The day began early today at 06:55. The sky is overcast and it’s raining lightly. The emerald waves are rolling in on the beach, where Eloïse’s wide, flat snowman has survived another night of being battered by the oceanic winds.
In the last few days, our girl has started to talk more and more of home. She mentions some of her cuddly toys and refers to her look-house, her name for our house, so-called because that’s how we would refer to it when we went to look at it during our prolonged period of purchasing ponderance.
Today, she made her thoughts about home very clear, when she said, “I’m looking forward to looking at my baby”, referring to the baby doll that Auntie Fenella sent her a couple of months ago.
Given the frequency of such statements, it’s undeniable that our little one is becoming more attached to places and objects. By the time we make it back to Amsterdam, we’ll have been away for three weeks, which isn’t long by our standards, but it’s long enough for this trip. Eloïse is ready to go back to her life on the other side of the ocean. I imagine that she’ll become even more attached to home over the coming years.
We were on the beach by 07:30 again, rebuilding Eloïse’s snowman, paddling in the water and beachcombing. A white crab scurried sideways over the sand, perfectly camouflaged against the background. Overhead, pelicans made their way toward some unknown destination. It’s always a pleasure to see these birds, as such sightings are a rare occurrence for me.
After another desayuno Azteca at Don Cafeto, we drove a couple of kilometres north to the site of the Tulum ruins.
Of the Mayan sites we’ve visited — Uxmal, Chichén Itzá, Cobá and Tulum — Tulum was definitely the least impressive. Ironically, it was also by far the most commercialised, with everything from upside-down Mexicans spinning on unwinding ropes around a maypole, a man with a gigantic iguana charging tourists for posing for photos next to his lizard, a string of market stalls selling naff tourist tat, a branch of Subway, stands selling tickets to theme parks and other cheap or not so cheap thrills, etc. Parking was also more expensive than at any of the other sites.
We made our way around the ruins, none of which awed us, but the boards along the route explained the history and purpose of each building very well, as well as the significance of the site in general. It seems that Tulum survived as a Mayan city, long after the other nearby civilisations had fallen.
The Tulum ruins are perched right on the coast and the green sea provides a scenic backdrop to these dramatic buildings. Iguanas cling to the rocks of the cliff face, high above the pristine beaches and rocks.
It was quite a bit cooler today than over the last few days, for which we were thankful. A sudden downpour provided brief respite from the humidity, but such relief really is short-lived in this climate, as the water soon evaporates back into the atmosphere.
Once we’d seen the ruins, we drove back into Tulum for lunch at a place called Charlie’s, which turned out to serve, amongst other things, delicious juices. We’ve done very well on the juice front this trip. We downed several of them and I picked up my e-mail via my phone.
Speaking of which, I must say that my Nokia E90 has proven its worth in the couple of months I’ve had it. In that time, it’s travelled from the Netherlands to Belgium, Germany, Iceland, the US and Mexico and performed very well at all times. Having a functional, fast Web browser and decent e-mail client at hand is very convenient, especially when combined with the generosity of an open WLAN for free access to the Net.
Speaking of which, I still haven’t found a single location with Internet access that allows SIP. VoIP from here seems to be nigh on impossible, unless you use Skype or similar. Port 25 is blocked, too, which makes relaying e-mail through our mail server back home a non-starter.
So, all we’ve used the Internet for in Mexico is to read our e-mail and send SMS messages to the home front via a Web to SMS gateway. Net access has rarely been available from our lodgings and, when we’re elsewhere, blogging from my phone is just too painful. Yes, the E90’s UI and full qwerty keyboard are good, but it’s still only a phone. Besides, when we’re not at our lodgings, we’ve got better things to be doing than trying to get on-line.
Anyway, after our late lunch, we came back to the beach bungalow and Eloïse and I played in the sand on the beach, whilst Sarah lay in the hammock and relaxed. She’s been very tired today. We skipped dinner, except for a couple of limeades and dessert, as lunch had been eaten so late and been so filling.
And that pretty much rounds off this trip. Tomorrow, we have to make a fairly early start for the drive back to Cancún, where we’ll return our hire car and begin the long haul northwards back to Providence. We should arrive around 22:00.
It’s been a relaxing and inspirational first trip to Mexico (my two previous jaunts across the Californian border to Tijuana really don’t count). It’s a huge country and one couldn’t realistically hope to gain much more than a few impressions from an eight day encounter in a relatively small geographic area. I hope we’ll come back and I can say that the last week has certainly left us wanting more.
With just a couple of extra days in Providence slotted in before returning to Amsterdam, I must say I’m looking forward to getting back to our own home, although I daresay the weather will come as a shock to the system. And, as eager as I am to be back in our own domain, this trip has certainly reawakened my appetite for travel and I can’t wait to start planning our next trip, which should hopefully be at school half-term at the end of February.