One of the more famous things to do in Playa Del Carmen is to spend time at a beach club. A beach club is basically a restaurant that is beachfront. Most of them do not charge you anything to use their sun loungers / tables / change rooms, but they charge you a minimum consumption fee.

We went to INTI beach club and then charge 500 peso minimum per person. They are a more relaxed and laid back place with quiet music. Some places are more like “Girls Gone Wild Spring Break edition”. Anyhow, this place has awesome food.

There is also a very large drinks list – from wine (from all over the world) to beer to cocktails … pretty much anything you can want, they have it.

The nice thing is that you are right by the beach so you can go to swim and then come back and have something to eat and go back and do some swimming again. You can spend a couple hours at these places and we found it nice and relaxing.

One things I was not expecting was a tropical storm. It was nice as it has been so humid and it broke the humidity quite nicely. The staff seemed to realize that the storm was coming and they moved everybody to an inside location. You can still see some people swimming in the rain though 🙂

A Cenote is a natural sinkhole that exposes the groundwater underneath. They are all over the Yucatan Peninsula – both large famous ones and small local ones. Two of them are easiest to access by bike from Tulum. If you have a car you have access to lots of them.

The water within the Cenote is fresh water and is normally very clear. You can swim in it as well as snorkel and, in some cases even dive. Some of the cenotes go quite deep. Inside this one you can see bats and turtles.

Inside this centote turtles swam past me and little fish are swimming in there that eat the dead skin from your feet. It tickles a bit. I did not see any sharks 🙂

You need to take a shower before you get in and the water is quite cold, but it is hot outside so it is a good balance. Also you are not supposed to wear sunscreen since it can pollute the water. Whether it does so or not I do not know and like most rules in Mexico it does not seem to be enforced very much.

They installed a rope with bouys to help you inside the cave. This cenote is quite large with 2 caves on two different sides and separate sinkholes where the light comes though. It’s about a 20 minute bike ride from Tulum town.

What’s in a name?

I figured before I even write about the town I should write about the pronunciation – otherwise you may get funny looks when you pronounce it like you see it.

It’s pronounced too-loom, the double oo’s are said quickly.

Now we got that out of the way…

Tulum ruins and the ocean

A tale of two places

Tulum is the town on the side of highway 307 as you continue south from Cancun after Playa del Carmen. If you continue on this road you will reach Chetumal and then the border of Belize. In fact, it’s not that far from here, 200km or so.

Tulum town is close to the beach but it is not right on the ocean. So this means you have to make a decision. Do you want to be on the ocean or would you like to stay in town. Each has it’s advantages but the selection of places to eat (and the prices of said places) swayed me towards town.

Getting around

This would probably be an ideal place to rent a car as the beach is about 5km from here and 2 centotes are also about 5km in the other direction. But I decided to take a bike instead. A bike works well but remember that is gets very hot here so take plenty of water.

There must be hundreds of nice restaurants in Tulum. I almost think there are more places to eat than people. Since Tulum is quite laid back, it’s a nice walk down the main street to check out the menus and decide what you want for dinner.

Tulum Ruins

I cycled out to the archeological site and it is for sure worth checking out. There are lots of people trying to sell you “made in China” trinkets on the way in, but if you are on a bike they tend to move out of the way before you run them over 🙂 Well, at least that has been my experience. I have never injured a tout yet 😉

Usually you can go swimming at the beach down below the ruins. However, since it is turtle hatching season it is closed off. You can however cycle a bit further down and use the public beach there. There are also a selection of hotels down that road that would be happy to have your business for lunch and I had a really nice meal by the ocean.