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Copyright |
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©2005 Jason Cross
All Rights Reserved
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 Sunday, February 9, 2003 |
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Between Saturday and Sunday, we wanted to both visit the Mayan ruins of Tulum and spend some time at a good beach – something larger and more traditional than those visited so far at Playa Azul and Chankanaab. The fact that Saturday was looking overcast led towards doing the old buildings sooner rather than later; the realization that Tulum was closed on Sunday made a difference as well.
Given the short attention spans of the young when candy is not actively involved, Misty, Keith and the kids decided to stay back in Cozumel and go around the island in their VW Bug. Before leaving for the day, we all got breakfast at the very un-Mexican-sounding Jeannie’s Waffle House. Located on the patio outside of Acuario’s, Jeannie’s had good, well, waffles and a nice atmosphere being right next to the water, complete with a big outdoor tank of live spiny lobsters used for the seafood restaurant.
The kids loved watching the lobsters, as they could literally have reached right down and touched the bug-eyed devils. Unlike the typical image of a lobster we gringos have, the spiny lobster has no large front claws and huge straight antennae. Being a bio geek and doing a little reading, I found that these are actually much more common than the Maine lobster we normally think of, showing the power of the Maine lobster marketers on the brain-cycles of the American population – or perhaps the raw hard-shelled power of the almighty Red Lobster seafood restaurant.
Tulum is a 500 year old set of Mayan ruins located along the coast of the "Mayan Riviera" south of Playa Del Carmen. We took the ferry from Cozumel to Playa Del Carmen, where on the trip we were entertained by a video of both safety instructions ("In the event that the decision is made to abandon ship, floatation devices are found at the front of the cabin.") and commercials for stores in Playa along with Dos Equis beer (which played very similarly to those commercials for Girls Gone Wild). To get the full Mayan experience, we then took the ancient mode of transport known as the public transit bus. The bus ride took about an hour, owed partly to distance and partly to the fact that the bus had stops at many of the resorts south of Playa Del Carmen and at random intervals in the middle of nowhere that somehow inexplicably had locals waiting for a bus despite no indication of how or why they were at this empty point along the road.
Archeological Note: Tulum was a relatively late Mayan settlement, built in the 1500s and 1600s, which is considerably later than the ruins found elsewhere dating back as far as 2000 BC. By this time, the Spanish had already come to the new world, creating disruptions throughout the area, which is reflected in that Tulum has a stone wall structured around its perimeter as a measure of defense. With more than 50 buildings, Tulum served mainly as a place for several temples and for government offices. Its name was originally Zama, meaning dawn, due to its location on the far eastern side of the Yucatan.
Walking among the ruins of Tulum was like something out of a dream. The area is in a tropical setting right out of the movies, with slightly hilling wide-open space leading up to cliffs of jagged rock interspersed with beaches of white sand along the rolling surf of the Caribbean. Interspersed with tall palm trees and bright green jungle foliage lies many ancient structures of deteriorating gray stone, ranging in size from small structures mere feet across to large imposing temples decorated with Mayan sculptures still partially intact despite years of erosion from the wind, sun and sea. People, us included, walk among the buildings in an almost hushed silence, taking in the sound and the sight and the feel of the entire area.
Tulum lies about 1/2 mile off of the highway, with little else in the immediate area save for a ran-down hotel and restaurant, a Subway (the sandwiches, not the underground train), and a few local merchants with the ever-present Mexican blankets for sale ("Only $2 each. No, that one you're looking at is $5, the little prickly one over there is $2.") We were going to take the bus back to Playa, but a taxi driver approached us offering to take us back in his van for only 20 pesos each (approximately $2). We assumed this would be even quicker than the bus, though the taxi also managed to stop several times along the way to pick people up and drop others off.
Returning to Playa Del Carmen, we stopped at Senor Frogs for some chips, salsa and drinks and to look around a bit before heading back over to Cozumel. Unlike Cozumel, the waterfront along Playa is almost entirely beach, with chairs, restaurants, stands and vendors along it. From what I saw in my limited time there, the town came across as somewhat more active than San Miguel in Cozumel, with shops selling the same things found at every store in a hundred mile radius though with possibly even more marijuana-themed t-shirts ("Tokemon" stands out as one, with Pokemon characters high on weed). Playa seems more like a destination for people staying in resorts on the mainland and in Cancun, while Cozumel comes across as more for cruise ship visitors than those from the mainland area.
Getting back to Cozumel around supper-time, we decided to have dinners at Palmera's, who by this point should have given us some sort of frequent-eater discount. I tried their fajitas which while not great were certainly not bad either. A strolling guitarist wandered the restaurant looking for people to pay him to play a song, suggesting Mexican folk classics like La Bamba and Tequila. Meanwhile, Misty and Keith's clan ate at Hard Rock Café, where the kids bought eight Hard Rock buttons for only $.30 each as they were being sold at a steep discount because they were for Hard Rock's anniversary which took place in 2001.
Midway through our trip, we really wanted to do some laundry. I had packed enough clothes to last the eight days (too much clothes, actually, not knowing exactly what we'd be doing), but had found that specific pieces of clothing worked better given the warm weather combined with the touristy atmosphere and repeated beach-going. There was a little laundromat a block from our villa where they'd wash, dry and fold clothes for around thirty-five cents each. They did good work, but looking around the villa, Shawn found that he could use a butter knife to unlock a door in their bathroom to find…a washer and drier! So there we were, illicitly using the owners' washer and drier, only doing so at night and even going so far as to hide our lint (putting it in a bag hidden in the trash) so the maid wouldn't find out. Shh – don't tell anyone. It's our little secret.
Cozumel Con Queso Table of Contents:
Introduction
Day 1: The Journey to Our Mysterious Southern Neighbor
Day 2: The Ocean: Our Big, Wet and Salty Friend
Day 3: Under the Sea, or On Top of It Anyway
Day 4: To the Briny Deep
Day 5: Break On Through to the Other Side
Day 6: Ancient Cultures on the Mainland
Day 7: The Sun Beach
Day 8: The Return of the Wearied Travelers
Tons of Photos |
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