Time travelling in Tulum

Ruins and Cenotes-Tulum Mexico

From the day Amy's brother had told us that he, his ten friends and his girlfriend Marieka were booked into a hotel in Cancun, plans to surprise them were in progress. Flying into Cancun  from Panama we had three short days before we needed to check into the same resort. Amy could hardly contain her excitement. Boarding a bus heading to Tulum we joked about the measly two hour ride remembering past busses, the longest being 37 hours! Dawning on past bus adventures made us then dwell on the fact that we only had four weeks left in this adventure before flying back home. 

Arriving in Tulum we managed to find a cheap Cabana, it was beachfront and in minutes we were in the water. 

Cabanas on the beach

Hammocks 

Sunset

This entire peninsula of Mexico is called the Yucatan and is one big sheet of lime stone. With no above ground rivers or streams the water flows beneath the surface through a labyrinth of caves and caverns named "Cenotes". A friend and dive buddy had done a rigorous cave diving course here a couple years earlier and it was his experiences that made us want to scratch the surface of this underground underwater world.

Cenote "Dos Ojos"

Incredible fresh clear blue water 

Getting ready to get in the water.

Dive lights in hand we were ready to enter the caverns.

A chill crawls up your spine and its not the cold fresh water creeping into your wet suit, its the exiting of daylight and entering of darkness. The visibility is unlimited and you feel like you are floating in space. Stalactites and mites reach out vertically with some connecting ceiling to floor. Our guide lead us along the string line marking our route, passing numerous cave entrances we dared not stray. 

Surfacing from this dive we were speechless, this was undoubtedly the most amazing dive we have ever done. Loading the gear in the truck our guide then drove us 20 minutes to another Cenote. "Car wash" as it was named was visibly very different than our first Cenote. The water was murky with algae and we were told that a crocodile had made it his home. Descending through the 4m deep algae bloom the water became crystal clear and revealed its secretes. 

 

Going down through the green algae

Watch out for the crocodile 

Looking up and out of the cenote

Our guide secured the end of the "string line" to a sunken tree and began un-reeling the guide line into the darkness. With flashlights ON we followed close behind our guide in single file.  

Going in!

Our guide having done this particular dive countless times still used a string line as a guide to navigate the cavern safely, it goes to show you cant be too safe diving cenotes. Maintaining perfect trim and buoyancy like an airplane maintains trim and altitude we worked ourselves deeper into the darkness suspended in space. 

All smiles

Surfacing again 40 minutes later it was the same reaction to the first cenote dive, speechlessness.

Watch out for the croc!

Driving back towards town we passed a Mayan ruin where we seized the opportunity of a free ride. Jumping out of the truck on the side of the highway we thanked our guide and went to the Tulum ruins for the afternoon. 

Home of the Mayans

Looking over the turquoise Caribbean ocean we realized that the Maya had it all figured out. Why live at 3600 m above sea level where it is cold like our Inca cousins when you can live in paradise by the sea.

These iguanas were everywhere

Such amazing colours

Fighting for a mate

Bye Tulum