No thanks to Booking.com we found ourselves a lovely place to stay in Tulum - the BIWA Hotel - only been open a month, and they upgraded us to a suite as we were their first ever English guests!
Rooftop Restaurant-Bar for al fresco Desayuno at dawn and Mojitos at dusk + a courtyard swimming pool for refreshing dips after the heat of Quintana Roo.
And no thanks to Rick Stein's misleading 'Road to Mexico' we found Hartwood Restaurant which Rick raves about in Episode 7 of his recent BBC TV Show. He describes the place as "located on the beach between sea and jungle with nothing else around". In fact it's down a very touristy main road, squeezed between many other tourist restaurants and overpriced boutique hotels, on the scrub side of the road - yes, scrub - no sign of any jungle down that Benidorm strip!! We didn't bother - and anyhow the snotty Door Nazi said we'd have to queue for a table behind a long line of Preppy US boutique hotel guests complete with babies in buggies - not our style thanks!!
Instead we found the wonderful Burrito Amor restaurant on the main drag in Tulum town, which was so good David finished one (sizeable) Smoked Pork & Fesh Pineapple Grilled Deluxe Burrito and immediately ordered a second!
And El Camillo Jr (just up the main drag from Burrito Amor) where our new best friends Joelle and Mark joined us for Ceviche and Baked Fish dinner! Yumbles!!
Tulum town is a great place! Stay at the BIWA (avoid the Harmony Glamping & Boutique Hotel!), eat at Burrito Amor and El Camillo Jr, get to the ruins early and rent bikes to get around - take a trip down the awful 'Hotel Zone' strip - and stop for a cerveza at the bar one end of the short stretch of public beach (the rest of the 7 mile beach strip closed off by snooty hotels and condos guarded by men with ropes!) where you can watch fishing boats coming and going, and pelicans gliding and diving, whilst supping a reasonably priced chilled Corona!
