Tourist Trap Tulum

The night bus to Tulum was an interesting one. At around midnight we were stopped and awoken by armed police at a check-point and told to get out of the bus. They made us stand around while they opened and searched one poor guy's suitcase. Then they let everyone back onto the bus and let us go. Al and I weren't too worried, but I'm sure there were some other backpackers on board who would have had reason to be afraid. Carrying any illegal substance in Mexico will land you in a prison. Mexican prison – don't really fancy that idea!

We arrived in Tulum full of the joys of spring and ready to hit the Carribean beaches. That is until we realised what Tulum is really like. Unlike the backpacker-friendly image we had in mind, Tulum town is 4km from the beach which is hidden by row upon row of beach-hut style hotels which certainly don't charge backpacker prices. There's also no way to get there other than taxi – taxi drivers in Tulum make a killing. We drove to a couple of places with unfriendly hotel staff and pretty shabby accommodation at high prices and in the end settled for a fairly nice place on the beach. Restaurant was bad though (didn't even have any guacacmole) and they even tried to charge me for a towel for my room! If anyone is thinking of going to Mexico then our advice is DON'T buy the Rough Guide travel book – it's terrible, and clearly written by someone who has never been to Mexico! Basically Tulum is an official tourist trap as you are literally trapped in the hotel you choose by the beach and miles away from the town and transport is a rip-off. We decided the thing to do was to hire some bicycles, which we did. That was a good move and we managed to explore some of the beaches nearby, however it was so hot and humid that we couldn't go too far and the mosquitoes in this area are deadly (poor Al has been badly bitten all over and is in a lot of pain, luckily for me the Mexican mosquitoes don't like me too much so I'm relatively unscathed.) We went to a public beach and caught a glimpse of the famous ruins on the cliff-side. After that we'd decide we'd seen enough and went into town to book our bus journey onwards and an internal flight from Cancun to Mexico city.