Last night we had so much fun. Our nephew Brian’s wedding to Jessica was incredible. The setting was gorgeous. First wedding where I had my shoes off before the ceromony even started.
It was a night filled with so much love and joy.
I didn’t get photos of later in the night but they had another 40 friends at the wedding who danced until late into the night.
Everyone had so much fun. We got there at 4pm and didn’t leave until midnight.
Today was the pre-wedding welcome drinks. I didn’t get very many photos but we had a really fun time. Here is Jeff with our grand nieces Aubrey and Carly.
Tomorrow I will get a lot more photos. We loved seeing everyone ! Tonight we got to see my brother and sister in laws, three of my nephews meet their wives and brides and see our great nieces. No surprise that the Zeunert women who have married into the Zeunert family are awesome.
Below is my sister in laws Amy and Gabriella, my niece in law Melisa and me.
Below is our nephew Matt and wife Melissa.
Below is Jeff and his brother Mike.
Tulum has some pretty impressive Mayan ruins. They are expensive to access and there isn’t a lot of shade but the scenery is spectacular
We went with Jeff’s brother Don and his wife Gabriella. They are also here for our nephew Brian’s wedding.
The ruins were interesting but the big attraction is the stunning coast.
We walked around and then I got really overheated. I’m leaning on Jeff mostly not to fall over.
After a quick refresh in air conditioning we met Don and agabriella for drinks. swimming and dinner.
Today started off crazy. We thought we found a place to go for beach access but after this text exchange decided no. We were not about to pay $200 just to nap on a lounge chair.
Then we tried to go to another place but it was $50 just to enter. Didn’t include parking. We finally found the free beach. It was beautiful but no shade.
We decided to walk to a nearby restaurant that had shade and no cover charge.
And that was perfect. We stayed for hours and had the longest lunch every. Here was the view from our table.
Then before leaving Jeff tried out the hammock and I feel asleep in an andironack chair.
Jeff and I walked to the rental car place this morning.
This street reminded is how Tulum looked the first time we visited. Once we got the rental car we went to the grocery store. I didn’t but these Pringles but it was tempting.
Later in the afternoon we tried to go to the beach. We were on it for maybe five minutes before they told us it was closed. We thought we were at the free access beach but apparently not. We’ll try again tomorrow.
Jeff and I were in Tulum 25 years ago. This is where we stayed. It was even more rustic inside.
Heres the weird thing, it was easier for us to settle in back then
We rented a car in Cancun. Tulum didn’t even have a town much less an airport. We didn’t have cell phones or advance reservations. We had a paper map, a Lonely Planet Guidebook and a bottle of water. We drove until we found a hut we liked and paid in the pesos we had exchanged dollars for in our US bank. This hut I remember cost $30 a night which was overpriced for what it was even then.
Now we are in a beautiful Air BnB but completely confused. We have WIFI in the condo, but on our walk to breakfast we realized that we didn’t have data and got completely lost. Like walking in circles lost.
We stumbled on a great place for breakfast, and paid with credit card. When the waitress said we couldn’t add the tip on we remembered we only had US dollars and Colombian pesos. Jeff had to run to an ATM.
We went to a 7 eleven to get a SIM card for my phone. A SIM card is a tiny microchip thing you can put in some phones which makes it basically a burner phone. Putting the chip in was not easy.
We also realized the Uber thing. Uber is allowed here which is what I had read. But the taxis have a monopoly so don’t allow peopke to drive for Uber. A five mintute taxi ride from the neighborhood we’re in is $20. That is a flat rate. I think the taxi drivers may own the town.
Now we know why everyone suggests renting a car if you are not staying in a resort in Tulum. So guess what we’re doing tomorrow.
But by evening we got our wits about us. We found our favorite kind of tacos.
We found a mini mart where they circumvented the Sunday night dry laws, and found homemade tortillas, and fresh eggs for tomorrow’s breakfast.
We flew from Bogota to Tulum today. The flight was great. It was so empty that we each had an entire row to ourselves. Once we landed we became hapless.
At customs they wanted to search our giant suitcase. But, we locked it and couldn’t remember the code. Turns out it was 000 Then Jeff got stopped when the sniffer dog alerted on his suitcase. When we left I put all our leftover spices in zip lock bags and took then with us. Turms out you can’t take seeds into the country. Customs officials confiscated cumin seeds and red pepper flakes. Then we went to call an Uber and found we had no cell phone data and also there isn’t Uber in Tulum. It all worked out we got a taxi, got to our Airbnb and went out to dinner.
Jeff and I finished moving out of our apt. I’m going to miss this view and our balcony.
Here it’s our Panamanian storage locker. And yes we still have one in Seattle.
Because we are flying to Mexico on a Colombian airline we have a stopover in Bogota.
We got in late but Yuly our online Spanish teacher met up with us. It was so fun to see her in person.
We packed and then packed some more today. It’s crazy how much stuff we have for a furnished apt.
We spent the evening with our friends Alberto and Gloria. Tomorrow we have to finish up packing. Our flight isn’t until 6pm which is good.
So I now have a hernia. It’s from surgery and very common. As you can see in this photo I have to wear this hernia belt. In the house I wear it over clothes but when I go out it’s under my clothes. It doesnt hurt but it los bad and I have to be super careful. Eventually I’ll need surgery to fix it.
But the good part of having a hernia is a valid excuse to not lift boxes. Jeff spent the day with someone he hired to boxes to our storage space. I didn’t even go with in the car. So that’s the good part of having a hernia.
