Tuesday, November 11, 2014
36 Hours in Tulum, Mexico
Video | 36 Hours in Tulum, Mexico
Once a laid-back resort village with a hippie vibe, Tulum’s pace has
quickened, with new shops, restaurants and nightlife options
complementing the broad white beaches and yoga retreats.
By DANIELLE PERGAMENT
November 5, 2014
The
good news is that you still can’t flush the toilet paper in Tulum. The
plumbing, like the balmy weather and a tenacious iguana population, is
deeply rooted in the identity of this town an hour and a half south of
Cancún. But even a quasi-functional plumbing infrastructure can’t
dissuade tourists. Which leads me to the less good news. If you haven’t
been to Tulum in the last few years, a heads-up: It’s a whole lot bigger
than you remember. Today’s Tulum has three things many never thought
possible: traffic, crowds and restaurants with waiting lists. But don’t
despair. In fact, the town (it’s not a village anymore) is more exciting
than ever. The beach is still stunning. The ruins are still there. The
food is spicy and authentic. And for those willing, there are secret
gems a long, dusty way from the beaten path.
Friday
1. Get In Line | 5 p.m.
Unless
you travel here in a vacuum, you will be advised many times over to
dine at Hartwood Tulum. The line to get in can hover around two hours
long. If you didn’t know better, you would show up, scoff at the crowd
and go elsewhere. My advice: Don’t. Instead, go early. Hartwood Tulum
has no electrical appliances besides a single blender — almost all the
food is mashed and blended by hand or thrown on the grill or in the
wood-burning oven. That means the expat chef Eric Werner’s roasted whole
fish with onions and herbs one evening; grilled octopus with roasted
potatoes, chile and Mexican mustard greens the next. The dining area is
as open-air as the kitchen, with citronella lanterns providing light and
ambience. (Dinner for two without drinks is about 600 Mexican pesos, or
about $45, at 13 pesos to the dollar.)
Saturday
2. Local Color | 9 a.m.
Zamas,
a hotel, bar and restaurant, is the bright, Crayola-colored center of
Tulum. To be in Tulum means to eat at Zamas, stay at Zamas, drink at
Zamas or just enjoy the pink, blue, yellow and teal tables and chairs at
Zamas. The best time to go is morning — when the beach is freshly
raked, the waves are gentle and the crowds are thin. Order a cappuccino
and the huevos rancheros — fried eggs and black beans served on a crispy
corn tortilla (breakfast for two, about 250 pesos). Once the shop
owners open their stands and the streets fill up with fashion editors on
their way to yoga class, it’s your cue to move on.
3. Public Service | 11 a.m.
I
don’t care how warm the water is in Corsica or how soft the sand is in
Maui. As beaches go, the shores of Tulum will impress even the world’s
most discerning snob. Plus, the water is as clear as a fishbowl and
gentle enough for a nursery school. Drive — or better yet, bike — away
from the main drag and head toward the Mezzanine Hotel.
On the far side of the hotel, drop your bike and head down the short
path to the beach. There is a good chance you will have a wide stretch
of sand to yourself. Bring plenty of water and sunscreen — with the
dearth of crowds comes a dearth of places to buy either.
4. Secret Beach | 1 p.m.
Every
tropical tourist destination has a secret beach joint that locals don’t
want you to know about. In Tulum, that place is Chamico’s — a beachside
cafe so laid back and charming you will swear you’ve seen it in a movie
(you haven’t). Naturally, Chamico’s has no phone, website or address.
To get there, turn off the highway onto a small dirt road (look for the
sign for the Jashita Hotel) and drive down to Soliman Bay. Give the
guard at the makeshift gate a look that says you know what you’re doing.
Then drive past palatial villas until the road ends. Claim one of the
rickety plastic tables in a thicket of palm trees and settle in. Your
menu choices are fried fish or ceviche of whatever was caught that
morning, followed by icy Sol beer. (Expect to pay about 300 pesos.)
There are only two rules at Chamico’s: cash only and don’t tell your
friends. (Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. — or whenever the owner feels like it.)
5. Fashion Break | 4 p.m.
With
an upswell of fashion editors and stylists in Tulum, there’s an upswell
of places to spend money. The hardest part will be parking — if you’re
up for a walk or a bike ride, this is the time. Otherwise, drive to
Hartwood restaurant, and pull in between any two palm trees that don’t
have a No Parking sign. All the shops are within feet of each other: Mr.
