Advertisement
Published: October 7th 2010
Edit Blog Post
I´m writing this in Cancun after we spent almost a week in Playa del Carmen. Paya has been described as ´Cancun ten years ago´, all I know it was a totally brilliant place. Yes it was commercial in parts, Maccas, Starbucks etc, but it was also authentic if you were prepared to wander off the main street or be temted by all the taco stands!! Which we definity were. Pork, beef, chicken, gaucomole, so many choices for less than 2 dollars!
The Starbucks were next to local shops, selling fake Cuban cigars, loads of different tequilas and 1 dollar coronas!! Every shop sells beer and you can drink freely on the beach.
We checked out several dive shops and went with Dive Playa, our first dive was a night dive. What a awesome experience, from the dive shop we walked two hundred metres down to the beach, jumped into the boat, drove out 500metres, sat and watched the sun set over the town, rolled off the boat and watched the underwater world come to life. The highlight seeing this crazy octopus crawl across the sea floor, and as we flicked our torches over him, he would change colour into
the craziest blues and purples, also spotting a couple of smooth eels! We bobbed up in the black water and sat floating looking at the lights of the town, before the boat came to us.
The next day, we had a huge day, to another wonder of the world CHICHEN ITZA. A Mayan ruin dating back over a thousand years. The Mexicans have done well with this site, even though it caters for thousands of tourists daily, they have managed to build around and away from the ruins so you still get some feel for the sheer size of the place. The Mayans were amazing astronomers and mathmaticians, long before the Greeks. They knew we orbited the sun, and had mapped out lunar and solar eclipses. Another point of interest, they never had any ´beasts of burden´, meaning they never used horses, donkeys, cows etc to transport rocks, all was done by hand. Very interesting day and a huge trip highlight for me.
After a huge 11 hour day, we skipped straight back to our cheap taco house, for huge tortas (this our almost like a subway sandwhich but oh so much better!). we retreated back to our
room on the main street for a lay down in preparation for the Grand Final replay!
After last weeks viewing in Belize with Matthew blowing around outside, the replay we viewed in a huge sportsbar, named the Tequila Barrel, on a massive screen, even with the Bairnsdale races on Sky Channel!! Knocked back a few Coronas, and even bumped into ex Home and Away star Holly Bristley. Watched the game with about 10 other aussies.
By time we hit bed, is was a 21 hour day, wonders of the world, busses, tacos, coronas and AFL.
In Playa, we also did four more dives over two days, the first were two dives out on the reef. Our first dive being our first ´wreck´dive. An old shrimp boat that has been sunk, as we drifted up to it, the sheer size of the boat caught me by surprise, they said little shrimp boat, I was expecting a little shrimp boat, no. It was similar to the boat from the ´Perfect Storm´ thats what I thought to myself as we swam through the deck. The boat is covered in Fire Coral, Gretchen got a small hit on her knee, which itches
for a while and leaves a welt, but nothing else. Our second dive was along a reef wall, saw a massive stingray and the biggest Lobster ever!! He was absolutley huge, hiding under a rocky ledge, he came out just enough to get a glimpse.
The next day was a interesting. Fresh water diving, in ´Cenotes´. These rivers flow underground, through the limestone. It was a totally different experience diving in the Cenotes. They were classes as cavern dives, not cave dives, as at all times you should be able to see sunlight, up, back, under, behind, not much light but some. On the second dive we even came up in an underground chamber where we could take our regulators out and observe all the stalagnites and stalactites. It was an awesome feeling to be swimming in the darks through tunnels, which to me would be a cave!! Also when the salt water and freshwater mixes the water becomes blurry to look through, and so your visability drops, you cab make out other divers torch lights but not much else, oh and the flippers of the diver in front of you!
We spent a couple more lazy days
in Playa, enjoying the beach and the general atmosphere of the place! Then we took our last bus ride for a while, short trip up to the mexican Las Vegas, Cancun.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0404s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
James
non-member comment
the big screen
Glad to hear you had an opportunity to view the GF replay. A bad result for most! Btw, did you have anything on "Mexican Traveller" in race 3 at Bairnsdale?