what's so special about tulum that someone from colorado would want to move there
and why is it not a place but an experience coming up
and if you're new here welcome i'm christine with where in the world is cl and i make travel videos
every week get up get out and go travel so if you like to travel consider subscribing
i loved my trip to tulum and i wanted to bring in more perspectives because i kind of feel like
it's a hard place to understand and plan travel for and so this week i'm bringing in an awesome
friend that i met from taking her yoga classes let's bring her in i'm here with alva and please
introduce yourself who are you oh my name is alba avella i am a yoga instructor from denver colorado
i just recently moved down to the tulum area i've been teaching yoga and movement for about 10 years
now here about months ago and i have to put in a plug to say that i took her yoga class and
loved it actually i was very very hungover and tired that morning and had a really great class
why did you choose to live i chose tulum i came down here last year for about six weeks i have
a special love for mexico and spent about six weeks here and then went home and kind
of planted some seeds in my mind and wanted to create some dreams around coming out here
and about a year later this opportunity to come over and take over the management and operations
of what was called yoga dija it is now called the yoga studio here in tulum centro it's right in the
heart of downtown tulum and it's a beautiful space i took a chance and this is something
that i've been dreaming about for a while we came down here on the beginning of october i love that
so this is being filmed actually on december 1st so you've been there for a you've been there for a
few months now what is the thing that you love the most about tulum what i love the most about saloon
is the energy i mean it's just pretty simple when you land in this city you really kind of feel
this this palpable energy and it's this really um positive kind of good vibe i guess i would call it
it has a very tranquilo very boho vibe down here everybody is so nice and friendly but the energy
itself is kind of it's hard to describe you really have to experience it but most people that i've
talked to that come down here are like yeah it's that juniper i think that's really interesting and
i'm i'm gonna ask you to try to describe the vibe because for me out of and i've traveled
to a lot of places tulum has a specific vibe that i've never experienced anywhere else how
else would you describe the vibe in tulum we are on a very sacred space you know tulum is
is of the mayan indigenous culture that's where they were here you know thousands of years ago and
the cenotes those sacred clear water freshwater pools and the underwater reef it creates this
calmness i guess this kind of inner peace where you feel like you're in a sacred space you feel
like you're in the presence of something a little bit more powerful than yourself quite honestly
you see the mayan ruins you see ancient history sitting here in front of you while you're on the
beach and it's it's pretty profound really cool feeling i love that that was actually something
that i learned about going to the cenotes that it's not just this beautiful place to go get in
the water it has a lot of meaning behind it for the mayan culture yeah there was a lot of you
know sacred rituals they would do and um you know i love researching area in general but learning
about the mayan civilization is you know what the tms falls and just honoring the space north south
east and west it's just very parallel to what yoga means and kind of disrespecting and honoring the
land let's jump to the other side so something you love something that you don't really love about
tulum well how would you answer that you know i believe good and bad and everything a little bit
i think that obviously shalom is paradise top spot for visiting traveling to i think us as
humans sometimes disrespect our land i think the one thing that i don't like is the is kind of the
destruction and disrespect for the ecosystem down here it's an extremely fragile ecosystem
and i think a lot of visitors it's not that they don't respect that i think that
they just don't realize how much of an impact it makes down here as opposed to other places
in other countries what would be your piece of advice for someone traveling there so that they
they can be respectful of that hopefully i would just do a little bit of research there's actually
a really great documentary that i'll plug it's called the dark side of tulum it's about a 30
minute documentary after watching it it was pretty sobering and it's you know it's not it doesn't
have the most positive vibe but it absolutely enlightens you and awakens you but don't put your
toilet paper in the toilet just simply running the ac does a lot more damage here than it does
in other places trying to be as resourceful and non-wasteful as you can and i understand that
you know this is this is a small town and we are in a very tropical area we're also down in in the
south where there's a lot of a lot of people and not a lot of structure to handle those people so
when the electric goes out when the wi-fi goes out when things like that happen we are on a much
smaller grid here so just important to understand that things just run a little bit differently good
lesson for life in general and a very good lesson for places especially like tulum that may be a
little bit more sensitive than the normal places that we're in a lot of people see tulum and the
instagram photos online before we get into the is tulum overrated question tell me this for someone
who spent a lot of time there now what's the one thing that someone who's visiting who's never
been there before what's the one thing that they have to do besides taking your awesome yoga class
you have to go to cenotes you have to it's just there's so many and it's such it's such
an incredible experience because each one is so different it's just something that if you can
get there either early you know right when they open that's usually when they're the least busy
you can get some amazing photos there but the space itself the water itself is so cleansing
and just you feel kind of you feel like you have a new human suit i swear after coming out
do you have a favorite cenote and actually for those of you who don't know cenotes are there are
thousands of them in the area do you do you have a favorite doso host is a great one have a hard
time picking your favorite because there's so many and then there's also some that haven't
even been discovered yet that you know you can just wait a couple years and there'll be
some new ones popping up i'm sure so a lot of people ask me is tulum overrated what's your
response to that my short answer is absolutely not tulum is not overrated there's a reason why
this is becoming such an instagram worthy spot um such a prime destination
there's nothing overrated about it it's an amazing experience it's just something that you have to
come down and see for yourself and there are ways to kind of avoid all the craziness and all the
social media stuff and there's a way to really just kind of drop into the peace and serenity
that you get when you come down here diving into the culture diving into the to the food here and
yeah there's nothing overrated about it tulum is to me something that you experience it's not
necessarily a place that you are and that's part of the reason why it was really special to me
i you feel something while you're there 100 and what the other thing i love about it is
that you can experience a lot of different things while you're here which is why it's
an experience i mean you have the jungle you have the mayan jungle you have these beautiful
pristine beaches you've got snow tapes you've got downtown which is so fun and vibrant with its
murals on all the walls and all the animals and you can kind of pick your own adventure here which
is what i love so much you can have that kind of super kind of adrenaline rush adventure or you can
have the super pristine peaceful so accurate some of my most wild adventures happened in tulum and
some of my most relaxing experiences also happened in tulum wow thank you so much for doing this with
me if someone wants to learn more and find you where do they do so find me at the alba method dot
com and then we are here at the studio tulum.com i love it thank you i had so much fun chatting
with alba if you enjoyed it too cheers that like button and consider subscribing share this with
someone it might help and make sure you check the description below to find all the info on where
to find her i'm christine i'm here every week with new videos i'll see you the next one ciao