Tulum and Tummy Troubles

I hadn’t left Campeche on my own since I’ve been here, (3 ½ months) so I decided it was time to go for an adventure by myself. There was another Puente (of course) for Cinco de Mayo, so I jumped on a 9 hour night bus to Tulum. Tulum is a modest ruin by Yucatan standards, but it sits on the cliffs overlooking those magical beaches on the Caribe side, which makes it a must see. I met a Morman guy on the bus to the ruins, and we decided to walk the ruins together. He had just finished his 2 year missionary work in Guatemala and was knocking around Mexico on his way back home. When we were up on a cliff overlooking the ruins, we saw this great little inlet of beach and decided to climb down the rock face for a swim. While we were body surfing in the choppy waters, this official-looking guy started screaming at us to get out of the water. At first I thought he might be telling us there were sharks in the water, but, after seeing no evidence of a dorsal fin, I realized that the beach we were on was cordoned off from the ruins and was off limits. It was probably the first bad thing that young Morman man has ever done in his life. (Mom always said I was a bad influence). I took this picture right before the felony was committed. Please note that someone was already at the scene of the crime, and note also the iguana enjoying it all in the foreground.I stayed at a youth hostel when I was in Tulum (emphasis on youth), it was cheap, but offered me yet another opportunity to feel even older than I am. Actually, the folks there were incredible, they seemed interested in learning a bit about a 50 something year old who was still willing to travel on the shoestring. I was equally interested in their stories, one woman from California was 3 years into a trek around the world. She started out in Equador teaching English, made her way through South America, then over to Southeast Asian, including Thailand, the Phillipes, Singapore, then over to Canada, down to Central America, finally ending up in Mexico. She told me she had no plans of returning to the U.S. any time soon. Another young man from Canada told me he had been robbed four times during his travels, three times in the U.S alone. I told him we make sport out of robbing Canadians. He seemed to believe me, which explained why he had been robbed 4 times. I shared a taxi with several of them to (yet another) cenote a few miles outside of the pueblo. This one, the gran cenote, was indeed grand. By far the biggest of the five I have been to, one can scuba dive way back into the depths of it, still, I chose the more timid approach and snorkeled around. There is something about diving deep into a dark tunnel that just doesn't resonate with me. Here is a picture of it. While we were there, someone told us there were two other smaller cenotes further back in the jungle. We made our way down a sendero (trail) where we came upon two holes in the ground, the larger of the two no bigger than a patio table, with a ladder descending down about 20 feet to the water level. The water didn't look all that inviting, full of leaves and God only knows what else, but when I stuck my head in the second, smaller cenote, a pair of Turquoise browed Motmots flew out of the hole, sat on a branch nearby and allowed us to marvel in their splendor. Now, I realize that bird watching is one of those things that either appeals to folks a whole lot or not at all, and that the vast majority of folks fall in the second category, but I really love to spot new, colorful birds. All told I have seen close to 50 new species since I've been here. (Steve, if your reading this, you probably will be disappointed with me, I remember you telling me you saw some 150 in Costa Rica in 2 weeks). Here is a picture of a Turquiose browed Motmot (not mine, I didn't have my camera out at the time). I couldn't help noticing the color of the bird's tail in relation to the color of the water in the cenote and the ocean in Tulum. Coincidence? You be the judge.

After two days in Tulum, there wasn't much left to do, so I took a collectivo to Playa del Carmen. Collectivos are mini-vans that are both cheaper and faster than the buses. The only disadvantage to them is they drive like a bat out of a cave (or, more apropos, a Turquiose browed Motmot out of a cenote) and you have to pile your luggage on your lap. I think of all the beach areas I've visited, Playa del Carmen is my favorite. Cancun has bigger waves, Tulum is more layed back, but Playa del Carmen has better coffee than Tulum and is safer and less populated than Cancun. I am going to try to make it over to the island of Cozumel some time in the near future, but not on this trip.

My Spanish is undergoing a little different test, it is always a challenge to change my environment a bit to see if my language skills are sufficient. In the clinic, conversations tend to be similar, and I have gotten used to saying the same things over and over again. Traveling alone, I have to figure out how to say all kinds of different things, such as "Qué sugieres para cenar, mesero?", which translates to "What do you suggest for dinner, waiter?" Had I have asked this, he might have answered "Yo Sugiero que usted come en cualquier lugar pero aquí", which, loosely translated, means, "get out of here now!" Had all of this transpired, I might not have gotten my first case of Montezuma's revenge of the entire trip. I will spare you the details.

More later, amigos!