We wake up at 6, pack our bags and leave our cottage at 7. We have a six hour drive ahead of us, straight to the airport of Cancun. The hotel restaurant was not open yet at 7 and we finished the food we bought 2 days ago. As expected, there are no grocery shops nearby. There are just some small convenience stores where Olga manages to buy crackers and water. This has to be our breakfast today.
We wanted to visit a final Maya site on the way, but the road is blocked by a truck that somehow managed to get off the road, blocking the way with it’s load. It’s an animal truck and we hope it’s empty.
We turn and continue the drive to Cancun. The next stop is a hotspot in many Yucatan blogs: Laguna of the Seven Colours. A colourful village, with one main goal: attracting tourists. Filled with hip juice bars, coffee shops, cafés and boat companies. The lake is known for it’s blue and green colour variations. However, that same lake is blocked by all the horeca, so we cannot really come closer. Tim seeks the solution in the sky, and takes off his drone.
Main roads in Mexico run through towns so you have to slow down and manage the speedbumbs. Fed up with all this breaking Tim takes the bumbs a bit too fast. Immediately he sees Police sirens in his rear view mirror, too bad.. Luckily they seem to run the same corrupt scheme and tell him that they need to take his license for a day and ask if this is a problem. Tim bluffs that this isn’t a problem, he asks again and he tells us to respect the speed limits and lets us go.
We also see the first Train Maya running on the track. We have followed the brand new railway throughout our trip, and after two weeks we finally see a train. This infrastructure must have been a major investment, 1569 km throughout the jungle, some parts were still under construction, but we never saw the train itself until today.
Our car beeps. Our gas is almost finished. Still 60 km to go to the closest gas station. Another reason to drive a bit slowely, to save some gas, and also to skip the final Maya ruins that were on our list, as we don’t want to risk to be without gas.
At the Train Maya station close to the Maya site, we see a gas station signal: 1 km to the left. We take the brand new road and keep our fingers crossed that there will be a gas station, and that it’s not still under construction.
It’s there, and we tank 29 liters. With a tank of 30 liters, we’re very lucky to have just made it to this bonus gas station. However, the Maya site that we wanted to visit is under construction and closed for visitors. Next to the ruins is a great sinkhole, but this is also behind a paywall.
We are unstoppable and don’t agree with a final day that just consists of driving. We buy lunch at the supermarket and drive to the beach. Although there is a lot of beach in this part of Mexico, we’re close to Cancun again, there is very little beach publicly accessible. But when Olga and kids went to buy lunch, Tim found a small piece of beach that seems accessible.
Sadly, the parking is full and our last attempt to find something to do has failed. We slowly make our way to our Airport Hilton as the road between Cancun and Tulum is really busy. Semana Santa and spring break make this area of Yucatan very busy. We arrive just after 15.00 and Olga starts cleaning and emptying the car, the bodywork is full of tar of all the roadworks. The rental company is next to the hotel so Tim returns the clean car, everything is fine, and walks back. Now we can all enjoy our circular pool.
We have some dinner, Zeno locks his left water sandal in the vault in the room and we don’t know the code so we leave the right one next to the vault, and go to bed.