Blackbird is a tiny boutique — you can almost touch both walls at the
same time — with a sandy floor, elegant jewelry, strappy leather sandals
and well-edited wraps and shawls. Across the street, Josa Tulum
carries sundresses in happy, vibrant prints. Hacienda Montaecristo is
the place for bags, tops and bohemian dresses with leather details. Or
skip clothes entirely, and indulge your newfound appreciation of mezcal
at La Tente Rose Mexican Wine and Spirits, a liquor shop where the
bottles are displayed like works of art.
Shopping in Tulum, at Mr. Blackbird (top left) and Josa Tulum (top right and bottom).
Gerald Sievers for The New York Times
6. Have a Drink | 7 p.m.
There’s a decent chance that drinks at Gitano
could cost more than dinner. This is the new Tulum — the kind of place
where it seems reasonable to teeter through the jungle on five-inch
stiletto heels. When my husband and I went there with friends, drinks
for four (one round each, mind you) plus an appetizer of guacamole, pico
de gallo and a Mayan pumpkin seed salsa came to about 700 pesos (about
$53). But you’re paying as much to be there as you are to drink the
house cocktails. Grab a table somewhere near the disco ball, if only
because seeing a disco ball bouncing off palm fronds is as amusing as it
is unexpected.
7. Jungle Fever | 9 p.m.
Everything in Tulum is either beach side or jungle side, and no establishment on the jungle side is more jungly than Restaurare.
The tables are set under a canopy of palm trees so lush you will think
you’d died and woken up on Gilligan’s Island. The open-air kitchen
serves only traditional Mayan food — all local, all vegan. The owners
Karla Yoana Gonzales Madrazo and José Roberto Terrazas Jimenez tweak the
menu seasonally, but if you’re lucky, they’ll be serving oyster
mushroom ceviche and Mayan curry with coconut milk. (Dinner for two is
about 700 pesos.)
Sunday
8. Yoga by the Beach | 8:30 a.m.
Coming
to Tulum and not taking a yoga class is like swearing off wine in
Tuscany. It’s everywhere and inescapable. One of the most serene places
to find your third eye is Maya Tulum.
After checking in for a class, make your way down the sandy path to the
yoga studio. A word of caution: Don’t be misled by your teacher’s
innate calm. Just when you think he’s about to get too spiritual for
real sweat, you will notice every muscle below your earlobes straining.
But under a tropical palapa roof with a breeze blowing through and the
light drenching the room, offering the sun a few friendly salutations
feels less like working out and more like gratitude. (Drop-in classes
are $15.)
9. To The Bat Cave | 11 a.m.
The
Yucatán Peninsula is full of cenotes (sinkholes in caves), and they
range from small and claustrophobic to enormous and claustrophobic.
Anyone with children will appreciate Aktun Chen,
a combination cenote, wildlife preserve and zip line. Ask your guide
(you’ll meet him when you check in — no one goes into the caves without
one) for an abbreviated tour. (Tours of the caves only are $33 per
adult; $16.50 for a child. For the full cave-cenote-wildlife preserve
tour, it’s $102.) They’ll try to talk you out of the shorter tour, but
stand your ground and do what I do: Point to your kids and shrug — the
universal gesture for “What are you gonna do?” If you do the tour in 30
minutes, you’ll still see the bats and get to walk on the creepy
underground bridge.
10. Turtle Watching | 1 p.m.
Tulum’s
beaches are world class, but to get closer to the action underwater,
head to Akumal. Twenty minutes up the coast, Akumal is Tulum’s less
bohemian cousin, and its public beach is wide, clean and dotted with
overpriced quesadilla joints. Right in the middle is the Akumal Dive Center.
It offers plenty of group classes — but no one ever stood on a beach
with a dozen sunburned strangers in flippers and snorkels, walking
backward into the water without feeling ridiculous. Instead, my husband
and I rented the gear ($18 for flippers, mask, snorkel and life jacket),
skipped the class and followed the advice of a guide: “Swim to the
right.” Then we spent the next hour following a very friendly sea turtle
throughout the tiny bay — until he finally dove deep and left us,
presumably to go home to his family. And we did the same.
LODGING
Just outside the rooms at Maya Tulum, ( Tulum-Boca Paila Km 7; mayatulum.com;
from $110) is the world’s most powdery beach, reason No. 1 to stay in
one of the hotel’s thatch-roofed bungalows. Yoga classes; delicious,
organic food; and a general air of Zen are reasons 2, 3 and 4.
For center-of-it-all action, you can’t do better than Zamas (Tulum-Boca Paila Km. 5; zamas.com;
from $100). The 20 rooms — some on the beach, some in the jungle, some
in a coconut grove — are bright and colorful and close to pretty much
everything.
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