October 11

Day 12: Farewells

Paula and Faith were the first to leave at 7am. I managed to jump out of bed just in time to see them off.

Then I spent some quiet time by the pool before everyone else woke up and taking pics of our friendly pool floaties as I was leaving them behind.

For the last two days we have head a distinct bird call and seen a flash of red on the crest. Closer inspection revealed our little bird friend was a woodpecker!

And finally I had a bath in our outdoor tub.

Steve cooked a great breakfast – leftover tortillas, scrambled eggs and salsas. Then the fun task of re-packing 😩

All too quickly our little get away with friends was over. We were out the door and bundled into taxis to new destinations.

Rosie and Scotty were staying on for a few days like us. Dad and Ling, Sam and Steve were heading home. We had a final mojito or two with them at Tata and then we were two.

It was such a fun time – a mix of busy activity, relaxing, eating and just hanging out. Great people. Great friends. Great memories. Amazing that so many could join me all the way on the other side of the world for a party!

Now it was time for some relaxation in our beach house at Ahau Tulum. I booked this house back in December and at the time I wondered why it was so cheap and thought it was because it was hurricane season and would be very exposed on the beach. I even emailed them questioning the price. They assured me the beach house would be fine. Now that it was time to check in I was scared that I had made some sore of expensive mistake. I could not find my original booking email (because I sent to josh to book so he had it!) I checked the web page and the beach house was $370USD a night so it was with trepidation that we checked in.

To our great delight (and my relief!) the staff confirmed that due to a mistake on the booking site, we did indeed book the best spot in the place for the cheapest rate (beach house and Bali huts had the same code BH, but the Bali huts are tiny and no air conditioner). An unexpected but very welcome blessing.

So we relaxed and swam all afternoon, watching the pelicans dive for fish, and dozing (Snoring too apparently) on the sunbeds.

We walked to dinner and checked out a few of the places on my list and ended up back at I Scream Bar for cheap tacos and jalapeño poppers. It was happy hour as well so we ended up with two for one margaritas x 2.

The humidity really knocked us about again today. So we headed to our room to cool down as it was now air conditioner allowed time (7pm – 9am). They are trying to save the environment at many of the resorts in Tulum. The fan would be ok on its own if there was no mosquito net canopy above it that affected the down flow of air.

No sooner had we walked through the door than we heard the sound of water. Thinking it was the waves crashing. We opened the door to pouring rain and a massive storm with thunder and lightning that we could watch from our bed. Magnificent! And reminiscent of our honeymoon in Phuket.