tulum souvenirs!

I forgot to show off the stuff we bought in Tulum! There are tons of shops up and down the main street with stuff for tourists to buy. I didn't want to totally avoid those, but I'd read about two shops that focused on more traditional, Mexican-made crafts. They looked more unique, so Matt & I popped in when we were on our shopping expedition. The first one was full of nice stuff but we weren't ready to spend any money - but at the second one, it was hard not to spend our whole budget! There were so many cool things. In the end, here's what we got!





I love these! There was a whole stack of them in a basket and we decided to get a small one and a medium one. They're made out of yarn glued to a wooden base and each one has a description written on the back. When we got home, we looked them up and learned that they're called "nieli'ka" and are traditionally made by the Huichol people of central Mexico. Most of the images reference their religion, and the eagle and the deer (our two images) are important parts of their belief system. Now we just need to get frames so they don't get dusty!



This is our rug!! The shop had a million beautiful rugs of all sizes but in the end we decided on this pattern, in a medium size. It's wool and it's perfect! I wish we'd had infinite money (and apartment floor space) because there was a small orange one that was amazing. We have a bit of a textile problem, though, and already have too many rugs...but we couldn't pass this up.



...Speaking of textile problems, we got a cotton blanket! Our apartment in Tulum had one just like it and we thought it would be nice to brighten up our apartment in Brooklyn. And it actually goes really well with our sofa! And it provides a layer of protection for when...well, let's just say that one of our cats has tummy problems from time to time. We got this blanket from one of the touristy shops closer to our place and I think it was $15, which I'd say is money well spent.



This little blue guy is from the shop where we got the blanket. There are tons of these figurines in pretty much every store up and down the main road, including the two more "special" shops we went in. Each one has a signed artist's name on it, and some of them are super intricate. I didn't want to worry about breaking our purchase on the way home, so we got one of the more simple pieces. Once again, when we got home, we looked it up and found out that they're called "alebrijes" and originated in the 1930s in Mexico City and were originally papier-mâché. In the Oaxaca region, where woodcarving is a traditional craft, craftspeople adapted the alebrije paper sculptures into wooden ones - and thus came about our little figurine!



Another textile! It's a thin blanket/shawl/tablecloth/whatever you want it to be, from the same shop - our bed in Tulum had one of these on it and we thought it was so nice and cheerful!



Last but not least, our metal skeleton ornament! We haven't had a Christmas tree in three years (and maybe never will again, it's been so nice) but we couldn't not get this guy, from the shop where we got our rug. We came back with lots of amazing goodies...and we didn't spend more than our budgeted amount, even though there was so much more that caught our eye. Someday we'll go back!

day five: muyil and the best dinner of all

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!!

day four: tulum ruins

On Thursday morning, we set out early to go to the Tulum ruins. It was only a 10-minute or so drive from our place, but we'd heard that it got really crowded later in the day and we didn't want to chance that! Based on what little I'd read about the ruins, I thought it was a fairly small site, with not much more than a big temple in the middle and a parking lot right nearby. Actually, it was a pretty big site (not compared to Chichen Itza, I'm sure) and the parking lot was a nice, shaded walk away. And it's a National Park!







The entrance fee was about $3 per person - we declined hiring a guide at the entrance, but in retrospect I kind of wish that we did. Even though there were descriptive signs all over the park, from everything I overheard the guides saying, we would have learned more if we'd hired one! It was still a really interesting place, though. We learned that it was one of the few Mayan coastal cities in this part of the Yucatan and it traded with cities all up and down the western side of Central America. I overheard a guide telling his group that all of the buildings were originally painted in bright colors - reds and yellows - and you can still see tints of the pigment in some places!


















(click to see the panorama!)







By the end of our visit (about 9:30am), it was already starting to fill up with visitors! I'm glad we went early - especially because there's absolutely no shade at all and I somehow managed to avoid getting sunburned on our whole trip. The beach below the ruins is supposed to be really nice, but it was closed because of high tide when we were there. On our way out, we finally got cocos frios! They just chop the ends off of a coconut, you drink the coconut water, and then they chop it in half and you can eat the coconut! When we got back to our place, Molly & Ryan decided to bike to the beach again and Matt & I set out for the town. I really wanted to stop in a few shops I'd seen online that stock Mexican-made crafts. There are tons of souvenir shops up and down the main street, but most of them sell really similar things. I did end up buying a blanket from one of those shops too, so it's not like they aren't worth stopping at! Before we shopped, we needed to eat - and we finally ate at the taco place at the top of our "to try" list. We both got one of each of their four options (skipping a chicken one) - cochinita pibil, relleno negro (shredded turkey with black chile paste and a hard-boiled egg), and poc chuc (like carne asada). Best tacos of the trip! And that's saying a lot. I think it was about $5 for six tacos and two drinks. If we'd gone there on the first day, I might not have eaten any other tacos...except maybe the al pastor.











After tacos, we headed out to shop! We went to both of the stores I'd seen before and I kind of wanted to buy everything in the second one. In the end, we stuck to buying "just" a wool rug (!), some traditional artwork, and a little enameled metal skeleton. I'll post photos later! On the way home, we decided to stop for margaritas because it was happy hour and they were 2 for 70 pesos (so...about $1.75 each). We spent $10 and that was enough to put me to sleep when we got home around 2pm!