there's really not that much to tell as it's all been quite easy. A three hour bus ride got us from the coast to Valladolid, a small colonial town to the west. The ride itself was entirely uneventful, on a laser straight 2 lane highway sliced out of the jungle. We passed through at least a dozen lethargic little farm towns along the way, all looking like they had been air dropped into place 75 years ago and not changed much since. We wer...

Got our Wicksys address. Yay for that. We slept in a little today to balance out the fast pace at which we travel. We like this way because we see more and spend less on accommodation. Vallodolid is colonial and less touristy than Merida. The women wear the traditional white dress with coloured flowers and quality of life is a little poorer yet very happy here. Motorbikes are the go with baby at the front, dad driving then mum on the back although many women ride alone too. The washing lines ...

Completely adored the Carribbean at Tulum even though it is the rainy season and mosquitos are plentiful. The Aussie lemon and eucalyptus blend rub with no DEET is good (DEET melts plastic) and aloe vera is also a good repellant. We planned to leave our luggage in Tulum City and take just the necessities to the beach because we heard that there is lots of theft from the beach cabanas. We winged it anyway after leaving Rancho Tranquillo who tried to pull a swifty on us by not doing the laundry...

rancho tranquilo: - one of the best places we have stayed; well run, great crew, clean/big kitchen, industrial bbq, sitting areas, etc, etc.. - not cheap however (this is the yuctan penninsula), had a nice little cabana (hut), stayed pretty cool, all that we needed. - little fish co-op only 20 metres away, used the bbq to roast up a couple of delicious whole fish on 3 occasions. Beach: - 6 kms to the beach, a nice shady bike path most of the way (we had sweet bmx's with easyrider handlebars ...