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And the beach goes on
By mcdog | March 26, 2007
We’re up and out of the hotel by quarter to eight in the morning and for a change nobody, or at least nobody we know, is throwing up, Hallelujah. Stumble a few yards into the bus station, very modern and clean. Buy a ticket and onto the 0800hrs bus to Tulum, a couple of hours south. The bus is smart with reclining seats and a toilet but we don’t care cos neither of feel ill. So, a couple of hours later we’re in Tulum and walking out the bus station we see a guard standing, legs apart with what looks like a cocked, pump-action shotgun, there’s some kind of Seciricor-type truck nearby. He’s so still it takes me a while to be sure he’s not a statue.
Into a nearby eatery, Charlie’s, for breakfast, fruit with yogurt and granola and a big cup of coffee. At a table at the back there’s a small family group, he looks like the archetypal 60’s hippie, in fact the town has a bit of a hippie look/feel to it, feels comfortable and laid back.
A quick look at the guide book and we’ve chosen a hotel on the beach in the Zona Hotelera, no chance, the taxi driver takes us right past and tells us that it’s closed down, so we travel a few miles further. Call at a resort where the guests are all obviously ‘new agers’, standing on one leg and chanting something chantlike. When we ask if they have a room the hippie character says ‘I don’t think so’, we translate that as ‘not for your sort’, we leave, everybody happy that we wont be staying there. We try Cabanas Tulum; and yes they have a room but only for two nights. Cool, we’ll take it. The cabana is right at the head of the beach, and the wind drifting the sand in is trying to make it part of the beach. It looks like sweeping sand back is part of the local chores. The taxi driver has shafted us, the hotel we wanted originally is open and in the middle of a little holiday ‘village’, with net access and possibly 24hour electricity. This place hasn’t, but, hey, we can handle no access for a couple of days – just.
So we settle in and commence the dreary round of swimming and sun-bathing and eating and drinking. It’s very pleasant here after a few days in Cancun and we have nice neighbours( we seem to be blessed with nice neighbours), an aunt/niece couple from northern California whom Herself immediately befriends. The sea is not calm, with this strong breeze there’s a continuous succession of waves rolling onto the beach so people are keeping close to the water’s edge.
To a tourist, Tulum is just the main street and there are plenty of places to eat, drink, and buy sombreros. There are bunches of kids collecting for the Red Cross on our first night so I donate all our change, I haven’t even started to get a handle on coins yet.
I’ve been threatening to go for a run along the beach at dawn and on our last morning in Tulum I do, after swigging my last bottle of beer for a pre-dawn breakfast. Nobody in sight except for a tourist in a long black skirt walking the tideline looking for ‘treasures’.
We’re packed and ready to go by 0700 but there’s nobody about to settle the bill so we just have to wait, playing pool in the main building. The good neighbours (there is a festival in the south of Scotland called that) give us a lift into town in their hire car and we all grab breakfast at Charlie’s.
We buy tickets on a bus due at 1000hrs but by 1120 there’s still no sign of the bus and so we get something to eat. When we return to the bus station we have of course missed the bus so we have to get new tickets – moral of the story, Go By ADO not Mayab.
Topics: mexico01 | No Comments »