Blogs from Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico, North America - page 31

April 29, Wednesday Up and at it early enough to easily make my 8:15 dive appointment. I was excited as we were going to dive two places along the reef system, which is fairly close to shore here at Playa del Carmen. Helene, a pretty Danish girl, was my "Dive Mike" quide/dive buddy, and we chatted about where we've both camped in Denmark. We carried our gear about 1/2 block down to the beach, loaded up on the boat, and in about 10 minutes were at the dive location. This was about a 60 foot deep area, and we saw many turtles, stingrays, moray eels, spiny lobsters, and we were even followed VERY closely by a remora, the kind of fish that fasten on to sharks. It's full name is Shark Remora (Echeneis naucrates ) This ... read more

Well, I have just returned from my first all inclusive Mexico holiday. Wow, what a treat! Camille and I decided to celebrate her upcoming divorce in the best way we knew how - fun and sun! Se we headed to Cancun/Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Before we left, we spent about a month looking at different all inclusive sites. We knew we wanted to have a place that had 24 room service, all inclusive, and waiter service on the beach. A week before leaving, we found the Valentin Imperial Maya resort that met all of our requirements and then some. It was an adult only place, which suited us more than fine to not have children running everywhere. It was a bit of a couples style resort, but we did not mind, because the cliente were more ... read more

Only an abreviated blog this time. Silence (in blog terms at least) due to lack of access to useful internet facilities, so even the photos are only from two of the four countries we saw - Mexico and Belize will have to wait til we arrive in Aus, only a few days from now. Central America was (except for non-Cancun Mexico) surprisingly expensive and quite over-populated with vendors who wanted to (a) be your next best friend and (b) sell something to you that really you did not need. We resisted their overtures poltely but firmly, becoming quite adept at not even pausing when approached, an act that feels impolite but was necessary if any progress was to be made on our walkabouts......... The trip here has been markedly different to the truck-based travel in South ... read more

Hallo unsere Lieben Seit einer Woche geniessen wir nun das Wetter unter der Sonne von Mexico. Den Aufenthalt in Cancun haben wir kurz gehalten und sind nun in Playa del Carmen. Playa ist ebenfalls sehr touristisch, wir haben hier aber ein nettes Hostel gefunden, wo wir fast schon ein bisschen haengen geblieben sind. Eigentlich wollten wir hier noch eine Sprachschule besuchen. Diese sind aber hier relativ teuer und wir waren schon nicht gerade die Fleissigsten mit suchen. Jetzt ist auch schon Wochenende und am Montag auch noch Feiertag. Aus diesem Grund werden wir wohl am Wochenende oder anfangs Woche Richtung Tulum weiter reisen. Es ist zu hoffen, dass es in Tulum etwas ruhiger zu und her geht. Unsere alten Knochen muessen ganz schoen leiden unter den Partystrapazen. Der Ausgang beginnt hier so spaet. Zwischen 22:00 und ... read more

Well, our Caravan bus tour of ruins in the Yucatan is already over. Hard to believe. We would recommend this tour to anyone. It was well planned, well run, and our tour guide, Pepe, was very knowledgeable. We are looking forward to relaxing on a white sand beach though, as we have been on the go for the past 8 days. So, what can I say about Playa? It is packed full of drunks, wide-eyed tourists, rude people, loud music at each store and restaurant, all competing to out-blare the next. Vendors, hucksters, police, whooping and hollering, yelling, drums, horns......you get the idea. Oh yes, everyone seems to smoke - and lots of stinky cigars everywhere. You can't get away from it. Food smells, both good and bad. Everything is overpriced. No bargains to be had ... read more