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Published: July 16th 2011
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It's back to Mexico for me after already 8 years, and a very first for Mari. We are on our way to somewhere else, but it doesn't stop us to enjoy some great fun here first.
We landed at Cancun with our crazy flight from Cuba and took 2 buses to reach Tulum in less than 2 hours. In Tulum Pueblo, I can only advise you Maison Tulum. Small B&B, nothing fancy, but a great place run by a french guy. It's cheap and cute, and next to all the great places to eat.
First the food...wow, we love it. You find Mexican restaurants all over Asia where we live. So we know the names on the menu, but each and every time we order something we have an idea of what it is, and when the plates show up, it's not at all what we expected. But that's ok, because the food is so great and we are on a discovery path. So to enjoy those, we have switched from rhum to tequillas and the obvious margaritas, plus few Sols/Coronas on the way...
Next diving...what do you think! You thought we would content us with our last
few dives in Bahamas and Cuba...no way! Mexico is the 30th country in which I dive, and I wanted to celebrate this little milestone properly. So we are diving sweet water...the Cenotes! For those who have no idea of what is a Cenote, it is basically a cave/cavern. They are all around Tulum, each time less than few miles just off the sea. The are often in the middle of the jungle. From up in the jungle they look like a "big hole" of water, and that "hole" open to huge underground caverns. Some of these cenotes have many different entry points, some have a single hole. Some do go deep to more than 40 meters, some are pretty shallow allowing long diving time.
There are a huge amount of dive operators in Playa del Carmen, but we stay in Tulum. Tulum, or more precisely Pueblo Tulum has few dive operators to chose from. We dove with Kayop divers. They are on the main street. They are a small operation and I can only recommend them.
I love the passion of our divemaster of the day, Carlos.
The first thing you do when you enter a dive
center without prior recommendation is to start a nice talk with the divemaster on the ground. This is a two ways test. For me to see if we have nice guys in front of us, because at the end of the day, I prefer to dive with cool divers and have a great time. I always also take some time just to check if the dive operators is more interested in making money, or to show us the treasures of his "office"! Ok, on that part, we are not always lucky...but here, great guys at Kayop.
I said above two ways test, as it is also a way for the divemaster to assert who he has in front of him. This is important when we know straight ahead that we won't have too many dives in the place. In Tulum, we had only one day to do two dives, so it was not about going for good diving. We had to make sure we dive a dream place. And guess what....they sent us on Dream Gate Cenote. This place is only for advanced open water and they appreciate you dive with them before that. I understand their point. We
did 2 amazing dives. Once you enter the cavern after only 20 seconds diving, it's pitch black for the next 45 minutes before you reach the end of the dive, each time just above 50 minutes.
Another stupid thing in diving. Great dives don't have to be deep! Did dive with seals in Galapagos, around 6 meters deep...150 hammerhead sharks...16 meters....Dream Gate Cenote 2 dives, we went down on the first to 6.5 meters, and the second one to 7 meters.
This place is amazing! Ok, I may not use the right word, it's fabulous, completely out of this wolrd...so you guess it, we loved it! It took most of our morning. A slight word of warning, do bring mosquito repellent, even early morning. We did the big mistake not to do it, and the only place we could find refuge was...in the water.
Only one regret. It is really a challenge to take great pictures with the basic lamps and equipement we had. These pictures do not do justice at all to the experience we had. It was way more magical than any picture I could ever have taken, so use your imagination and start planing
your next dive.
Later that afternoon, we rented bicycles for the remaining of the day (minus the evening, you remember the tequillas!). We made our way to the ruinas of Tulum. The place of Tulum is really well-known for the temple standing right on the beach...surrounded by crystal clear blue and green waters. It was really beautiful, but packed with groups. Most people actually rush the visit for a dip in the waters behind the temple. Beautiful beach, slightly too over-crowded for us, we went back on our bicycles...
So another great stop. Next entry will bring us to more Mayas adventures.....the fun is clearly not over yet...
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denidax
Deni, Dax and Ella
As usual I'm in awe!!, once again you guys have done something in my 'bucket list' :o) The pics are amazing and the water looks so clear that sometimes it seems they haven't been taken underwater at all!!