In Tulum

ahhh haven't written for ages!

Went to the beach in Cancun which was so so so touristy... the whole stretch of coast was lined with hotels (we actually couldn´t find a public way through to the beach when we got off the bus so we ended up sneaking through a hotel lobby) but once we were on the beach it was all white sand and turquoise sea, with pelicans fishing and little fishes in the shallows

After cancun we headed down to Tulum where we are now, which is a bit less touristy! We´re staying in a crazy hostel called weary traveller, which is a bit more basic than that last one, but much more sociable. This is a mixed blessing however because in dorms there´s not much sleep to be had when some people get up at 8am and others stay up talking and drinking until 4am. There are people who have been thre for weeks! The hostel runs a free bus service to the sea, give free DIY breakfast, have hammocks in shady courtyard.... and everything (including food, beer, juice, coffee) is put on a tab so we´re not looking forward to seeing what our debt is on leaving.

It´s been swealteringly hot here the past few days, it´s impossible to do anything at all in the heat of the day. The first day here in the morning we went to the ruins, which are beautiful and right by the sea and inhabited by some massive iguanas! We then went to the beach which is stunning, none of the monster hotels of Cancun, just a few little cabins. But its very very hot, and has almost no shade, so we headed back to chill out in the hostel in the afternoon. That night there was a massive thunder storm that went on for hours with turrential rain, thunder, lightining.

Yesterday we slept in which was really nice and much needed after having too much sun the day before. In the afternoon we went out to the beach and booked a snorkelling trip out to the reef for tomorrow.

Today we went on an all day tour out to the Biosfera, a kind of national park dedicated to low impact tourism, where there are huge areas of mangroves. We first went to a Cenote, which from what i can gather is where underwater rivers meet the surface, which means it was an incredibly deep fresh water lake with lots of little black fish. We did some snorkelling then went onwards. Most of the day was spent on boats among the mangroves and at the end we all lay on life jackets and floated down the river for about half an hour. All this was lovely apart from restrictions on sun cream and mosquito repellant when we went into the water so we´re all a bit pink and bitten!

I think that tomorrow evening we´re going to get an overnight 12 hour bus to Palenque, another ruin but in the middle of the jungle, which sounds amazing.

Not much else to report really! We met some mariachis in the street and befriended them and had our photos taken with them, but we have still yet to actually hear any of them singing. I have officially run out of clean clothes so we went to the lavanderia today. There are loads of little gecos at the hostel we´re staying which are awesome. There are also loads of massive flying grasshoppers about that have bright red wings. When we first saw them we were convinced they were little birds! Lots of pretty butterflys about, lots of less pretty vultures constantly circling overhead, lots of backpackers who´ve been here longer mocking my amazing whiteness.

Miss you all! x x x