Now, you need to know something about Andrea. She is adventuresome like me. For the past couple of years we have been on a kickball team together and co-mentors on an intern rocket project called BIRST. Now those activities are fairly tame, but while in Tulum we had a real adventure. We were told that ruins of Tulum were right down the beach at the first point only 5 km away. So Andrea, Lisa (another coworker) and I decided to walk to Tulum. We were from Colorado! We could walk that distance without batting an eye!! Except it was 6.5 km IF you were walking on the road, but we decided to walk along the waters edge on the beach.
It was a beautiful walk. Along the way we were collect conch shells and pieces of coral but eventually we started wondering where Tulum was. We had gotten to the first point and found nothing except an abandoned hotel. What do you do in that situation? You kept walking. Andrea and I saw a man up ahead and mentioned we should ask him for directions. Lisa strangely replied that there were nude beaches around, but this man was obviously wearing a speedo. That is until we got closer and I realized this was not a man but a large breasted topless woman in a bikini bottom. Andrea, suffering from exhaustion, asked where the cave was (Lisa and I had no idea what cave she was referring to and during later questioning we discovered she meant ruins). The topless lady then kindly pointed us to a nearby cove pictured above. It was lovely but NOT what we were looking for. So we kept walking and walking some more. Finally in the far off distance we could see the ruins. Eureka!!! We made it!!!
...Or so we thought. As we got closer we realized that one of the lines of defense for this Mayan city was the cliffs it was built against. Cliffs that we could not climb. At this point Lisa and Andrea wanted to give up, but I said, "No, we shall press on!!" We found a leaf covered path into the jungle and followed it in hopes that it would lead us to Tulum. Instead it lead us to the highway, but between us and the highway was a very high barbed-wire fence. Again my fellow adventurers wanted to turn around but to their chagrin I climbed through the barbed wire. Reluctantly they followed. Eventually, after a 2+ hour stroll along the beach and highway we made it to the ruins. At the entrance we were informed they would be closing in 20 minutes. We quickly paid, raced through the entrance gate, took a picture to prove we made it, and were promptly kicked out.
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