Tulum Travel Journal: Day Five
Day 5 - Dec 28 - Swim + Bike
Breakfast at Don Cafeto - on the main drag of Pueblo, good chilaquiles! Huge bowl of picked veggies to snack on while waiting for food. The pickled carrots were truly delicious!
Cenote day! We explored two cenotes, Calavera and Grand Cenote. Both are on the main road going from Tulum to Valladolid and Chichen Itza. The cenotes themselves were pretty spectacular in their own rights, but the crowds really diminished the experience. I recommend getting to the cenote in the early morning to avoid all the people, especially if you are into photography.
Cenote Calavera from the water. Come here first thing in the morning for less people.
Calavera features a large pit with a wood ladder and a rope hanging in the water like a swing, and the water is super cool and clear and there are little fish swimming around! There were also some bats in the back of the cave so I didn’t swim over there. There are also two smaller holes in the limestone that you can jump through that are connected to the main hole with the ladder. It was really fun jumping in the different holes, despite the overwhelming crowd.
Grand Cenote has more of a shelf overhang and a large staircase going down to the main pool, which is connected through a tunnel to a smaller above ground pool that you can swim to. We saw a bunch of freshwater turtles swimming in the clear water! A bunch of people were here by the time we arrived, but we found the secondary pool was a bit less packed and managed to take a few photos.
Biked down Boca Paila with bikes from our Airbnb, biked all the way down the whole strip to Nomade, a luxurious boutique hotel with a Moroccan concept restaurant (Maconde). The restaurant was empty at 6pm and we had the whole place to ourselves, which I loved! The floor was sandy covered with persian rugs, pillows, and poufs. I had a delicious poke bowl and they even gave us complimentary chips and dip while we waited for the kitchen to get dinner ready! As the sun set, the staff at Nomade lit all the candles and someone walked around blowing incense in the wind, giving our setting a truly romantic and airy feel.
We biked home in the dark, which was probably a bit sketchy but otherwise we would have been in terrible traffic along the beach road. We probably biked 30 miles today! Later on, we met up with Scott and Maggie at La Parillada which turned out to be a fantastic steakhouse! The restaurant was open air, a minute’s walk from our airbnb, and Drew says the steak we had was the best steak he’s ever eaten! 5 stars for La Parillada! After steak dinner, we wandered down the street where we found a rooftop bar with a great DJ and hung out there for a while. Right below the bar there is a cute boutique shop selling boho chic clothing and jewelry, where I bought a cute little cowrie shell necklace.
An action packed day for sure! Makes me happy knowing how much we accomplished 🙂
