Tulum

Coming from Isla Mujeres, we arrive at the Ultramar Terminal. This is our first ride in a colectivo, from the Ultramar terminal to the bus central in Cancun. We got a lot of help with our luggage from the locals.

we are all going to Tulum on a Mayab second class bus. Don't be having the turista, there are no toilets aboar. The trip from Cancun to Tulum takes about 2.5 hours.

what would we do without Hadrien to carry all our luggage?

We had made reservations at the hostel "Casa del Sol" but were disappointed (we could not get a cabana, they put us up in a dorm, otherwise the place is quite exotic and cool), so we left the next day. We went to Hotel "Las Ruinas" instead. It is a very nice hotel. The owners are helpful and everything is sparkling clean. They change your sheets and towels every single day. This hotel is on the main drag, close to all the shops and restaurants. We like our hotel, thank you Hadrien and Stéphanie. As a general rule in Latin America, we only go to restaurants that look really clean (tables, menus, waiters, table cloths, bathrooms) in order to best avoid getting siclk. We have seen too many restaurants that don't even have soap in the bathroom. The cooks probably never wash their hands. Street vendors are to be avoided altogether even though their food can look and smell good. Avoid even the ones that sell nice looking freshly peeled and cut-up bowls of fruit. The problem being that the vendors may not be washing their hands properly before handling food... So, sometimes we cannot find a place to eat. What we do then is we go buy some fresh fruit, we clean it up with GSE at our hotel and make it our lunch or dinner.

This supermarket is on the north side of Main, about 15 minutes walk from the hotel "Las Ruinas". Bottled water is much cheaper here. Plus they sell a ton of fresh fruit and vegetables

The internet works better in the hallway than in the bedrooms at "Las Ruinas"

se van a Cuba for a week. Hasta luego

Paraiso beach, close to the Tulum ruins. It's about a 15 minute walk from the ruins, or a short taxi ride. Sorry, we do not have any pictures of the ruins since we did not make it there. We remember from a previous trip that there isn't that much to see at the ruins anyway and it is quite touristy nowadays. Our priority with the kids was the beach! We reserve ourselves for the ruins later on in Palenque. Some people go to the ruins of Copan, about one hour from Tulum by bus.

The surf can be dangerous on this beach (rip tides), you can actually feel the pull towards the bottom at various spots in the water, Careful with kids, They must always be able to touch the bottom and be in water no higher than the waist. It´s still a lot of fun if they have some inflatable device to hang on to.

It's worth going to "El grand cenote". It's cool fresh water. It´s about a 5 minute taxi ride from downtown. The swimming is very nice. You can rent snorkel gear on the spot or it´s best to bring your own. You can also deep dive. We wish we had taken Gabriel there before he left

There are other cenotes you can go to from Tulum but they are farther.

There is a restaurant on the spot. Peter never wastes a moment reading his dictionary

today we did some homeschooling. The kids wrote a couple of paragraphs on the trip, we checked the spelling, studied some words in Spanish then we went on line at khanacademy.com to work on divisions. Thank you Olga!