Hola,

I am currently on a bus bound for Flores in Guatemala, the date is 15th Dec.

Carrying on from the last blog.  A group of us headed back to Tulum from Playa: Rhys (Australian), Alex (Australian), Gen (Australian), Anna (Mexican), Amelia (American hostel romance) and Karta (German).  It is a great group, we keep accumulating people along the way.

Some of us didn't book ahead, including myself to stay at Posada Los Mapaches in Tulum, and as it is really popular they were already full.........doh.  However they were more than accommodating in squeezing us in.  Understanding that the whole group wanted to stay together they went out to buy a load of camp beds, and Adam, also known as Poco, a Canadian guy that works at the hostel gave up his room for us..............such a nice thing to do.

We continued with our same Tulum routine of visiting the lovely beach before hitting happy our at the beach front bar called Mezzanine, for the special 2 for 1 Martini's :)

Our arrival day and the night of the party was a Sunday, an important day in Mexico so they stop selling drinks over the counter early and we were still planning on hitting said party by night, so we went to the San Francisco supermarket to stock up on a load of pre-party drinks.

Our drinking antics were soon in full swing and everyone ended up getting so messy at the hostel that we forgot about the party all together, one of the main reasons that we came back to Tulum for..............oops; we all had a great time though.

The following day was our last as a group; really sad :(. Everyone was heading their separate ways; Rhys and Alex were heading to New York, Gen was heading to Mexico City, Anna was heading back to Playa to meet up with her family and Amelia and Karta were staying at the hostel for another night.  

Rhys and Alex were trying to persuade me to go with them to New York and I did seriously consider it, I even looked in to the flights, but it was just too expensive and completely the opposite of my original planned route down Central.  I love those guys though, so it was a really hard decision to make, setting off on my own as opposed to going with them a great group of mates, as I know that we would have had an amazing time there together for shizzle.

Gen also tried to persuade me to head to Mexico City with her, however I have already been there and shouldn't really retrace my steps too much more on this trip.  Again I know that Gen and I would have had a great time crabbing it (dance move) in Mexico City, but I really need to start heading south if I am going to squeeze in some more adventures in some newu countries before my departure date back to England on the 14th.

So everyone was feeling fairly tender as a result of the following nights drinking antics, but we still all headed to the beach and also had a little explore of the town, as Gen hadn't really seen it yet.  There isn't really much to see in Tulum centre but we all went regardless.

Gen, Rhys, Alex and myself had planned to snorkel out from the beach to a break in the ocean about 10 or 15 minutes swim from the shore.  There are some nice corals out there and some nice fish to see.  Most of us saw a Sting Ray, which was pretty cool.  The swim was ok, the current got fairly strong the further we headed out though.  We are all fairly strong swimmers though so we were all fine.

It was a fairly overcast day in Tulum, the first that I can remember, so we didn't spend too much longer at the beach as it was getting a little nippy.  We also missed happy hour at Mezzanine, our nice little tradition as we just fancied some chilled drinks in the hostel.

Everyone was moving slowly after the following day, but we managed to rally the troops together for one more big night together.  Card games and what not ensued.  After some drinks in the hostel we all headed out to a bar called 307, where the legendary Stephan works and makes the best margaritas in town.

It was a nice night as always, but sad at the same time as it was our last as a group.  Rhys, Alex and Gen all had to head off early the next morning to catch their flights.  It was a super sad departure, I really didn't want them to go.  I wish we could have travelled the whole of Central together, we all got on so well.

I was undecided as what I was going to do so I spent the day with the lovely Anna, a couple of here friends from back home, Amelia, Karta and a guy from Germany called Dennis at the Coba ruins, about half an hours bus ride from Tulum.

I'm not going to lie I was a little miserable and felt pretty empty all day as I was feeling rubbish that the original Tulum crew that I had spent the last 10 days or so with had left.  It is always so hard to leave groups when traveling, you just meet so many cool people.

The ruins were really nice in Coba.  Same same but different to otger ruins that i have seen thus far on my travels.  We all headed back to the hostel at about 16:00pm.  Myself and Anna had to book other buses to our next destinations, Anna to Playa and myself to Chetumal, also known by us as s***umal, as it is a bit of a hole of the s*** kind.

I said my goodbyes to all of the amazing staff at the hostel, Anna, Amelia and Karta and headed off to catch my bus.  I was still feeling pretty sorry for myself by this point, but moving to a new place, even if it was s***umal was the best move.  I wasn't able to get a linking bus leaving for Flores that night as only 2 leave a day, so after a long bus ride I had to explore s***umal by night.  The hostel that I was planning on staying at refused to open their doors for some reason, so I had to find a hotel, which was a little pricey (380 pesos per night).  It was called Hotel Ucum, not an amazing place by any stretch of the imagination, but it had a double bed and a tv, unfortunately no hot water, but I was able to relax on my tod for the remainder of the night.

I got up early this morning to catch the 07:00am bus to Flores, via Belize City (400 pesos).  I am currently on the last stretch of the journey now, so hopefully I'll find a cool hostel in Flores with some good people to explore the ruins with tomorrow.  Most of the accommodation appears to be in Flores, a town placed near the Tikal ruins, so I will try and stay there.

I think I'll spend the day at the ruins before heading across Guatemala to Semuc Champey for a couple of days.  I am trying to get back to Antigua before the 20th as that is Amanda, my home stay room mate's last night there.  We will have to see whether I can make this.

I am planning on heading south to Nicaragua to spend Christmas with Megan, an Australian girl that I spent a week or so with on my first stint in Mexico.  Otherwise I'll spend Christmas it  in Antigua with the remainder of my crew there.

Right-e-ho,

I'll speak to you all soon, thanks for keeping me company on this epic bus journey.

Lots of Christmas love to you all X