Cancun - Day 8 - Tulum and Xel-Ha

Oh my gosh - today was AWESOME!! We woke up on time, both feeling really great, got ready and went downstairs at 7:30am for some breakfast. We both ate a light breakfast of fruit and breads, and then made our way out to the front of the lobby to wait for our shuttle. We were really hoping today that the shuttle would be on time and that it wouldnt be a delivery on the freeway like it was when we went to Chichen Itza. Well, only half of our hope came true - the shuttle actually showed up about 10 minutes early (good thing we were out there!) and then drove us a ways down the freeway where we met our tour bus, on the side of the road. Can you believe this tour company? Why do they run tours out of Moon Palace resort when the buses dont even go to that resort!?! I think I'm going to post a complaint with Expedia over this one. We have no idea how long this bus had been waiting for us, but the bus was full, so again, we walked past everyone to the back of the bus. At least this time we werent greeted with eyes of flaming hatred. Anyway, the ride today was much shorter than the ride to Chichen Itza. The first stop was Xel-Ha, but only to drop off the people who weren't going to Tulum (um, another strange thing about this tour company - why not have two different buses or two different tour packages maybe??? Seems like these people need a better tour planner. ) So, we drop off a bunch of people, and then a bunch more people get on the bus who are also going to Tulum, but met us there from different resorts in the Riveria Maya. Ok. Next stop, Tulum.

Tulum is a Mayan ruin on the cliff overlooking the sea. It consists of several Mayan buildings and a temple. The weather today was gorgeous and sunny, mildly cloudy, and so it was a great day for a tour. Only problem - the tour group only alloted us 1.5 hours to tour this ruin! That's ridiculous and several of the people who were also on our bus were complaining about how short it was. Luckily, we broke off from our tour group this time to explore on our own and I'm so glad we did because they didnt even go to some of the upper parts of the ruin like we did... the parts that overlook the ocean. And it was HOT today. So hot and so humid. The water would just bead out of your body in giant droplets and you would be soaking wet just from sweat. I drank two entire bottles of water in the 1.5 hours that we were there and never had to use the bathroom. I dont think it ever even made it to my bladder :) One thing that's nice about the humidity and heat though is that your skin feels so soft here! It's like I rubbed the silkiest, softest, most moisturizing lotion all over, without having actually done it. It's really nice. I got some really good sun today though, and a little bit of a burn in some areas where I didnt sunscreen up enough, but it's a mild burn and doesnt hurt at all - tomorrow it will just be a tan. YES!!













So Tulum is filled with iguanas. They're everywhere and we've decided that iguanas are the guard cats of Mexico. For those of you who dont know what that means, on all our trips to Europe, we've always seen a lot of lazy cats just hanging out at ruins, sites, cathedrals, castles, etc, so we've joked that they are the guard cats of Europe. Well, since we have only seen two cats in Mexico as of yet (one really ugly one at the resort - possibly the ugliest cat I've ever seen in real life, and one at Tulum sleeping under a tree), and a zillion iguanas, especially around the ruins, we've deemed them as the guard cats of Mexico. I think we'll tell the kids that the reason there arent any cats in Mexico is because the iguanas ate them all :)

Well anyway, I love them - I think they are so cool looking, so of course, I took a million, billion, gazillion pictures of them today - and with the super lens. YES!!! I got some super cool photos of iguanas today and I am super happy. Who cares about the ancient old Mayan ruins - lets see some IGUANAS :) Seriously though, the ruins at Tulum are very cool. It's very pretty here, wide and open and overlooks the most gorgeous blue water you've ever seen! My camera didnt capture the blues as well as Stanley's camera, so hopefully you can get an idea. If we had more time, we would have liked to swim in the water, but we were on the Nazi 1.5 hour time allotment and had to get back to the bus by noon. Our guide even told us that if we were late, they'd leave us! So, we diligently made our way back to the bus and were there at noon, and so were everyone else except three couples... one that was only 10 minutes late, one that was 15 minutes late, and one that after 30 minutes, the whole bus voted to leave them behind. They made us sign a piece of paper stating that we waited the 30 minutes, looked all around for them and unanimously voted to leave them behind. Those poor people. And, to make it worse, after we were on the road, the guide told us all over the intercom that one of them was deaf, so maybe that's why they didnt come back on time. Ouch - stab to the heart! I think several people felt bad about that because they were making comments on the bus about it on our way back at the end of the day. I hope that couple found their way to Xel-Ha and didnt have too much trouble because of it. That would suck so bad to get left behind!!!











