Monday 5th January: The hostel owner dropped us at the bus stop after dropping her kids to school - her car, as it seems is the case for most cars around here, was a total wreck! Cracked windscreen, doors held together with string, wing mirrors knocked off, covered in dents...you'd find cars in a better state of repair in a scrap yard!! Anyway, the bus finally arrived to pick us up much later than expected and we headed for Chetumal. We'd booked the San Juan bus thinking it'd be quicker than the public bus, but in reality it wasn't - we finally arrived at 3pm! We then transferred to an awaiting minibus to Tulum arriving there at 8pm. It was a little more expensive than the lovely big air conditioned bus we would've got from the bus station but I couldn't face queuing for the ticket and then waiting for another couple of hours for the next available one!!

We hunted around for somewhere to stay and plumped for the 'Maya Hotel' which wasn't the best, but we were a tad tired from the journey and just couldn't be bothered to hunt around too much - for 350pesos we were happy enough just to dump our bags and go for some dinner and drinks.

Tuesday 6th: The room at the Maya was pretty clean but there was no toilet seat (?!) and no air con so it was a total 'sweat box' so we decided to go find somewhere else to stay.
We took a wander around Tulum which is basically one long main road with shops, restaurants and hotels all the way along it - a pleasant enough town.
We found a little complex of log cabins and moved our stuff in before taking a taxi to the beach. I think this is the most beautiful beach I've ever seen! Beautiful sand, palm trees, amazing blue sea - stunning!


We booked up a snorkelling trip for the afternoon and chilled out until it was time to go.
The snorkelling trip was a bit of a joke - there was absolutely nothing to see!! We did get to see the Mayan ruins on the cliffs though so the 250pesos wasn't totally wasted!!

We had lunch on the beach and then went back to town. In the evening we ate in an Argentinan restaurant and then went to the Weary Traveller hostel and had a game of gin rummy with some of the backpackers staying there.