Cancun - It’s midnight in Mexico, and my husband and I are sitting silently in the back seat of a small, grey car, about an hour and a half from where we want to be – Tulum.
We’re on edge because we’re pretty sure the two guys in the front seat, whom we had met at the Cancun airport a few minutes ago, are scamming us. Neil is calculating whether he can take them, should things go south. I’m wondering why, in the middle of Highway 307, there are speed bumps the size of large turtles that cause cars to slow to a crawl.It’s a rough start to a honeymoon.
We chose Tulum, in the state of Quintana Roo on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, because it offers a relaxing beach vacation, with the requisite sugary-white sand and blue Caribbean, along with just enough non-beach activity to stave off lethargy.
I was drawn to the idea of exploring ruins, snorkelling in caves, and navigating a food and cocktail scene in an area mostly devoid of mega-resorts. But now, as we ramble down a dark highway looming with palatial resorts that block any kind of ocean view, I’m wondering what I’ve got us into.
Our flight had been delayed by about five hours by a winter storm in Chicago, so we landed about 11pm at Cancun International Airport. Long story short, the guy from the rental car company who was supposed to meet us at Terminal 3 wasn’t there. Unable to reach anyone by phone at the rental car office, we were trying to figure out how to get to Tulum. Around us, the terminal lights were turning off.
That’s when a guy wearing an airport badge offered to help us. He picked up an airport phone and managed to get through to our rental car company – or so he said – and reported that it was closing and had no cars.
He told us taking a $195 (about R3 060) cab was our only option. After pointing us to an ATM, he led us to that grey car, put our luggage in the back and then hopped in the front passenger seat (where, oddly, a box of pizza awaited him).
“You’re coming with?” Neil asked, confused. He said his boss told him he had to. He said he was the airport’s head of hospitality, or something to that effect. His job, he explained with a smile, was to allay visitors’ fears about Mexico. We smiled back, nervously. “That’s not how it works in Chicago,” I said.
After a long, quiet drive, we arrive safely at Azulik, the ocean-front, cliff-side Tulum hotel we splurged on for the first two nights of the six-night trip. The middle of the night isn’t the ideal time to check into an eco-friendly hotel that prides itself on not having electricity, but a staff member guides us by torchlight along a raised wooden path, through palm tree fronds, delivering us to our room, a graceful circular bungalow lined with mirrors and windows, rather than walls, and topped with a thatched roof.
As a woman lights small candles in the room, we step out on to the patio to breathe in the salty, humid air and listen to the roaring waves. Then we crawl under the bed’s white mosquito netting, exhausted.
The sun has risen high above the Caribbean by the time I grant my eyes permission to open. I step on to our patio. The crystalline sea stretches for kilometres in every direction, and crashes on the slate-coloured rocks below. We had chosen this hotel for this view.
Neil joins me, and we try out our many outdoor furnishings, first lying on the patio’s circular swinging bed, then perching on a wooden swing and finally lying in our outdoor mosaic-tile tub.
We rent bikes from the hotel and ride 10 minutes into town, into the residential “pueblo”. Although much of this area feels like a small, sleepy, dusty community with rows of squat, flat-roofed homes, it doesn’t take long to spot the hipster element – an uncanny number of beards and man buns.
At Ki’Bok café, a friendly, bearded man who may have had a California accent serves us iced Americanos to rival any. More tanned, bearded hipsters at the neighbouring Batey drink all-natural mojitos made with fresh sugar cane rather than sugar.
We stop by the Tulum outpost of America Car Rental, the company we’d expected to get a car from in Cancun, and the man working there confirms we were scammed at the airport the night before. The rental car office was open in a different terminal, and it had our car ready and waiting.
The man with the airport badge whose job it was to keep visitors safe? He was apparently speaking ironically. The office has a single car available and rents it to us.
After another night at Azulik, we trade in that glorious patio for one that’s more modest – and more private – at Nueva Vida de Ramiro, further south in the town’s hotel zone. Our second-floor room is spacious and comfortable, with alluring views of the powdery beach, azure waves and palm trees with dangling coconuts.
A single road runs through this part of town, and to the west it’s dotted with open-air bars, laid-back alfresco restaurants and jungle. To the east, it’s lined with more bungalows and white, sandy beach that stretches for miles.
We drive to the northern edge of town to the Tulum Ruins, which date from about CE 1200, and join a crowd of people walking through a passageway in the thick limestone wall that surrounds the community on three sides.
Inside the wall, spreading before us are softly rolling hills, manicured expanses of bright-green grass and rocky Mayan structures of all shapes and sizes. The backdrop: that aquamarine ocean. A steep flight of stairs leads to the beach, and dozens of people are splashing around in the sea.
The next day, it’s raining, making for a great excuse to explore the cenotes – freshwater sinkholes you can swim in. Dos Ojos, about a 30km drive north of the Tulum Ruins, translates to “two eyes”, for the two caves you can explore.
We rent snorkelling gear and follow a path to the cenotes, skipping the first one, which is filled with laughter as scuba divers armed with flashlights dive in.
We slosh through water and over pebbles to a second cave. Under low-slung limestone caverns dripping with stalactites, we’re the only people there, but we’re not alone. I can see silvery fish swimming below me, darting over the dark rocks. Above, in the dark cave, I catch the occasional flutter of a bat.
The next day, we venture out to Akumal, a town that, according to our guidebook, feels like Tulum felt about 20 years ago, before the tourists and development.
If the resort-lined beach is any indication, I wouldn’t exactly call this place rustic. But the stop is, far and away, the highlight of the trip: we swim with sea turtles. At a beachside stand, we hand $20(about R250) each to a guide from Piratas de Akumal, who leads us into the water. We swim around, trying to see through the hazy waves. The guide calls out, “tortuga! (turtle!)”.
The turtle’s smooth head, with its wizened brown-and-white face, breaks through the surface, its flippers flapping. We watch it bob for a couple of minutes, swimming along, and then disappear underwater. In an hour, we see five more turtles, swimming below us or surfacing for air. Our guide tells us that it’s a low count, but we’re giddy.
By night, we get a taste of the craft cocktail scene here. The Ella Fitzgerald, with lime, pineapple, jalapeño, agave syrup and tequila, is like a message in a bottle: “Go beyond the margarita!”
At the end of the week, we take a last walk along the soft sands and snap a final photo of that turquoise blue, then head for the airport.
As my husband slowly passes over those speed bumps in the middle of the highway, we’re able to look back at our early misadventure with a little perspective. We agree the $195 we paid for the ride might have been a bargain.
Left to our own devices, who knows what the rental car would have looked like after we had driven at full tilt over the first bumps?Information: todotulum.com
Kate Silver, The Washington Post