Tulum Mexico - Thursday, October 23, 2008

Finally! After waiting a long time for this trip to arrive, the day was upon us at last! Our flight was scheduled for 6:00 a.m., so we got up at 3:00 a.m. (ugh!) and left the house by 3:45. We headed to the parking place we always use near the Philadelphia Airport (Winner) and they had us to the airport in no time.

We flew on USA3000 airline which we like a lot (good service and cheap fares). The flight to Cancun was uneventful...very smooth. I even dozed off a couple times.

We've been to Mexico a few times, so we are fairly familiar with the Cancun Airport. We brought only carry-on luggage so once we got off the plane there was no waiting around the luggage carousel. We headed straight through the immigation line. Actually, there was NO line. The place was dead. We literally were out of there in a couple minutes. (It's great travelling on a weekday!)

Once we got through that part, we had to find out where to get the shuttle for our rental car. We used Budget this time and they do not have an office in the airport itself...they have a shuttle that takes you to their office. After wandering a little, we headed over to an official looking "Tourist Information" area and were quickly pulled into a timeshare salespitch. "Visit this timeshare in Cancun for just a couple hours and get free admission to Xel Ha, etc." Why were we not surprised? Nice try, but we weren't biting. We negotiated out of that pretty quickly.

The "tourist information" (a.k.a. timeshare) guy finally gave up and pointed us toward the door where the rental car shuttles were. As soon as we passed through the door, we saw the Budget Rental Car guy with his van ready for us. Within a few minutes we were at the Budget office and in no time at all we were on our way to Tulum! Hurray! We had a fairly small car...called a Chevy Comfort (why is it that the cars you rent in Mexico are never models we have in the states?) It was a decent car and got good gas mileage. It served us very well on this trip.

We were really happy with our experience with Budget. We were able to rent the car for 10 days for only $250 USD total (including taxes and liability insurance). We didn't have to purchase the collision insurance because our credit card company covered that. I thought that was a pretty good deal. Budget is my new favorite rental car company. I've used them exclusively the past few years for the times I need to rent a car and I have been really happy with them. Unlike some companies, they always give us good cars and they don't try to pull fast ones on us. In other words, what they quote us at the time of reservation is what we end up paying.

We came armed on this trip with a slew of travel books and MapChick's maps which we have used in the past with great success (we made sure to get the updated versions). We easily negotiated our way onto Route 307 and began the long trek south to Tulum. Tulum is (I believe) about 80 miles south of Cancun so we expected a 2 hour drive.

The ride down 307 was pretty uneventful. 307 is a pretty ugly and boring highway. In fact, I am always surprised at just HOW UGLY that highway is, when you consider how gorgeous the beachfront is.

The only time we hit traffic was at Playa del Carmen, but it wasn't too bad. We stopped at the Covi liquor store in Playa (since we heard their prices are really good) and got some tequila and rum to enjoy at our cabana. Wow - their prices ARE amazing! I think we paid in pesos the equivalent of something like $18 USD total for 2 pretty large bottles of quality liquor...way cheaper than in the states. I also got some margarita mix so I could mix up some margaritas. By the way, at the time of our trip the exchange rate was almost 14 pesos to the dollar, which is hard to believe, but of course when you actually go to GET money, it's more like 12. Still a decent deal.

Once we got to Playa, we were pretty hungry so we thought it would be fun to have lunch in Playa. However, we could not for the life of us find a parking spot ANYWHERE so we changed our mind and got back on 307. Eventually, when we got near Tulum we stopped at Oscar y Lalo's for lunch. It was about 2:00 p.m. at this point and the place was empty except for the staff. We were the only customers. Cute place, right on the highway.

We ordered some guacamole (our favorite) and of course they brought salsas and chips as well. We also each ordered a cheese enchilada platter which came with beans, rice, fried plantains and french fries. I also had a margarita and Mr. Sassy had a couple of Coronas. Total bill came to $360 pesos (about $30 USD).

