We woke up early and went for a walk on the beach. It was quiet and peaceful, not many people were up that early. We tried to take a panoramic shot of the beach. It turned out okay but it made the beach look like it is in a V shape and it was actually a U shape:
After breakfast we got ready to go and waited in the lobby:
We booked our tours with Alma's LDS tours. Our guide's name was David and he spoke English very well, which was nice.
Tulum is surrounded by a wall on 3 sides (the 4th side is made up of cliffs and the Caribbean sea). We entered through a hole in the wall:
Tulum was a Mayan city that was a religious center as well as a trade center from about 400 AD to 1500 AD. A panoramic shot when you first walk in:
The first ruin that we saw was probably a house:
A local resident - an iguana:
The Temple of the God of the Wind.
A different angle of the same temple. You can kind of see a little thing that sticks up on the roof. Our guide told us that when the wind blows from a certain direction and at a certain speed the air goes into a tube and comes out the piece on top and makes an alarm noise. The Mayans used it as a warning of approaching storms/hurricanes:
The main temple in Tulum. They call this the temple of the descending God because it has a panel with a person with their head down and their feet in the air. That picture is shown in other places throughout Tulum. Above the 3 doorways at the top there are 3 stone panels. The first shows the Mayan's main god, who created everything. The next shows the descending God and the last was left purposefully blank.
Reed standing in front of a cave with a fresh water source. If you look at the far left side of the picture on the ledge you will see another iguana head - we saw a lot of iguanas while we were there:
I think this one was the Temple of the Frescos - you could still see some of the red from the paintings:
Tulum was built facing the east, or sunrise. It was absolutely gorgeous:
Here I am standing in front of the natural harbor:
After we were finished with Tulum our guide took us to the town right next to it. David said that the restaurants around there might not be safe to eat at so we ate at Subway. Then we had an hour to go shopping. David warned us that the price we were offered would be very high and that we should counter with about half of the original price. We found out that Reed was pretty good at dickering and I was terrible at it. So Reed purchased some souvenirs from the local shops.
When we got home this snail was waiting for us:
We took a nap and then went snorkeling. We decided to try going out in the open ocean to look for more fish this time. We didn't see very many fish. It was cloudy all day and quite windy. We swam out pretty far and then a couple of big waves washed over us, one after the other. That has got to be one of the worst feelings - floating along looking at the bottom and suddenly a wave covers you and you are sucking in sea water instead of air. After that we slowly made our way back to shore and went back to our room to get dry and ready for dinner. We tried to go to a couple of restaurants but they were both closed so we stopped at the Creperie to lift our spirits. We both ordered a savory crepe and then we shared what became our very favorite dessert crepe - a crepe filled with melted peanut butter and covered with fresh fruit. So, so delicious!!
We weren't really full so we went down to the buffet and filled up on red snapper fish, fresh fruit and a variety of other things. We knew that the next day was going to be gone most of the day so we went to bed early.
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