Monday, October 25, 2010

The Tribal Village

After a number of transportation issues including cancelled bus service, forgotten passports and rebooked airline tickets, Robin and Mohini arrived safe and sound in Cancun. We spent a quick day at the beach, and then joined our CS host Hector and some of his friends for a Mexican football match: Cancun vs. Monterrey.

 At the beach in Cancun

The next morning we boarded a bus for the less developed beach town of Tulum, several hours south of Cancun. After enquiring at several of the cabaña developments along the beach and being rather alarmed by the exorbitant prices, we were eventually directed towards the significantly less expensive Tribal Village.

The Tribal Village

The Tribal Village was an interesting experience. On the plus side, we slept twenty meters from the ocean, drank local sugarcane rum around the campfire, had the beach to ourselves and paid less than $5 a night each for the experience. Unfortunately our cabaña left much to be desired with respect to weather tightness and we were partially eaten by the various insect inhabitants. The manager also turned out to be a little unstable, making us extremely happy to finally leave after our third night.

Robin and the beach

The three of us and our new Eastern European friends

The cabaña

While in Tulum we also had the opportunity to check out the small collection of Mayan ruins near the beach and go swimming and snorkeling in one of the many nearby cenotes. The snorkeling turned out to be a lot of fun and we hope to do more of it in Belize.

The ruins in Tulum

Snorkeling in the cenote


We also learned a little about the less talked about side of Tulum. Apparently (at least so we are told) Mexican drug cartels use the beaches to import narcotics from Colombia, which are dropped further out to sea and eventually wash up on shore. How much truth there is to this I'm not sure, but either way the area remains a popular tourist destination and there is very little danger for foreigners.

Sunrise

We are now in Sarteneja, Belize, a small fishing village in the north of the country. More about our stay here to follow shortly.

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