I have to say, the food at Oscar y Lalo's was nothing to write home about. The guac was pretty bland, and the food was nothing special. I was surprised as I had read good things about this restaurant in the travel books and honestly, I don't think I've EVER eaten bland food in Mexico. I told Mr. Sassy (and he agreed) that my homemade guacamole and salsa are much tastier (and I do not have a drop of Mexican blood in my veins).

But anyway...who cares! We were in MEXICO at the beginning of a 10 day vacation and now our tummies were full. We were very happy and on our way.

Back in the car, we headed further down 307 and came upon the big intersection with the Coba road where you head off to the beach road. We decided to stop at the San Francisco supermarket to get snacks, sodas and ice to keep at the cabana. We were smart and brought a collapsible cooler with us so we can keep some things in it to nibble on during the day. Our mission for this trip to be a little budget-conscious was to eat out for breakfast and dinner, but skip lunch, so we needed snacks to eat mid-day to hold us over to dinner. This ended up working out very well.

So we picked up some sodas (my favorite Mexican brand - Squirt), pineapple juice, some cheeses and crackers and Mexican crunchy snacks (I forget the name but boy were they were these tasty, triangular, puffed cheese/jalapeno snacks). While we were there we stopped at the ATM to get more pesos.

Once we were finished there, we got onto the Coba road and were on our way to Tierras del Sol.

Tierras del Sol (where we stayed) is WAY down the end of the beach road - one of the last places. Going the speed limit, it is a 20 minute drive from Tulum Pueblo to Tierras del Sol. From the "T" (where Coba road intersects with the beach road), it's a 10 minute drive to TDS.



We enjoyed the drive, seeing many signs along the beach road of places we have read about on the Tulum discussion board. Once at Tierras del Sol, we pulled into their "parking lot" (which really doesn't look anything like a parking lot - in fact, we wondered if we had parked in the right place) and parked under a palm tree. As we began to walk into TDS, we were quickly greeted by Julio (one of the managers) who greeted us and accompanied us to our cabana. I felt sorry for Julio because he was sick as a dog (and boy did he look it), but he was very nice and accommodating.

Tierras del Sol has a really cool vibe to it...we really loved the aesthetic of the property with the stone walkway and the lush foilage all through the property.











Here is a video of the walk from the parking lot to our cabana at Tierras del Sol:



We were extremely pleased with our cabana (La Terazza). It exceeded our expectations. I recognized it immediately from the photos I had seen in all the Trip Advisor reviews, only it looked even better in person. That fantastic deck is so great with 3 palm trees growing out of it and NO railings to block the view. That wonderful hammock - AND THAT VIEW!!! Holy macaroni! Simply jaw dropping.

I was immediately glad we had booked at this location. Sure, it's a bit far down the road, but the sweeping panorama of this pristine beach (very sparsly occupied with humans, incidentally) was simply worth the few extra minutes of driving. Our goal on this trip was to get away from everything, and there is no better place to achieve this goal than TDS.

The cabana was fairly small - about 14 ' x 14 ' inside (the main room) with an average sized bathroom attached. The bed is furnished with a mosquito net (which we did not use) and the mattress was of a good quality (pillow top) but more firm than we are used to. Our backs never did adjust to that bed. Other than the bed, the only other furnishings in the room were a couple small benches with upholstered pads on them. There was plenty of room for storage, but it was all open shelves - no closed closets, so the room always had a somewhat junky look to it with all our clutter. The bathroom had a sink, toilet and full-sized shower (with nice HOT water) and a full door which closed off the bathroom from the rest of the cabana. A tip to anyone who may rent this cabana...in the shower, the right knob is the hot water and you have to let it run for about 2 minutes before the water gets hot. The water pressure (understandably) is very light...almost like showering in the rain, but it got the job done. Just takes a bit longer than normal.

After taking in the outrageously gorgeous views and relishing in what a great choice we made, we unpacked. After unpacking, we hung out on the patio for awhile. By this point it was around 6:00 p.m. and we were so exhausted from the long day of traveling, and from being short on sleep. So we lied down for a pre-dinner nap and guess what? We woke up the next morning. No dinner! You know I must have been tired (I never miss a meal). Oh well. Plenty more vacation time ahead.