Galveston | At Sea | Playa del Carmen | Tullum | Xel-Ha | At Sea | Ship Details
Day 3: Tullum
  |
Sheryl and her mom took a guided tour of Tullum and Xel-Ha. The kids and I took an all-day taxi and decided to swing by Tullum before going to Xel-Ha, but we didn’t stay at Tullum for long – in fact, we just hung out by the shops near the highway and didn’t actually go see the city. Tullum is an ancient Mayan city, dating back to 1000-1600 AD. Xel-Ha is an ecological park just to the North of Tullum. Pretty cool stuff.These dancers outside of Tullum weren’t young kids. They were middle-aged. I hope I’m that daring/crazy when I get their age.
One guy climbed all the way to the top and beat on this little drum and played on a flute-thing. The rest of them climbed up, tied themselves off while winding their rope around the top of the shaft and then while the top guy kept playing, they lowered themselves down, spinning as they went down. Pretty slick. |
 |
|
 |
As the kids and I were heading to Xel-Ha., I saw this van.We used to see a lot of these vans in Africa. I have no idea what they’re called, but this one had to be ~30 years old. Brought back weird memories of when I was a kid. |
 |
Sheryl took a couple photos of some buildings on her way to Tullum.(She used a Nikon 50D. Pretty sweet camera.) |
 |
Dunno what these were. Somewhere along the way to Tullum, I bet. |
 |
Once you get off the tour bus, you have to walk about a mile or so to get to where all the stone buildings are located. There were some shops along the way… |
 |
…but they weren’t open for business. |
 |
My guess is that some hurricane blew through and they never bothered to fix them up. |
 |
To actually get into Tullum, you had to walk through a doorway in the stone wall that surrounded the place. |
 |
Once you got inside, it was pretty interesting. |
 |
|
 |
Too bad you had to stay on the path and couldn’t walk up onto the buildings. |
 |
|
 |
Like a postcard! |
 |
The beach at Tullum was pretty fantastic to look at. Sheryl & her mom didn’t get a chance to go down there. (We were already at XelHa by then, swimming in the water over there) |
 |
|
 |
After their time at Tullum, Sheryl and her mom got back on the bus and headed over to Xel-Ha. |
Galveston | At Sea | Playa del Carmen | Tullum | Xel-Ha | At Sea | Ship Details