Meet an ancient Civilization

Breakfast was included as well in this cool little hostel here in Tulum but I, not being a huge fan of bananas had my pancakes without them. The coffee woke me up and still early in the day we Qwen and I went down to the main road that leads through Tulum in order to find the bike rental shop our hostel suggested.

As it is customary anywhere around here we haggled for the prices a bit and got our bikes.
From here we cycled back north for a couple of minutes and got to the entrance of the Tulum Archiological site. Immediately we realized how busy this place was. The car park was full of big buses. Most of them on day trips from the all-inclusive resorts in Cancun and Playa del Carmen.
We chained our rusty bikes to an old tree and after we witnessed four guys hanging feet up from a very high pole and spinning around while their twirled up rope unravelled (Danza de los Voladores - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danza_de_los_Voladores) went past the souvenir shops and burger stands down the street that leads towards the main site.
On the way there we were passed by a little shuttle train that removed even the last bit of exercise (a strenuous 600m walk from the car park to the ancient ruins on the coast) for the majority of well fed tourists.

The area of the ruins however made up for all of this nuisance as it was a large rectangular area surrounded by a wall on three sides and bordering the Caribbean sea on the fourth.
I was really impressed as the area was large and despite the large number of buses in the parking lot the people spread quite well over the area. The ruins consisted of many different buildings (for different religious and social purposes) and were all quite well preserved. The sun was blasting down from a lovely blue sky and behind the ruins to the east we could see the clear waters of the Caribbean sea - it really was an amazing place.

Unfortunately there was not much information about the the general archaeological site or the individual buildings. I think the idea was to encourage you to hire a personal guide, which we didn't in the end but may have been worth it - Maybe next time:-).
There is one famous spot from where you can see the Castillo temple towering high on a cliff above the blue water of the sea with a white sand beach and palm trees framing it in for the perfect shot. This angle (after I had seen pictures of Derek going there) was part of the reason to visit this area of Mexico. Pity the beach was now covered with seaweed, but what do you want to do....
While we got closer to midday the heat in this place became more and more intense, to a point where it was nearly too hot.

The solution to this problem was clear. Go for a swim on the little beach near El Castillo. This did bring the desired cooling effect and made us hungry.

We cycled back to Tulum and found a little Taco shack on the main highway 307. I enjoyed my taco de pollo while his chicken friend walked between the chairs ... very fresh food indeed.
Refuelled with lovely tasting tacos and some mojitos we cycled down the Temple of Doom! - that's right... the Temple of doom is a Cenote, a cave connected ot a large underground water system that is very famous for this part of Mexico. A large part of the Yucatan Peninsula is pierced with these Cenotes, most of them interconnected to each other and to the Carribean sea. So was this one - the temple of Doom also called Calavera (meaning skull - named after the three entries that make up the eyes and mouth). Going by name this should be a very cool place.
We made it to the place and had to pay 80 peso (5€) to enter, which seemed very high, but since we cycled and there was not much wiggle room with the price, we paid it.
The place looked a bit like someone's untidy backyard, with sheds, old cars and all kinds of stuff lying/standing around.

In the back of the property we found the cenote with some other tourists already there. It was a hole (or rather three holes) in the vulcaninc ground an maybe 3 or 4 meters below was the water level.
We could jump in there from the rim and swim around in a nearly perfect circular cave, with some fish. I borrowed a diving mask from one of the other guys the but couldn't really see much more as the high walls blocked most of the sunlight.

There was a ladder to climb out again and after about half an hour in this place there was not much more to do, unless you had proper diving equipment.
On the way back this got confirmed as a group of very professionally looking divers with a huge amount of equipment arrived.
They were about to get ready and do some cave exploration and mapping I think. It didn't look like a normal fun dive setup.

It was time now to cycle back and get some rest. Just in time as well, as the clouds above started to grow larger and darker. We passed the military post with a couple of guys with huge automatic weapons and got back to the hostel just before the heavy downpour started.
Just a couple of minutes after us a few more people arrived and they were already soaking wet.
It was not the worst way to spend a rainy afternoon by sitting under a palm tree roof, drinking beer and having a geeky conversation with some guys from MIT and an petrochemical engineer from Canada who had joined us in the hostel.

It had become evening now and it was still pouring down and there was no ambition in going any further for food than necessary. Luckily there was this little taco stand across the road and all of us in the hostel became loyal customers of the owner.

It was only about 40 meters (four lanes of traffic and two side walks) away from the garden gate of the hostel, so while it was continuing to rain we ran across the street to this little shack which a few different types of tacos. Beef, fish, chicken, cow-tongue and best of all Al Pastor which is a derivation of a Doner Kebap (but using pork instead of lamb) in a taco . Great stuff and infused with an afternoon of beer drinking everyone in the hostel became a great fan of this place.
We had probably 4 or 5 runs across to get more and more tacos and bring them back to the hostel to enjoy them with a bottle of beer.

Hopefully this helped supporting the owner and his family a bit because we could clearly see that he was not as well off as us. It looked like he had his  and his families living quarters in the back of his shop, furnished only with some old, party broke plastic chairs while the good and clean plastic chairs were outside for the guests.

He and his kids, who helped him were lovely people and seemed to have been very happy with such a large customer base for the evening.

It was a good long, rainy night in a cool hostel, with great food, lots of beer and nice people in an amazing spot of the world... what else do you want!