So, originally, I had a grand idea of visiting Chichen Itza on our trip. Then we realized that it would probably be a full-day affair and we might not have a full day to give up. So then we decided we'd go to Coba, another fairly large Mayan ruin that's only a 45-minute drive from Tulum. It's set in the jungle and all of the buildings are connected by paths - and you can rent bikes to get around! But then it was the night before our last day and we weren't sure that we wanted to spend half the day going up to Coba - especially because Molly & Ryan weren't interested in doing ruins two days in a row. ...And that's how it was decided that we'd go to Muyil on Friday morning! Muyil is only a 20-minute drive from Tulum, and I'd read good things about it before we came, so it was set. We left early, to avoid the heat and the tourists and make the most of the day! As it turned out, we didn't have to worry much about other tourists or the heat. The drive there was on a nicely paved highway without much traffic and we got there before we realized. We were the first car in the parking lot at about 8:30am. There were a few small vans that local tour companies use, but nobody was there on their own. I actually don't think we passed another group of people without a guide. After we paid our entrance fees (I think about $2.50 a person) we set out!
The Muyil ruins are completely different than the Tulum ruins - first of all, they're still in the process of excavating the site, so only part of it is open to the public! The whole thing still has a kind of buried-in-the-jungle feeling, so we felt more like intrepid explorers instead of tourists shuffling along a pre-set path. Of course there are trails throughout the site, and informative signs by all the buildings, but since we didn't see any other humans for most of our visit, it felt pretty different. Almost the whole site was shaded, which was also a nice change. When we got to one of the buildings farthest from the entrance, we were standing around looking at it, reading the sign, maybe taking a few photos. All of a sudden, we heard a huge crash in the trees - we'd been looking for birds all morning, but it was way too loud to have been a bird. It was a monkey! We saw it gliding through the treetops, using its tail like an extra arm! We looked at each other, then at the monkey, and then the monkey stopped and looked at us. I somehow managed to take a photo of it before it decided we weren't interesting anymore and swung off in the other direction. It was really cool! Our first (and only) monkey sighting - from reading about it afterward, a spider monkey.
We also saw a skittish animal called an "agouti" that kind of looks like a giant guinea pig that dashed off the second it saw us. And lots of cool birds! After walking around the main site, we went on the boardwalk behind the main building (the last image above). It's not part of the ruins site and is actually part of the biosphere reserve where we had thought about doing a tour. So there was an extra entrance fee - something like $2.50 again. When we set out on the boardwalk, it suddenly felt like we were really in the jungle. (Actually, we learned that the Yucatan doesn't have any "jungle" at all, in the sense of rainforest, because it doesn't rain all year round, but as you get closer to Belize it becomes wetter.) It was noticeably more humid, the plants were really dense and big, and everything was green in every direction. The boardwalk goes from the back of the main building in the ruins all the way to a lagoon. The lagoon was used by the Mayan people who lived at Muyil hundreds of years ago - the tour that we were originally going to do included a boat ride from the end of the boardwalk through a canal built by them that went out to the ocean!
We didn't end up walking the whole boardwalk - we figured since we'd just been snorkeling, and since we weren't planning on doing a boat tour, there wouldn't be too much to see at the lagoon. But! There was a lookout tower (mirador) about halfway through that was supposed to have good views of the area. It wasn't like the fire towers I climbed when I was a kid - the stairs to the top were hardly different than ladders. It required a bit of planning, especially when descending. When we got to the top, though, it was worth it! We could see the lagoons in the area and all the way out to the ocean and lots and lots of forest. Unfortunately, we didn't see any exciting birds from up above the trees, so after a few minutes taking everything in, we headed down and back the way we came. We were so glad that we went to Muyil, since it gave us a totally different experience of the area - we even heard the employees speaking what we could only assume was a Mayan language! I'd love to go back and do one of the tours offered by the communities in the area, where you get to visit the village centers and learn about their history (for example - chewing gum originally came from trees in the area, and was only made that way until recently!).
After our jungle adventure and hanging out on the patio for a while, we decided to go to the restaurant our snorkeling guide had told us about for dinner. He described it as being "not fancy, right on the beach, plastic chairs, not fancy bathrooms" and I was sold. We turned off the highway onto an exit that had no mention of the restaurant (we took this as a good sign), drove through a newly-developed area of fancy condos, and parked when the road stopped at the beach. It was more perfect than we'd imagined! It's the kind of place where you can show up in the early afternoon with your swimsuit, order some drinks and seafood, go for a swim, order more drinks, and just hang out all day. We'd eaten at the beach before (Pelican Pub!) but never on the beach. It was pretty much just a (well-appointed) shack and plastic tables. But the food! It was perfect. Maybe the best ceviche of our trip? Me & Matt both got fish and it was so fresh. I had a michelada (kind of like if you mix a bloody mary + beer) and it was tastier than the ones I've had around here. The food was great, but the atmosphere made it the best! We really, really didn't want to leave.
Eventually, we figured we might have to go back, so we left our friendly server and beautiful beach and came back to Tulum. Actually, it wasn't our last meal of the day - because we ate kind of early, and because wanted more delicious mojitos, we went out at night and got more mojitos and ended the night (and the trip) with the amazing al pastor tacos we had earlier in the week, sitting at the table in the alley next to the taco place. Kind of the perfect end to our trip?
It was such a fun vacation! And it was even better than I expected, actually. I think some of that was because it wasn't as planned as other trips we've been on. When all you do is worry about making it to see X, Y, and Z, it becomes more stressful and less enjoyable. It was kind of like our first trip to New York - we just kind of wandered around without any real plans and it was great! A nice mix of sightseeing and just walking through town or eating delicious food. So I didn't get to see everything I wanted to - a perfect excuse to return! And I do really want to return. It was just such a nice place with so many things to see and do, it's the kind of place you could go back to all the time and enjoy it more and more. Plus, plane tickets are just so cheap! So who knows - maybe we can even squeeze in a trip next winter if we carefully plan vacation days? New Years Day does fall on a Monday next year, and that's when vacation time resets...haha. This photo I took at the Tulum ruins sums it up:
I do believe it!!
