Adventures on my mom's birthday ~ food stop after Coba ruins

Our tour guide, Cesar is an entrepreneur in Tulum, Mexico. An outgoing and charismatic young man, he has many friends and acquaintances whom he feels a responsibility toward. It's his mission to help his community flourish and succeed, and he uses his tour guide business to provide for his locals every chance he gets.

After our time climbing Coba ruins, we loaded in the van and drove a short distance to this restaurant, owned and operated by friends of Cesar. In hindsight I wish I'd taken so many more photos! Truth is that I was hot and tired and really hungry, so here's what I have to share today.


We piled out of the van and made our way up the stairs to the second floor of this adorable restaurant. Cesar spoke to the employees in Spanish, ordering tapas for our group and sharing animated conversation in the mix.

Don't you love the bright green chairs and those fun tablecloths?

Ooooh these were the best chips and salsa! Everything was homemade and so fresh!

My lovely yoga friends... Cheers!

Fresh coconuts and bottled water. So refreshing!

Oh my goodness, that coconut was the coldest and most refreshing drink I had the entire week of my yoga retreat! They chill the coconuts and chop the top off just before serving. It stayed ice-cold all the way through lunch. At your request, they'll take the coconut back to the kitchen and bust it open for you, serving the opened fruit on a plate with wedges of lime. I didn't do that with mine - I was too full to even think about it by the time our lunch was over.

And there was this guacamole and the best tortilla chips ever...

And quesadillas served on homemade flour tortillas with a creamy cheese (not sure what kind of cheese it was other than yummy) and fresh shrimp. I ate my fill!

Continuing the celebration of my mom's birthday. She loved good Mexican food, and I know she would have loved this place! As I prepared this post I realized that, Hey! Seems like we didn't have that much food here! But we did. Cesar had been ready to order a few meat dishes but we chose the lighter fare. We had several rounds/refills of chips, salsa, and guacamole so we were fairly well stuffed!

In hindsight I realize we were all a bit overheated from climbing the ruins. Oh how we loved our simple and refreshing coconut drinks...

After lunch we loaded back into the van and headed deep into the jungle in search of spider monkeys in their natural habitat. But that's for my next post...

♥