Our Week in Paradise

After leaving the rainy and cold Eastern side of the US we were really looking forward to some warmth and sunshine! We got upgraded on our flight to Cancun which we thought was excellent, so we were well rested once we arrived.
As we flew in to Mexico we could see the crystal clear waters below us and we couldn’t wait to jump in the warm ocean. The process of clearing customs and collecting our bags was far easier and less painful than any of the aiports in the states so we got out pretty quick and were soon on our way to our hotel for the night, The Imperial Laguna Cancun. Nothing too fancy, but it had a pool, wifi, free breakfast and air conditioning so we were more than happy! Once we had settled in it was about 4pm so we went out in search of our first real mexican meal! We stopped at a tiny local street restaurant and got delicious quesadillas and a drink each for a total of $5 🙂 You can’t beat that. After dinner we headed back to the hotel for a swim before retiring to our room for the night. I was so tired I was trying to force myself to keep my eyes open until a reasonable time but crashed out completely at 7:30pm!

The next morning we caught the ADO bus from downtown Cancun to Playa del Carmen, which would be our home for the next 4 nights. We were staying in a funky place called Hotel Colorado for the first three nights and it was a great! We had a massive bed with our own kitchen and bathroom plus really cold air-con which is a necessity! As soon as we had checked-in and put our bags in our room we made a bee-line straight for the beach! It was beautiful white sand and the water was bright blue and very warm. We got two sun beds and settled in to all day happy hour and the best piña coladas I’ve ever had.

Curt and a delicious pina colada!

Beach in Playa del Carmen

That night we had an early dinner and then took a walk down 5th Avenue. We have found Playa del Carmen to be a lot like Bali, but it has far nicer beaches, it’s not as dirty and has a better feel to the place! We stopped at some of the stalls to see what was being sold and it was nice to be walking around at night without being freezing cold.
One morning as we were out exploring a bit more of 5th Avenue a Spider Monkey was put on my head! I did have to pay 50 pesos ($4) for the pleasure but what can you do!?

Me and the monkey!

The next few days consisted of very little exciting activities, we spent our days relaxing by the ocean drinking cocktails, the evenings in local restaurants eating amazing food and the time in between having cold showers and laying under the aircon to escape the heat!
One of the days we did catch a collectivo bus from Playa down to Akumal Beach so that we could swim with the amazing sea turtles that spend their days eating the sea grass from the ocean floor. It was such a great experience and we saw 5 massive turtles. It was an overcast day so there were not too many people around which meant most of the time we were the only ones looking at the turtles. It has been one of our favourite days of the holiday so far and we felt so lucky that we got to experience something like this in the wild. Unfortunately we didn’t have an underwater camera, but the visibility wasn’t great so we didn’t mind too much anyway.

Curt in his snorkel gear at Akumal Beach

On Saturday it was time to start our Intrepid Tour that runs from Playa del Carmen in Mexico, through Belize and in to Antigua in Guatemala. Our group of 16 isn’t all that diverse, we have 3 British (Emily, Helen & Nigel), 2 Scottish (Brian & Carol), 1 Canadian (Brandon), 1 Swiss girl (Shanine) and the rest of us (Curt, me, Liz, Natalie, Cindy, Ben, Nicole, Marissa & Erin) are Aussies! We had our tour ‘meeting’ at 7pm that night before a handful of us hit the town for some dinner and drinks and to get to know each other better. We had a good night at a bar called the ‘Tequila Barrell’ before calling it a night around 2am. The next morning we had time to explore Playa some more and then around 12ish we all jumped in the collectivo vans to take us to Tulum which was a short 45 minutes away!

Once we arrived at our new hotel, Villa Tulum, we got settled in and had the afternoon to spend how we liked. There are some spectacular Mayan ruins in Tulum so the two of us plus Emily, Brandon, Carol and Brian made our way there to take advantage of the smaller crowds and afternoon breeze! It rained on the way so we were a bit worried we wouldn’t be able to take the beautiful photos you usually see of Tulum, but as we entered the area the skies cleared and turned the most amazing bright blue colour.

Me at the Tulum Ruins

We had an excellent tour guide for the 6 of us called Carlos Poot and he was fantastic! Being a Mayan himself he knew so much about the history and was so enthusiastic. We had such a great time and the ruins were just beautiful to look at.

Us down on the beach below the ruins.

Us in front of the ruins with the beautiful beach behind us!

Tulum Ruins

That night the whole group ventured in to the small town centre for dinner. We had the most amazing pastor (bbq pork) tacos from a tiny local street shop, the best food I’ve had on the trip so far! From there about half of us headed to a bar for a few drinks. As usual this turned in to a few too many drinks and Brandon and Curtis ended up having 6 tequila shots and 7 beers each! The words ‘uno mas!!’ (One more!!) were getting thrown around a lot… at about 1am we started the walk home and after the toilet and 7/11 stops we made it home around 2am… pretty impressive for a walk that normally takes 15 minutes max! Although there were a few sore heads in the morning, everyone had such a good time and became even closer.

Monday was our only full day in Tulum so we planned to visit the Grand Cenote (a big sink hole) full of fresh water, turtles and fish. The whole Yucatan Penisular in Central America is made of limestone and has fresh water rivers running below it, so when there is heavy rains or harsh weather the limestone errodes and opens up these big sinkholes. In this particular cenote, theres a cave you can swim through which is quite long and shallow but the roof of the cave is covered in hundreds of bats! Very creepy, but really cool. We also wanted to go to the beach in the afternoon but we didn’t get there in the end because we spent so long relaxing and laying in the sun at the Cenote!

Stairs leading in to the beautiful cenote

Curtis relaxing in the clear waters

 

Me looking at the turtles in the cenote

We got back to our hotel from the cenote around 4pm, so we had a quick swim in the pool to cool down and then had a well deserved nap! At 6pm most of us met in the hotel lobby to make our way out for dinner. We had decided that because we went in to the town the previous night, this time we would go somewhere on the beach. We had a lovely dinner and although we didn’t stay out late, it was still nice to spend some more time getting to know the different people on our tour.

Turtles everywhere 🙂

We made sure we could get an early night as we have a long bus ride to Belize in the morning, so we sad our good nights and caught a taxi back to our hotel, jumped in the pool and then went to sleep! We can’t wait to tell you all about the next stage of our Central American adventure in Belize!

C & C xx