Volunteer diary extract from Punta Gruesa from the Long week end

After arriving in Tulum for our highly anticipated “Long Weekend” we checked into the Chilam Balam Hotel, and explored a bit of the town. We didn’t stay out too late on our first night though as we had all planned to wake up early and check out the Mayan Ruins at Coba. Next morning, as usual the guys all overslept. Fortunately we had “Momma” Beth to wake us up and we still made it on the early bus to Coba.

The early wake up paid off as we were among the first people arriving at the ruins. We made a quick visit to a huge pyramid just inside the entrance and got some good photos of the giant “Deathball” court. Two members from our group disappeared on a trek into the jungle but the rest of us kept to the pirate code and pushed on without them.

At this point a fair amount of tourists began arriving at the ruins and not wanting to get caught up with the crowds we decided to rent bikes for 30 pesos so we could stay ahead of the riffraff. The Coba ruins cover an area of around 70km2, much of which is still covered in jungle, so the bicycles turned out to be a great idea. We cruised from ruin to ruin encountering Morph Butterflies, dodging the occasional tourist, and trying to run the girls off the road.

At one site we met some very knowledgeable bird enthusiasts from America who lent us their binoculars to check out the Brown Creeper Woodpecker and Orioles chirping in the thick jungle foliage. The bird life at the ruins was truly incredible. The bird experts told us that the main pyramid of Coba wasn’t too much farther so without further adieu we jumped back on our bikes and continued to push into the jungle.

Some of the girls fell behind but we still pushed on past beautiful flowering trees and exotic butterflies. And then suddenly, we were there. We parked our bikes and hiked through a small copse of trees to find ourselves at the base of an incredible pyramid. It rose up hundreds of feet into the sky. After looking up for a few minutes in awe, we began to climb. We scrambled up the rough limestone blocks that had been put in place by Mayan workers thousands of years ago and arrived at the top and were greeted with a spectacular view of Mexican Jungle stretching out to the horizon. I don’t think any of our photos can do justice to the panorama we had there. After taking our fill of the beautiful Yucatan we reluctantly climbed back down and cycled back out of the ruins.

At this point the heat of the day was catching up to us so we decided to cool off in the nearby cenote called Tamacha. We pulled into the parking lot but there was no cenote in sight, just a set of stairs heading straight into the ground. We followed the wooden steps and suddenly found ourselves in an incredible underground world as the cenote opened up into a huge cavern. We all took a plunge off a 10 meter jump into crystal clear water and then snorkeled around for a bit to explore this subterranean wonder.

The next morning we woke up even earlier and headed to the Tulum ruins to catch the sunrise as the Lonely Planet Book said this was a “must do”. As it was still dark we got a bit lost and took the back way into the ruins but it was well worth it, when we emerged on the cliff right beside the main “Castille” ruin as the sun began rising on the horizon. Aside form a security guard we were the only people there and it was truly an unforgettable experience.

From there our day only got better as we cruised over to Akumal beach to swim with the sea turtles. Then in the afternoon, for the culmination of our trip we headed to “Dos Ojos” with Cave Heaven to dive the cenote with and enter the renowned “bat cave”. I think I speak for everyone when I say the experience exceeded all our expectations. The visibility was unlimited and it almost felt like we were floating through outer space when you turned your torch off. None of us wanted the dive to end but eventually the leaders made us come up.

In celebration of our successful cave dive we had a big night out on the town. It was a perfect end to a spectacular trip, and while we were sad to leave Tulum, it was good coming back to home base, Punta Gruesa.

Bring on week 5!
Andy

Volunteer diary extract from Punta Gruesa from the Long week end