Bikes, Bank & Beach - Tulum, Mexico
Tulum, Mexico
Today has been very restful which is exactly what we all needed after yesterday!
On Thursday night Nikki, Tyler, Chris & I treated ourselves to a gorgeous meal at a restaurant called Hartwood here in Tulum. We had to put the last of our pesos together to pay for the meal. The next day after a failed attempt to get cash out at the machines near our hotel, we set out on hired bikes to Tulum town where there is an HSBC bank & cash machine. Fortunately Chris & I had no trouble withdrawing cash but Nikki's card had been tampered with, which we put down to the first attempt in machines near the beach. I then suspected my card might also have been compromised. We spent a bit of time at the local Internet cafe onto our banks & managed to kill a couple of hours getting everything sorted. We dined at two places we wanted to visit while in town, one served fresh tacos which were incredibly cheap and the second place served frozen fruit on a stick which was refreshing.
We then set off on our bikes to visit the Tulum ruins, which was the main city centre and place for trading hundreds of years ago. It was extremely hot and there were a lot of tourists around, not really what we were use to as it is pretty quiet & peaceful where we are staying. After a quick look around we headed down the road eventually stopping for a swim at the beach, followed by 2 for 1 margaritas!
Dinner last night was ceviche at a beach front restaurant. We were all pretty drained to the point that Nikki & I only really felt like drinking water. Chris and Tyler were content with beers. This morning Nikki & I attended a Vinyasa yoga class which was great! We both want to go to several more classes while we are here. It is set in such a beautiful setting with just a light curtain for the walls which is surrounded be trees & shrub. The rest of today we've been back at the beach soaking in sea air, reading, swimming, drinking cervezas and coconut water. I have to keep pinching myself the we're actually here and living like this. It's truly amazing and we are so lucky to be experiencing it all.
We are all getting a bit more use to speaking Spanish, not that we need it somewhere like this but always good to give it a go. Chris and I have planned where we are heading next, we are going to La Antigua near Guatemala City for a week and attending a Spanish language school. The accommodation will be an organised home stay with locals, so after 6 hours a day of lessons we will get to practice at night with the family we are staying with. We both know that learning the language is going to be crucial for the next part of our trip. It will be intensive but well worth it.
We have no other set plans at this stage, just going with the flow and taking it hour by hour. As Chris said today, 'we're living the dream.'