Anyway, after Tulum, we went back to Xel-Ha and were given free time to do what we wanted until 5:30pm. It was about 1:00pm when we got there, so that seemed like a better amount of time to explore. Xel-Ha is a giant natural lagoon where the fresh waters of the rivers meet the salt waters of the ocean. The fresh waters are cool and clear and the ocean waters are warm and foggy and you can snorkel all around and see lots of super cool fish and underwater coolness in the warm and cold waters. So, when we got there we were assigned our lockers which we could store our stuff in, and then we changed into our swim gear and locked up all our belongings. This park is all inclusive, so the restaurants, drinks, etc are all free. There were a couple of great buffet restaurants by the locker stations, but we decided to eat after we snorkeled. So, we checked out our free snorkel gear and caught a little train up the park to the start of the river. After gearing up, we entered the water at the start of the river and were instantly carried slowly down the way out into the lagoon. I must say that I was very excited to snorkel here because everything I'd read about Xel-Ha said that it was crystal clear waters with amazing sea life. Well, it was quite the opposite. The waters were far from clear, in fact, most of the time they were very murky and kind of creepy - like we were snorkeling in Utah Lake. There was cool sea life, but only fish and most of the time you could barely see them. Occasionally we would run into clear pocket and we would see some pretty cool stuff, but it would murk up pretty quickly, or there would be so many other snorkelers and tubers around us that it would be hard to enjoy it. But, enjoy it we did, even with the murk and the crowds. We saw a barracuda, some cool zebra fish, a lot of parrot fish, lots of little sardine looking fish, schools of large fish that looked kind of like tuna, and some cool black fish with blue fins. It was really cool too to be in the colder waters up toward the top of the river and then get into the mixtures of warmer waters down by the ocean and the water is SO warm. It made us both wish we had the extra time at Tulum to swim in the ocean. Maybe tomorrow at Xcaret we'll have something oceany to swim in.

After spending a couple of hours in the water, we decided to come back to land and try the restaurant and then relax in the hammocks they have hanging all over the park. So, we turned in our snorkel gear, wrapped up in towels and went over to the international buffet restaurant to eat some lunch. By this time it was 4:00pm and we had just enough time to eat (the food was excellent by the way and I did not suffer from any digestive issues - HOORAY!!!), then walk up the path to one of the hammock areas. These hammocks were nice and comfy and we swung in them until 4:45pm - even observed a giant lone ant trekking across the sand with determination. The mosquitos were pretty bad though and since we didnt want to catch some horrifying mosquito born illness, we decided to walk back to the locker room and pack up. I changed into some dry clothes, and took out my camera so we could take some pictures as we were heading out of the park. I got some more great pictures of iguanas, some of the fish that we could see through the water, some of the hammocks, and some of the dolphins in the dolphin pool. They have a "Swim With The Dolphins" thing you can do here and Stanley and I both think it's cruel... Dolphins are such amazing creatures and they just cant be happy living in captivity being molested by humans all day long who think it's cool to swim with them. C'mon now - it's just mean! Poor little dolphins!










On our way out of the park there was a really cool vendor selling original artwork of Mayan and Aztec pictures he'd created on leather by burning the picture into the leather and then painting them with brilliant colors. I have not yet on this trip had any swag jump out at me, so I havent bought anything yet, until today. These pictures just screamed at me to buy them, so I did and it's awesome. I cant wait to get it home and frame it for my office :) We connected up with our tour bus, but they had arranged a shuttle to take us directly back to Moon Palace along with some other stops to other passengers resorts as well. That was nice and the driver was swift in his returning everyone to their locations. I swear it felt like he was driving 100 mph, tailgating, weaving in and out of lanes, passing, etc. They drive crazy here in Mexico too - I guess they drive crazy everywhere! We got back to the resort pretty quickly though and the first thing I did was come up to the room to take a shower... it felt so nice! Stanley and I ordered a light room service dinner and he enjoyed a cigar on the patio while I'm typing this. What a great day!!!




Tomorrow - Xcaret. We're excited to go and hopefully we'll come back with some great pictures!!!!