Hola & Happy Easter!

We have finally hit the coast, after a total of near 30 hours driving from Mexico City - Oaxaca - San Cristobal de las Casas - Tulum. It's blissful to finally be able to chill on the beach and really enjoy the sunshine, and to only have to get into the car for a half an hour at most. As expected though there has been a few more dramas along the way…allow me to fill you in……..

Since I last wrote in Oaxaca, beautiful little town where Joe managed to get ambushed by kids with stickers (who of course then wanted his money) and where heavily armed police were out in force for no apparent reason (in case the salsa dancing in the square got a bit out of hand?!), we hit the road again for a 9 hour drive to San Cristobal de las Casas which promised to be another culturally rich and quaint little town. We decided to sack off the Hertz 'NeverLost' this time and rely on good old fashioned map reading, which did us proud. All was going well until it started to get dark (thankfully we only had to go about an hour in the dark and we were by this point in the safest state within Mexico on a relatively busy road) and lightening storms broke out around us, setting - believe it or not - mini forest fires along our route……this was seemingly ominous but we were nearly at our destination alter a long day so feeling relatively positive…..until we reached the town and pulled up to our hotel to be told that our room had been given away. The amazing guys who worked there showed us to another hotel for the night and re-booked us with them for the following night so first crisis = averted! The following morning we had a lovely stroll around the local churches and markets before moving back to the original hotel, getting stuck in an Easter parade in the process and then things started to truly head downhill!!! I spent that entire day between bed and toilet, my body flushing its entire contents out over the space of about 10 hours and needless to say I felt like complete death! On the plus side, it rained that entire day so the timing was, on my part, pretty good! Thankfully the next morning I felt considerably better and we set off first thing in the morning for our 12 hour drive to Tulum (aka paradise!). Several petrol scares (they like to s*** you up a bit here by leaving miles and miles between stations, and then just for a laugh have about 3 within several km of each other!), a bit of a car battering (the speed bumps here are horrendously violent and literally appear out of nowhere with no warning on a straight deserted stretch of road) and some road kill (20 hours in total behind the wheel and Joe had gone total road-kill free, but within half an hour of me taking over a lizard and a bird had faced an untimely end) later we hit the glorious town of Tulum right on the beautiful coast and our fab hotel iTour Tulum - run by incredibly friendly and cool Italian brothers and their equally cool staff. We have had 2 nights here already, are moving to our own little beach hut on the sand for the next 2 nights, then back here for another 2. We´ve booked some diving here in Tulum and plan to do some also up in Cozumel (off the coast from Playa del Carmen), plus visiting the ruins just north of the town and a lagoon just south, with essential beach chilling inbetween. Today we are both suffering with lobster-itis after getting a bit cocky on the beach yesterday…so are slathered in an after-sun-and-sun-cream concoction and both looking embarassingly and typically British. Shame.

So that´s that up to now. Off to check out of iTour, check into our hut and then wonder some ruins.

Hasta luego xxx