After our arrival, we quickly settled into our new home and began exploring around Tulum. We started going to the beach almost every day. There is always a nice breeze, great snorkeling/swimming, and great walking/people watching on Tulum beach. Nala loves to go to the beach and play just as much as we do.
After a couple weeks here we decided to visit the Sian Ka'an Bio Preserve. It is just southeast of Tulum. The road goes for ~50 Kilometers into the preserve and ends at Punta Allen. We began our journey early in the morning and paid our entrance fee at the front gate. The road was already bad before the entrance, but it got much worse as we continued on. Our average speed was around 5 mph. Below is a good shot of what the road looked like - unpaved, huge potholes, and lots of water.
We made it about halfway to Punta Allen before we decided to turn around and find the nearest beach. It turned out to be a beautiful beach, and we had been thrown around in the car for 3 hours so we were grateful for the respite.
We got back on the road and began the long, bumpy ride home. They were all in relatively good spirits, but I had been driving the whole time... Driving a car with a manual transmission through stop and go potholes for 6 hours is not conducive to a good mood. They decided to record the overall mood of the group at this point and snapped the picture below. I think it was captured perfectly.
Needless to say, the car was making a lot more noise after this trip than prior to it. It turned out to be a broken sway bar link. We took a trip up to Playa Del Carmen a few days later and ordered it from Autozone. We picked it up a week later, installed it, and have not had any issues since. We did end up seeing quite a bit of wildlife in the preserve, but unfortunately none of the really rare animals that the preserve houses. Below are a few pictures that we were able to take from Sian Ka'an.
There is even an abundance of wildlife right in the front yard of our rental house, the most interesting being a mated pair of striped basilisks (the last two pictures below).
There are a couple of other animals that occasionally show up inside the house, and Nala is never pleased about it. The first is geckos. We tolerate them because they eat any bugs that might get in and because they only wake us up with their squeaking a couple times a night... Nala, on the other hand, is constantly hunting for them and never succeeding in getting even remotely close to catching one without help from us. The other animal in the house we might call Nala's nemesis, or maybe her alter ego, since it is literally made up of pieces of her. Nala has been continually shedding her winter coat since we arrived down here, so Whitney has to sweep up the hair every few days. Nala thinks the hairballs are alive and will not leave them alone until they are thrown in the trash. I really don't know where she gets it from (Whitney).
Whit and I got up early one morning and headed to the beach to catch the sunrise. It was nice and cool out and the view was not disappointing.
I was bored on the beach one day so I decided to rent a stand up paddleboard (SUP) for an hour and try it out. It turns out it was quite fun, and not just for me. Whit and Steve tried it out and liked it as well (even when falling off).
We liked it so much that we decided to buy one instead of wasting our money by continually renting one. Easier said than done. If I had known how hard it would be to buy one down here, I probably never would have tried. I began by calling/visiting all the rental places I could find and seeing if they had any for sale. After 2-3 days and no luck, I moved on to other avenues. There was a dealer in Playa Del Carmen that said they sold them and could get me one in a bit over a week. I told them to go ahead and order it, which they promptly did not do. I could not go to their shop since it was located within an all inclusive resort that you can not enter unless you are a guest, go figure. After a few more days of trying to deal with them via phone/email I decided to go to Playa and Cancun to see if there were any available. It ended up taking Whit and I an entire day of driving and visiting four different stores before we finally bought one at Costco in Cancun. We are now proud Costco members and owners of an SUP! We have been taking it out almost every chance we get. It also serves as a good base to snorkel from.
We had been following the NFL playoffs and could not miss the superbowl since Denver was in it. We caught the game (if you can call it that) at a local seafood restaurant.
Nala is a die-hard Seahawks fan and was very happy about the win.
We went to a smaller set of ruins last week called Muyil. They had a very cool "castle" and a nearby boardwalk through some marshes that was very scenic.
One of my favorite things about the Yucatan is the Cenotes. They are literally everywhere. Cenotes are freshwater pools formed in the limestone bedrock. They are usually very clear and great for swimming/snorkeling/exploring. We even found an undeveloped one while exploring along a road near our house one day.
Even though we are very close to the ocean, there is an abundance of fresh water all around. There are many cenotes as well as large lagoons. We drove two hours South of Tulum a few days ago to a town called Bacalar. It is right on the shore of a very large freshwater lagoon. We stopped by the town first to see the old Spanish fort, which is ~300 years old. It was built to protect the locals from pirates and marauders.
Next we headed to a nice quiet campground South of town for a day of relaxation on this beautiful lagoon.
The water is crystal clear and best of all, fresh! There are some very interesting and weird looking fossils called stromatolites in the lagoon. They look a bit like big stone mushrooms.
The diversity of wildlife down here never ceases to amaze us. Bacalar was no different.
Whitney had never been to the Tulum ruins so we visited them yesterday. She got to hold a very large iguana before we went in which she was very happy about.
The line to get into the ruins was very long and the ruins themselves are very commercialized. They are still worth seeing at least once in my opinion.
Even at this crowded place, the wildlife is flourishing. Below is the only picture I have been able to capture of the elusive Coati (plus a very colorful snake).
The rock formations on the beach of the ruins are very interesting. Large pieces of the cliff have fallen off and are slowly marching out to sea.
We will be picking up two new vacationers at the airport tomorrow, so I'm sure there will be good stories to tell soon enough. Until then, you know what to do.
