Merida, Tulum, beach huts and the departure of Mexi-Tam

¡Hola Amigos!

Here lies a quick recount of recent events:-
Iff's birthday and Easter were celebrated in Merida. At Iff's bequest we went out for pizza and beers at a place recommended in our guide book. The festivities then continued out on the street where there was a carribbean style calypso street party shenanigan going on. Iff and Trace strutted their moves on the cobbles while a bird plopped a nugget on Tam's shoulder - nice. Much amusement was also had that evening when Iff found a Mexican brand of cheese. The brand was a cockrel ;) say-no-more.

Apart from our merry making Merida was a good, cheap place. Our hostel was pretty cool, hammock ridden place and we did a couple of good day trips from there. Iff and Mexi-Tam went on a Cenote tour. The tour took in a couple of Cenotes - when we arrived at the first we discovered that there were some locals firing rifles on the carpark. Not to let this deter us we went down a ladder into a dark cave not knowing what, who / how armed who might be down there. Anyway it turned out there was a really cool (and safe) Cenote where Mexi-Tam eager to make up for his diving misdemenour from a few days before and being anxious to impress the German and Australian ladies on the Cenote tour started doing some sommersults and front dives - oh yeah ;) Iff did some good diving too. The second Cenote was more of the same and we rounded of the tour with a good meal where iff necked a jabenero chilli.

The second tour was Uxmal - more Mayan ruins. They were really cool. Anyone interested look them up on google. They were a lot more decorative than Chichen Itza.

Finally in Merida Mexi-Tam finished of his postcard writing spree. It ended with a mamoth session spanning, much to the amusement of Iff and especially Trace, an (inspiration interval ridden) 5 hrs. The postcards contained gold though and were well worth the effort.

Following on from Merida we headed back to the east coast to Tulum where we stayed in Cabañas on the beach. The Cabañas or "beach huts" as they would be called in britain were really cool and the hammocks provided a good nights sleep. We must have been sleeping less than 20 metres away from the sea and the noise was really relaxing. The private beach in the morning was a bonus as was the friendly cat who halped Mexi-Tam out with his shrimps. As seemed appropriate for a beach hut resort we started on the cocktails pretty early. Trace sank a couple of Daiquiris and Mexi-Tam introduced Iff to the champion drink called a "Caiperinia" (almost certainly spelled wrong consisting of rum, limes and sugar.

We only stayed at the beach place one night. It was pricey but also out of town. We went to another hostel where Mexi-Tam, on deciding he needed to get back into shape, went for a run. On this run he encountered local stray cats, dogs, a Mexican ghetto and was also joined on his run in part by 4 pigs. Weird.

Our last point of action in Tulum was to go to "Hidden worlds Cenote" for some zip-lining, snorkelling and ski-biking. It was decent but the zip-lining was a bit short and the snorkelling was a fairly small area. Had we paid the full $90 entrance we might have been miffed but we got an accidental "Sweet deal" and paid about $60.

Anyway, pretty much out of time now........It is with a certain degree of sadness that I write this, my final post. It signifies the end of my travels here in Mexico (and dear readers, the return of lower standard blog posts) but it's been a cracking 3 weeks. I've really enjoyed he ruins, the cenotes and the beaches. Trace reckoned her highlight of my time here has been Xcaret and Iff said "sleeping". To be fair though there's been so many good things and just the "friendly" banter over cards and nachos has been a welcome break from work as much as anything else.

Mexi-Tam over and out.