Hola from Tulum Mexico

I had read that it's almost difficult to actually spend time alone when you are traveling solo. That there is always someone around to meet.

I didn't really believe that.

I do now.

Everywhere I go there is always a friendly face that stops to say hello. It's wonderful, whenever you want to make a friend, there they are waiting for you!

Coming off of Isle Holbox with new friends and a neon tan was great, but in Tulum I was looking forward to wandering the streets, getting lost, and exploring some cenotes all to the beat of my own drum. Which is exactly what I did..

Tulum is a hippie town of about 20,000 people, with beautiful jade color beaches located about 2 miles from the town center. You can stay by the beach in one of the fancy eco-chic boutique hotels occupying your time with vegan cocktails and holistic spas or you can stay in the city center surrounded by loads of great eats, decorative street art and get a taste of how to locals live.

Either works, but I chose the latter.

I stayed at Hostel Che, a great little place with a pool, great staff, activites and a perfect location to explore the city.

I loved Tulum, it was a city but was small enough to do on foot. I did A LOT of walking and biking. There is one main strip surrounded by a grid of city streets. My absolute favorite thing to do in a new city is roam the streets and get off the beaten path. I was determined to eat at tiny no named family restaurants and wander the local neighborhoods.

The street art was my favorite, everywhere you went their were colorful vibrant murals, here are a few of my favorites

I became obsessed with smoothies and juices, they are EVERYWHERE here. The nicest Mexican woman in this tiny little smoothie hut mad me the worlds most delicious smoothie and was all excited to practice her English on me. She said only every once in a while do tourist stop by her shop, it was a few blocks back from the strip.

It was this woman that told me all of the different centoes I should check out.

Cenotes are natural freshwater swimming holes formed by the collapse of limestone, which has revealed a secret subterranean world of groundwater pools. They are crystal clear and cold (super welcomed after being in the hot hot heat)! The Mayans worshipped the cenotes because they were a source of water in dry times. Many of their villages were settled around them. There are literally THOUSANDS in the Yucatán, but I picked a couple to explore and they were amazing!

I road a bicycle a couple kilometers away and arrived right before the gates opened @ 8am to visit the Gran Cenote. There were two guys in front of me, as we entered into the cenote I noticed one of the guys was taking a ton of pictures of  the other guy. Turns out one was a professional blogger, and the other his photographer. I chatted with them for awhile, they were from NYC and super cool guys. You can check out Chris' website astylishman.com its pretty awesome. And Brian, the photographer was nice enough to take some photos for me on my camera which I was SUPER PUMPED about. Because getting quality photos of yourself is the second hardest part of traveling solo, the first... applying sunscreen to your own back. yikes.

https://youtu.be/N5fmHZUoP2I

One of my favorite days in Tulum was organized through the hostel. About 15 or so of us grabbed a collectivo to one of the beaches and a cenote. A collectivo is a large white van that you flag down on the street to take you places, they are everywhere and the form of transportation the locals use, its super cheap. The volunteer from the hostel who guided us was a girl named Hilda from Holland, she had been an Au Pair in Cancun and is now in Tulum volunteering at the hostel for free accommodation. We all swam in the beach, cooled off in the cenote, and got to know each other.

I am fascinated by all the different stories. So many people, from so many different places, doing so many different things, yet all here hanging out on this beach listening to the Argentinian girl named Fler play the ukulele

After the jam session, Fler led a yoga class on the beach. Half the class feel asleep at the end it as it was such a tranquil setting! She had us do something I had never done before, towards the end of the class she asked us to partner with the person beside us, we were instructed to face each other, hold hands, and look directly into their eyes for an entire minute. I was partnered up with Hilda. She had pretty blue eyes, it takes a minute to get used to it, we both couldn't help but smile and giggle for the first few seconds. I think the point of the exercise is to feel the other persons emotions through their eyes. You never look someone in the eyes that long, it was more than interesting. A little weird to me, but I enjoyed it, and I can still picture her eyes. Someone I will probably never see again.

BOOM, swerve, smoke. Our charter bus to Chichen Itza blew out a tire. Well shit. We were sitting in the back of the bus, right next to said tire. I was listening to my iPod, it was on shuffle with my whole library of music but no surprise here it was on a T Swift song when I jolted up thinking our bus was about to explode. We made it to a tiny auto repair shop and had to sit on the side of the road in the blazing heat while they repaired the tire. I chatted with a handful of people from Ireland who had just finished Med school in Galway. They were a fun group. As they were telling me about exams and their plans for residency, all 6 of them were chain smoking cigarettes. Ironic I would say. Before Chichen Itza we stopped at the Ik Kil Cenote. It's HUGE. We didn't have much time there since we were behind schedule but my new friend Christie and I made the most of it. It's a very commercialized Cenote. Like there is a gift shop. It was pretty cool, but I just have a hard time really enjoying something when there are swarms of people everywhere. After lunch we finally made it to Chichen Itza and synced up with our tour guide. Two minutes into it.... massive dark clouds roll in. The guide looks at us and goes "don't worry it won't rain"

3 minutes later...

TOPRRENTIAL DOWNPOUR

I mean some of the heaviest rain I have ever been caught in. At one point I thought it was hailing. So much rain and wind that everyone fled the scene for shelter under the entrance. It rained the entire 2.5 hours we were scheduled to be there. I was worried about my nice camera getting wet through my backpack, so I too headed for shelter. Once under the shelter I made sure my camera was all tucked away. I grabbed my GoPro and thought, I bet no one else is out there right now. This is my chance to catch a glimpse of one of the 7 wonders of the world with no one else to interrupt. So I sprint back out there, flag some man in a poncho down and ask him to take this video of me. Dancing in front of the massive El Castillo pyramid, which was once in the center of a thriving ancient metropolis over 1000 years ago. It was SO COOL. I guess the rain wasn't such a bad thing after all. https://youtu.be/BcHrASVQO0Y

NEXT STOP: big chilling on the lake in Bacalar Mexico.

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