Tulum Mexico

Jan Fryer

Susan and Deb Chaney

Middle of May, we took a break from all of our RV travels and flew to Tulum Mexico and met up with seven friends from Oregon for 10 days.  We had a wonderful, relaxing time, eating, drinking, sleeping, swimming, playing and getting caught up.

Stan and Jane Smith

Carole and Vince Pepe

Terri and Deane

Big Room

Kitchen

back of house from beach

view from deck

Deb arranged for our residence for the 10 days.  A beautiful 5 bedroom/bath home with our own private beach on the ocean, and our own 'houseboy' Freddie.  He supplied us with a breakfast of fresh fruits, coffee, cereals and breads every morning.  He also cleaned, made beds, changed sheets, and even climbed a palm tree a couple of times to get us coconuts.

Carole and Deb drinking coconut milk

 



 

Beach Beds

We ate and drank well.  A pitcher of margaritas was always in the fridge.   Deb and Susan made their famous guacamole and pico de gallo, and after noon each day, it became 'happy hour'.  For dinner, we managed to eat in a different restaurant each night.  We did find a couple places we liked and made a second visits.  In between eating, sleeping and spending most of our days swimming in the ocean and laying on the beach beds, we managed to do some sightseeing.



Iguanas were everywhere and we did see a Great Heron on our float, and while in the ruins, we saw a beautiful Turquoise headed Mud Mat.

Big daddy and his harem

Feeding watermelon on
our deck

Turquoise Headed
Mud Mat

SPIDER MONEY SANCTUARY

One of our first outings was to a Spider Monkey Sanctuary that is a fairly new endeavor, less than a year old.   Some of the monkeys have 2.7 acres of open air area in their natural environment. They jump and play in trees that are over 15 feet tall, safe from predators.

Deb and Jane scratching
Mimi's back

Richard the owner, has been involved in monkey rescue and rehabilitation for over 20 years. Motivated by his love for animals and concern for their well being he started to provide food and shelter for monkeys that had been previously used in gift shops and restaurants as photo-ops for tourists. These animals normally had inadequate diets, exercise and no social interaction with other monkeys.

His rescue monkeys are placed in large screened cages until they can  be rehabilitated and released to the larger free area.

mom and baby

The Tulum Monkey Sanctuary is only one part of the 40 acre
ranch that is also home to white tail deer, horses, burros, ducks, iguanas, and countless species of birds and a crocodile.

After our visit with the monkeys, we were treated to a swim in the Cenote

Carole jumping into Cenote

on the property.  It was hot and humid that day and the water very refreshing.  One  way into the cenote was to jump down the 'rabbit hole'.  Carole and Vince were the only ones gutsy enough...rest of us walked down the stairs.

Everyone in the Cenote cooling
off

At the end of the tour, we were all invited to Richards house in the Sanctuary for margaritas.  We sat on his deck and some swam in his pool as we learned more about Richard and his dreams for the sanctuary.







TULUM RUINS

We took a day off between tours, so our next tour was when Deane and I headed to the Tulum ruins while others headed to Chichen Itza or stayed home.   The Mayan city here in Tulum was the main port where Mayan's from all of the cities on the Yucatan traded with others from Belize and northern Mexico.
A beautiful and defensive location, the town was set on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  Protecting the shoreline is a coral reef which runs parallel with the land.  It is about 1/2 mile out and would make it difficult for any boat to cross and get to shore.  But the Mayans found a break that allowed them to go beyond the reef to fish and allow those wishing to trade, to enter.

During the day you can see where the break is, for there is less
wave activity in that spot.  But at night, it would be difficult to find.  The Mayans figured that one out too, by building a structure that had small window type openings where they would burn a fire for light that shown like a beacon.  As a boat was sailing by, if they saw both lights they knew they were at the place where they could pass.  If they saw only one light, either on right or left, they could not pass.

It is still amazing these structures were build over a 1000 years ago, and remnants are still being discovered. Even more amazing are the astrological and architectural knowledge they possessed.

 

 

 

LABNAHA CENOTE 

 

Deane ziplining

zip lining across the lake

The third tour we took and the one we had the most fun doing, was visiting Labnaha Cenote. 

As it turned out, the first part of our excursion was to a little lake we visited last year.  Here we zip lined across a lake, canoed back and then swam and snorkeled in an open cenote.

 

Canoeing the lake

 

 

After having lunch of a ham and cheese sandwich we were loaded into a van with 7 other people and driven about a mile down a very bumpy road getting a "Mexican massage" to an underground cenote.                                                                                  

Stalagtites

We climbed down about 50 feet into crystal clear water and were led through caverns, swimming around stalagmites and stalactites, and with our goggles, looking down into the water to see where the underground river flowed.  There are no rivers above ground on the Yucatan Peninsula.  All of the rivers flow underground and are connected.  The land there is limestone and the cenotes are created when the land collapses.  Scuba divers love the cenotes as they can swim the underground river hooked to a line placed by divers that have explored the many miles underground.

Deane and Terri

Carole and Vince

Jan

SIAN KA'AN BIOSPHERE

Our last tour was to the Sian Ka'an  biosphere reserve.  We opted for a tour

Quicksand in front of boats

of the Chunyaxche lagoon and canals made by the Mayans to travel from the ocean back to the mainland.  As we were to get into our boat, we were instructed not to step off the boardwalk as there was quicksand on the beach.  Into the boat we went and off across the lagoon to the canal. 






going across the lagoon

going down canal

We moored at a small dock and from there we donned life jackets
to float down the canal.  But wait!!!!! we did not wear the life jackets the 'normal' way with arms through the holes.  Nope.....we were instructed to step into the arm holes and then secure the jacket around us.

This afforded us a really cool way to float down a fairly shallow canal, in a 2mph current and see the flora and fauna really close-up.  But the 'look' we had wearing the jackets upside down was like having really big orange diapers on!  But it worked!

After the float, we were treated to an authentic Mayan lunch of chicken wrapped in banana leaves and baked on rocks in the ground. 

After lunch we toured the Muyil archaeological site where once again we discovered another Mayan city and learned of their culture and rituals.

Termite nest

The 10 days we were in Tulum were hot and most days were pretty humid.  We did have a nice wind blowing everyday that helped.  But we all laughed when we took showers in the mornings, tried to dry off and then tried to put our bathing suits on.  Hard to get a bathing suit on when you are still wet!  Our last day brought rain....but we didn't care.....we'd had a wonderful time.