Advertisement
Yes, I was shocked
At how blue these waters were. Truthfully, it was jawdropping. They are ridiculously blue. We've hit beaches around the world looking for those postcard blue waters that seriously could only be the byproduct of great photoshopping. But image editing is not needed for the beaches of Mexico - just all-natural turquoise goodness (although that was before the BP oil spill).
We headed out early from Valladolid to continue our tiny roadtrip around a small chunk of the Yutacan, with the goal of ending up at Isla Mujeres, one of the many beach hotspots in the region. Upon the persistent urging of our hostel host, we decided to check out the Valladoilid mercados (market) on the way out, which turned out to be no big deal (village markets lose their charm when you live in China and actually have to frequent those for your weekly groceries). It was then on to Tulum, supposedly one of the best beaches in that part of the world.
We weren't disappointed. If Tulum was to hint at the rest of our beach experience in Mexico, then we were definitely going to enjoy ourselves. Pristine white sands, crystal clear blue water - this is the kind of place where you stretch out under a tree
Cancun beach
Home to ridiculously blue waters. Convinced somebody is injecting artificial coloring, because this simply can't be real. ('cos its too darn hot to hang around in the sun), and fall asleep like Rip Van Winkle for 20 years. Alas, this was just a short stop on our road trip, so after an hour of splashing and photographing, we sadly dragged our sandy feet back to car. Apart from beaches though, there wasn't much else to see in Tulum except for the local petrol station, so soon we were back on the highway, cruising back towards Cancun.
The stretch from Tulum to Cancun is utterly fake, lined with resorts, golf courses, and what not. Not much of a 'mexican' experience, but at least its a really good highway, so we made great time back to Cancun. Cancun itself has two parts - the hotel strip, and the town. The hotel strip basically transports you out of Cancun and to the land of fat american decadance - huge hotels, steak houses and malls. Its utterly fake, but you can see why they built this place where it is. The beach is just ridiculously blue.
The Cancun beach made Tulum look like the local sewerage plant. I am convinced they inject blue bubblegum coloring into the water, because
Valladolid Streets
Its a rustic but scenic little town - worth a drive through, but not sure if there is enough to stay more than a day. its simply not possible for water to be that irridescent. We were kicking ourselves for deciding not to stay in Cancun, because despite the scenery-destroying hotels, the try-hard-teeny-boppers in their sunglasses and bikinis, and the complete lack of 'mexicaness' anywhere, that beach was just jaw dropping. For anybody reading this - make sure you spend a day on the Cancun beach, its a sight worth seeing.
Remorsefully, we made our way to the ferry dock to Isla Mujeres. The waters definitely weren't as irridescent, and as the ferry pulled into Isla Mujeres, we couldn't help but feel we really had made a stupid mistake. Isla Mujeres was meant to be more private, less 'spring break party mad' - but darn it, I wanted that blue Cancun water. We dragged our bags to our hotel, Ixchel Beach House, (a pretty bland room, but sufficient if you are looking for a place to sleep, though probably not worth the price), which had a private beach on the coveted north beach of Isle Mujeres.
It was late afternoon, so we took our daughter down to the beach for a bit of sandplay and a snooze. The beach was indeed nice, and
Pink houses
These Mexicans love to use vibrant colors on their buildings the waters were clear .... but still nowhere near as good as Tulum or Cancun. Okay.... I've realized I've complained enough about water ... enough of that now!
At night, we wandered down the vibrant restaurant strip, replete with eager restauranteers tempting you with samples of their menus. Mariachis roam the street, playing for the romantic, but none approached us - obviously they figured people with kids don't need romance. We settled on a place that served ceviche, a mexican raw fish salad with cilantro (corriander for all us non-Americans). I also picked up a great taco from a stall outside the supermarket on the south side - probably best street taco in our mexican holiday. It was an enjoyable enough set of streets to walk through, not crowded and rowdy like the cancun streets. So as the night drew to a close, we went to bed feeling that despite the lack of ridiculously great blue water, Isla Mujeres had been a good choice. Or at least we managed to convince ourselves that we firmly believed that anyway.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.036s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0169s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb