Today Melinda, Mom and I decided to retry our trip to Tulum. The tour guide told us yesterday that we could hop on his 8 AM bus, since he left us at Xel-Ha yesterday! We never gave him a definite answer and decided to just wing it- which was mistake #1. We waited and waited, but ALL of the tour buses were full! We finally came to an agreement to rent a taxi instead, but we didn’t have enough cash. Melinda and I decided to go back to the room and get Melinda’s wallet (which was locked in a safe). She got the code wrong, so it locked us out for 20 minutes! That was mistake #2. Shannon decided to join the Tulum gang (and we let her) - which was mistake #3. We didn’t have time to wait for the safe, because we had to catch the taxi! Once we got to Tulum, we found out that they ONLY accept pesos (and we had none). All the girls went to the Mercado and I took Shannon to get a smoothie for breakfast! I attempted to use the free Wi-Fi to get on Facebook, but it locked my account since I was in an unknown location. Just my luck! When we left the smoothie place to find Mom and Melinda, a Mexican salesman told us he knew where they were. Oh great- so we followed him down the furthest path in the market (mistake #4). I knew instantly this guy was trying to rip us off! We finally found the girls and they were shopping for souvenirs. The man told them that in order to use their credit card for a boat excursion, they had to buy things in their store. Of course gullible Mom believed them! When she finally found the things that she wanted for her history classroom, they said they had to charge 10% of their purchase for using the credit card. Holy cow… the scheming never ended. So instead of using the credit card, they sent Shannon and I to the closet ATM machine. It has a $5 service fee for every transaction and I thought it was in American dollars- oh boy was I wrong! The first try I took out 200 pesos, but that won’t get you very far around here! So I had to use the stupid Mexican ATM machine AGAIN- I was extremely frustrated at this point. That was big mistake #5. They even convinced my mom to buy $20 insect repellant, by showing her unbelievably HUGE dead mosquitoes (Mistake #6- there we zero bugs).We FINALLY decided it was time to see some Mayan ruins and then it started to pour down rain. Take a deep breath, the day only gets better… once the rain cleared we walked a mile to the Tulum entrance. We wandered around aimlessly starring at a bunch of rocks. We don’t know Mayan history and we didn’t know the significance of each ruin… and we didn’t pay for a tour guide- that was mistake #7. We attempted to eves drop on our tour groups and I did learn that the Mayans never declared the world would end in 2012. It’s simply the realignment of some planets in space- it was their way of keeping track of time. Hollywood has a completely different interpretation of the year 2012! Then it started to pour- we were drenched from head to toe along with all of our belongings. We tried to huddle together under a tree, but that didn’t work. When we were exiting the ruins, Shannon turns to me and said, “But I haven’t seen any Mayans yet!” It was too cute and it definitely lightened the mood! We began a 2 mile walk to Playa Maya- where we were supposed to meet for our ‘Boat Tour’. We trekked through tons of sand and when we finally got there- we saw a yellow fishing boat. When you take the weather conditions into consideration, we knew the rocky waves were going to rock us and all of our belongings right in the ocean. We said, “No Thank You!” and grabbed a taxi to go get a refund! Finally the first smart decision we made on this trip! All the girls finally got back to Barceló and ate lunch at the grill! I am thinking the rain storms were following us, because then it POURED here! Melinda and I were exhausted, so we came back to the room, took a warm shower and relaxed in our warm robes! Tonight was yellow night- dedicated to Ali-The Bachelorette! We were all coordinated and took many pictures! For dinner, Jason, Melinda, Dad and I ate at the French restaurant- while Shannon and Mom went to the Mini Disco! It was a bummer they missed this meal, because it was the best dinner we’ve had so far! Afterwards, we went to the show Fuego Latino! It was entertaining and the women had very interesting wardrobe choices… Jason loved it! Needless to say today has been quite the adventure! Tulum might have been in ruins, but the evening turned out perfectly!
