For the most part, we stayed around the resort, hung out in the pool & by the beach, and ate dinner at the many restaurants the hotel had to offer. Justin & I did take a half day excursion out to see the ruins at Tulum & check out a cenote, which was a blast! Oh, and I went out shopping in Playa for a couple hours.
Justin & I at the beach!
The water looked so pretty! It had a lot of seaweed in it close to the beach, but the water was clear!
That dark stuff in the water... seaweed.
The girls at the pool!
I had been to Mexico with my family a few years back and we visited Chichen Itza, which was really spectacular. I wanted to try and see something different this time around. Also, we were pretty close to Tulum so it was a good spot to try & hit this trip. I researched a little bit about how to get there without taking a tour & what to see and we decided to go for it.
There are a few options for getting to Tulum from Playa del Carmen. One option is the public buses, which are pretty affordable. There are also public vans which most of the locals take around which are super cheap. The problem with both of those options for us was that we would have needed to take a taxi to get to the bus or van and then getting back felt a little unreliable to us, especially since we wanted to see a cenote in the same trip. We decided to do the third option which was a taxi and to just catch taxis between each stop. Not the cheapest way, but we thought it would be the most comfortable and safe option for us.
On the way to Tulum, we started asking our taxi driver questions about cenotes and he offered to wait for us and stay with us for the whole round trip. I had read that this was pretty common and we took our driver Jose up on the offer!
We stopped at Tulum first and got there pretty early in the morning - before 10 am - and it was a Friday. It wasn't too, too crowded, but there were a substantial amount of people there. There are two gates into the ruins. The first one is a little hole in the wall and I had read the second one has better views so that's the one we took. All the tours & most of the people went through the first gate, so the second one was pretty deserted. Also, it is the gate closest to the ocean so it has the best view!
The wall around Tulum ruins.
Right by the second gate into Tulum.
Justin standing by the gate in. It's tiny!
This apparently is called "The Temple of the Wind Gods" which we found
funny being that Nora has had so much trouble with the wind lately.
This is the big "castle" at the ruins.
Back of the castle.
Looking back at the wind temple. The view was beautiful!
There are a couple of small beaches at Tulum. One beach is closed off and they have signs saying that it is a place where sea turtle eggs hatch in June-September. Didn't see any action while we were there...
The other beach you can get to from behind the castle. You go down some rickety stairs and trek through the seaweed but the water was so worth the stop as it was hooottttt while at Tulum. I got a heat rash from our half day out & about!
Leaving Tulum on the opposite side of the ruins.
After looking into a few cenotes, I wanted to make sure we went to an easily accessible one, yet one that would be good for snorkeling, not just diving. We decided on Gran Cenote because it was close and would be good for both of those things. We met up with Jose who took us right on over to the cenote.
It is hard to get a good picture of the cenote since it is about half underground and half open, plus there's lots of trees. Basically there were some stairs which led you down to a little dock. All the way around the dock was surrounded by water. To the right and left were both little cave-like structures that you could go into. One opened up to a small, shallow area in another opening and the other went way back and got very dark. There was a little stand where you could rent snorkel gear, life vests, lockers, and buy a camera, which in hindsight I think I should have done. Oh, well.
Justin brought his own mask from his diving gear as well as two underwater flashlights, which I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to do this! So we rented a locker and my mask and went for it. I wondered if I would need a wetsuit because the water was pretty chilly, but after we got in it wasn't bad at all. I also wasn't sure if I would need a life vest, but as it turns out I floated really well! I'm glad I didn't get one.
We went through the right side first, which had lots of bats hanging. We could see really far into the caves with our flashlights, saw lots of fish & the super interesting underwater stalagmites. We went around to the left side and saw some cave divers in the deeper, darker area of the cenote which was kind of neat. The deeper, darker left side was fun to see but got me feeling a little more claustrophobic. I think Justin really liked it because he went back after I got out. I must have gone through it faster than what he wanted! All the pictures I took were pretty much just the left side, so as you see the cave, that's where we swam back and saw things under the water with our flashlights. Most people stayed in the parts with more light, which is why I would say the flashlight was clutch! Wherever I read that... thank you!
We did it!
We had a blast on our excursion & would recommend it to anyone who gets out there. Without a tour guide, we were back by lunch time. We brought waters and grabbed a snack from the hotel and ate that on the way back so we didn't even have to buy food or drink while out.
The majority of the rest of our trip was spent relaxing & enjoying time with our friends. We are so thankful for great friends!
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