Day 25: Tulum to Akumal

January 28, 2018

Birds in the Hand

We got a demonstration of what tropical rain is like last night. Wow. And we thought we had seen heavy rain at our place on the west coast. Not so much.

We thought our hotel last night was great, and with all the fun options around Tulum (cenotes, ruins, restaurants, shops) it would have been easy to stay another night. But we had already booked the monkey tour in Akumal, plus a place to stay there, so off we went.

This stylish bike path runs for a couple of kms out of Tulum.

Since Akumal is actually so close to Tulum (25 km), we were looking for any kind of diversion down on the water side, that could use up a little time and distance. Most of the access to the shore in this area, the "Mayan Riviera" is locked up by huge condo or resort developments, but we did spot one unmarked road and just went down it to see where it went. It went to a short series of luxury beachside houses, before dead ending. Although we were free to go gawk at where the rich people were living, we did have to pass a guard station.

Rich people or not, we did spot several agouti crossing their road, from the houses to the jungle. Since agouti are rodents, maybe one could say these folks were infested with rodents? The houses, anyway, were magnificent, as was the beach.

We finally struck what we were looking for when we took the road to Akumal Playa (Akumal Bay). This lead to a very active beach area where the big thing was the chance to see and swim with sea turtles. People were selling guide services and renting snorkels and masks. The area had restaurants too, and even an OXXO.

From there, a little road paralleled the bay and ended up at Yal-Ku, a little snorkel site on a lagoon. They let us in just for a peek and we were impressed by the jungly setting, easy access to the water, and colourful fish that we could see even from the shore. We thought, we ought to come back some time, and in fact we later decided that some time should be tomorrow!

At Akumal Bay, snorkelers can see turtles in the water

Along the Bay road, not so exclusive condos are gaily decorated

This is an ad for snorkeling at the lagoon. We will see if it is really as great as this

The lagoon near the end of Akumal Bay. It is called Yal-Ku

Many statues adorn the forest path at Yal-Ku

With the clock now moving along, we left Akumal Playa and crossed the highway to Akumal Village. This if course is where the local people live, and they were out as usual, cooking stuff, selling fruit, and going ab out daily life.

Day by day we have passed little food places where chicken is being BBQ'd by the street. I have been wanting to try some, but the time had never been right. This time was almost like that, as Dodie suggested something lighter, like salbutes, and to leave the chicken feast for evening. But I felt, with our time in Mexico running down, it was a question of a "bird" in the hand. So we moved on down to the first chicken on the street location.

I knew it was a bit risky, because other times when I have insisted on BBQ in the "south" we have ended with food that tastes like cigarette ashes. That comes from cooking on the tropical hardwoods.

But this time the chicken was cooked on commercial charcoal, and it was very good. I do admit, though, it was a bit dry. Poc Chuc, or perchuga de pollo is marinated in sour orange and may actually be a better bet.

Here is the glamour chicken shot, with a good model

Here is the same shot with a boring model

The Monkey Sanctuary is a very professional operation. Even their web site, on which we had made an advance booking, was right up to snuff in terms of shopping cart/point of sale type software. The buildings too were large and clean, and beautifully constructed. For example in the washrooms they were using the beautiful Mexican sinks, and as you stood before these, in the ladies', you looked at two Boa constrictors. In the men's, it was a very large tortoise.

Part of the palapa structure at the monkey sanctuary

When we first arrived, Dodie got barked at by a dog and was a bit frightened. But this turned out to only be "Petunia". Petunia was afraid of Dodie's walking sticks. Mutual misunderstanding.

Central to the idea at the Sanctuary is that it is a guided tour. This turned out to be quite excellent, with our guide Alex very engaged and engaging. Along the way.many other staffers assisted with helping people hold birds, or snakes, or monkeys.

The animals in addition to monkeys that were housed at the Sanctuary were a mixed bag, since all were rescues of one form or another. Many came from circuses, or from jobs as street performers. The ostriches were rescued from an ostrich meat farm in Merida.

Come on the tour with us and have a look at the animals. We will put a comment or two into the captions as we go. One big gap, unfortunately, in the photos is the bit where we got to sit with the monkeys and feed them sunflower seeds and grapes. We had no camera, in fact nothing that might be monkey grabbable. This addressed sort of a real concern on the part of the sanctuary, but it also helped their own photographer who was taking photos of the people and the moneys, photos that were later offered on a USB stick for 40 US dollars.

In any event, as many have written before us in reviews, this time with the monkeys was a real highlight. They freely walked all over us, and took the food with amazing dexterity. I noticed that if I held out a seed, the monkey would reach for it casually using peripheral vision. But if I was a problem case and tried to hold on to my seed, it would turn its attention to me and extract it from my fingers delicately using its teeth. You could not really pinch or hold on to a seed if the monkey wanted it. They were too skillful. On the other hand, once the grapes came out the monkeys lost all interest in dry old seeds!

Rescued zebra probably came from a circus

Not sure of the species of this deer fawn, or how the deer came to be here.

A rescued Toucan. Toucan is national bird of Belize. There are about 40 varieties

There were of course lots of monkeys, but they moved quickly and often were behind hard to focus through glass. Did get this guy, though.

These 11 year olds from England really enjoyed holding the various animals.

These two were like an old arguing couple. They said "hola" to me.

The boa wrapped his tail around my wrist. Just being friendly, right?

There is a cenote on the property, that is linked underground with others in the region. That is why you can spot turtles and fish in the water.

Unlike other cenote caves we have been in, this one houses bats. I got a shot of this one, in a hole in the roof.

The place we had booked for the night was called Hostal El Padrino. As is often the case, there was no sign on the building, no street numbers, no street names. We got pretty close, disturbing the next door neighbour. This nice man then phoned the owner, who fairly soon showed up.

When I had looked at the place a day ago with the Google man, I declared it looked more like a construction or demolition site. That was true enough, but within the room was large and clean, with lots of place to put the bikes, and in this case hot water from an environmentally friendly "on demand" system. With fan, A/C, and reasonable lighting, we were encouraged to book for another night and plan a day at the lagoon.

The room is big, and works for us. $39 US.

Toward evening I went out on the bike to see what I could scare up in terms of food and water. With the bright sun now gone, the community was really out enjoying everything. There were kids on bikes, people sitting quietly with their food or souvenir stalls, people sitting in outdoor restaurants, or just walking. There was little or no car traffic, so the middle of the street was fair game as well.

I spotted a pizzeria, which had three ancient stacked pizza ovens, and a man hand rolling and stretching dough. Using my near zero Spanish I found out what their sizes, prices, and flavours were and was able to understand that they would not be actually open for another hour. I came back in an hour and put in my order, and returned in a further half hour to pick it up. When I arrived the lady asked me if I preferred my pizza gooey or crispy, a question I miraculously understood. Then she invited me to come look in the oven and judge the degree of doneness. I asked her to let it go just a little bit more.

Assessment: Though I saw the crust being hand made, it came out too cardboard-y. Probably that's 'cause the lady asked my advice. But the toppings were good!

A lot of Spanish went into getting this pizza

Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 1,161 km (721 miles)

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