Tulum ruins and cardinal sin Friday 18^th September

We made good time arriving in the afternoon so we had time to swim and relax before cooking dinner. The beach camp site is right next door to the Tulum ruins. It has a lovely expanse of white sandy beach and being off season, it was quiet.

 We had set up camp and gone to bed but during the night there was a storm and it hammered down. Some people hadn't anticipated the rain and hadn't put the fly on and so got thoroughly wet. There was thunder and lightning and waves breaking on the beach just a few metres away.

By dawn the clouds had cleared and it was a beautiful morning except for those that had found shelter on the bus over night.

I just have to add this picture although it doesn't do the situation justice. Steve had got wet during the night and this is him parodying one of the guides that we had had at the ruins explaining with help of diagrams how his tent buddy had deserted him and not checked that he was okay during the night.

Tulum was a major port for the Maya who traded up and down the coast. The city was surrounded by a wall on three sides with the seaward side making the fourth side. It dates from later than the other ruins that we had seen and the stone work is not so good. It was important as the city was the furthest east in the Mayan empire and was the first place to see the rising sun. It was also the last major city to hold out against the Spanish Conquistadors.

That afternoon we went to Mateo’s, the local sports bar in town to see England v Fiji rugby match which England won.

An unusal sun terrace and part of the bar with views across the jungle behind.

 Betsy parked out the back of the sports bar with nothing but jungle beyond.

We had left Laurence back at the camp site with an Esky full of cold beer. Nothing wrong with that but he had failed to check which beer or whose beer that he was opening and had drunk three of Zoe’s beers. This might not seem too bad as more beer could be bought but these particular three were strong artisan beers from the United States and irreplaceable. He got a right bollicking. It was a sin not to be forgotten and he got several reminders of this incident over the next few days from the whole group.