Days 42 to 45 - Tulum, MX

On day 42, we took off from Palenque early in the morning, with the intention of covering approximately 700 km to Tulum. Tulum is right on the Carribean sea, and is know for the its Mayan ruins, which are literally beach front. After recovering from the food poisoning, Mihai was now struggling with a cold, so it was a bit of a miserable day for him once again. Otherwise, we got lucky, since the roads were particularly good and we managed to maintain a good pace and reach our destination as planned. 

Half way through the day, we almost ran out of gas for the second time on the trip. We have by now figured out that our range is approximately 350 km before we hit the reserve. At 200 km on a tank that day, we passed in front of a gas station, but opted to continue as we still had a lot of fuel. We didn't expect that we would not see another gas station for the next 160 km! Luckily, we found a Pemex before we run out, but it was a close call. What was kind of dumb is that there was no sign whatsoever that said ''no fuel for the next 150 km'' (usually you find fuel every 50-100 km or so), and then the little shit hole town where we finally filled up had 3 Pemex stations! Some things in Mexico just don't make sense... Another example: you see signs that say ''fasten your seat belt'', yet it's perfectly legal to ride in the back of a pick up truck and lots of people do it... If you're going to allow that, I really wouldn't bother with the seatbelt sign..lol.

We arrived in Tulum after dark once again, and found a pretty cool hostel. The city itself is nothing special. Very touristic, as there are many resorts along the coast. I must admit that the beaches in the area are some of the nicest I've ever seen, so no wonder there are so many gringos around.

On day 43, we just hung out at the hostel. Mihai needed a day of rest to recover from his cold, and I wanted to take some time to plan the itinerary for the next week or so, and to get some information on the upcoming border crossings into Belize and Guatemala. 

On day 44, we went to see the Tulum ruins, which were only 2 km away from the hostel. The site itself is much smaller that the one in Palenque, but it's location right on the beach is spectacular.

Mayan ruins in Tulum. Spectacular location, right on the beach.

Iguana lizard. They were all over the place. This one must have been close to 1 m long.

Postcard like beach, right by the Tulum ruins.

On day 45, it was my turn to get sick (cold), so we postponed our departure by one more day. With all the idling time due to illness, we were lucky that Hostel Sheck was a fun place to stay at, where we spent time hanging out with our hosts, Mike and Gaby, as well as a few other guests from all over the world. We highly recommend the place to anyone passing through Tulum.

Our hosts, Gaby and Mike. They just recently opened Hostel Sheck

Random Stuff:

Before leaving on this trip, I was debating on buying either a notebook or a tablet. I opted for the  notebook. Although more bulky, it has a keyboard, which is convenient when writing a blog on the road. Well, guess what, the keyboard has been acting up on me lately, and a few keys are now working only intermittently :/ 

The Bluetooth intercoms we are using to talk to each other while riding have been very handy so far, especially when navigating in cities. Initially, we were a bit disappointed. Above 80 km/h, we had a hard time hearing each other because of the wind buffeting effect over the microphones. We fixed that in Acapulco with a piece of sponge we bought at Walmart. An extra piece of foam over the mic took most of the buffeting distortion out. The only thing I'm still disappointed about is that there still too much wind buffeting noise to listen to music from my iPod. However, this could be more of a helmet aerodynamics problem.

We initially planned to do about 300 km a day in Mexico. It didn't take us long to figure out that packing/unpacking/looking for a place to stay every day is quite time consuming and not the most efficient way. What worked better for us lately is to do a long 600-700 km day of riding, followed by 2 or 3 days at a location to relax and do some sightseeing. 

Our journey through Mexico is just about over. After one month in the country, I can say that I really enjoyed it and would come back anytime. Don't let the bad publicity Mexico is getting from the mass media discourage you to travel here.