geraldp
Contributor
Hi guys:
Here's a synopsis of our trip to the Mexican/Mayan Riviera two weeks ago (10/24-10/31).
Day 1 - Sunday: My wife and I Arrived at the Mayan Palace condo about 5PM after 20 hours of travel. Pretty exhausted. Freebie award miles from United Airlines included a redeye and 3 hops from Portland to Chicago to Charlotte, NC to Cancun. My parents had taken a much shorter trip on American Airlines via Dallas/Ft Worth, and they arrived in Cancun within an hour of us. When we checked in we got a free upgrade from the Mayan Palace to the brand new Grand Mayan condo. They had just opened up two new wings of the Grand Mayan, and they were very nice. Absolutely no Timeshare hassles at all. After checking in we went for a swim in the huge pool. Ate dinner at the restaurant on the beach (one of 4).
Monday: Recuperated from the trip. Slept in and ate a leisurely breakfast and lunch. Taxied into Playa Del Carmen to shop. I bought a double hammock. My favorite thing to do in PDC is to sit in a bar/restaurant overlooking the street and watch the people go by. We ate dinner in town.
Tuesday: Got up early and taxied myself into Puerto Morelos (about 10 minutes North of the condo). I chose to dive with Dive Puerto Morelos. Puerto Morelos is a lot closer to the Mayan Palace than Playa Del Carmen, and I had read good reviews about the dive op there. I told them I wanted to do some reef diving, wreck diving, a cenote dive, and a couple of dives over in Cozumel. We agreed on a fixed price before I came over. I met the dive shop owner, Catriona (Cat), the Dive Master, Bret (an American entrepreneur from Utah who had moved to Mexico 3 years ago), the local boat driver Vincente, and one other diver, Mark (from Ohio), who was on his first dive after OW certification. They did have a steel 100 available for me, but apparently there is no Nitrox available in Puerto Morelos. Dive Puerto Morelos is a block from the pier, and Cat drove all our gear down to the pier for us. Vincente brought the boat around: the Cisne Negro (Black Swan). The boat was about a 20 footer with a canopy to keep the sun off. The two dives we were to do that day was the "The Bridges", and "The Last Buoy" - both off of Puerto Morelos reef. The 4 of us piled in and motored out about 20 minutes to the reef. We did a back flip into the water. Mark got pretty sea sick as he geared up, and when he got in the water started hyperventilating. We floated on the surface several minutes before Mark decided he was done for the day and crawled back into the boat. Bret and I dropped down to about 50 feet, and discovered we'd drifted a ways from the site Bret was looking for. When we found the site it was a great site.. Lots of coral with 5-10 foot deep canyons and swim throughs. We saw huge schools of French Grunts, lots of parrotfish and angel fish, a couple of trunkfish, spiny lobster, and a couple of small spotted moray eels. One eel, about a foot long, was in a hole in the coral with just a bit of his head sticking out one side and a bit of his tail out the other. I was briefly tempted to tweak his tail, but decided that it was probably not the same thing as tweaking my cats tail, so I refrained. Zero current and zero surge at this site, which was nice. This dive was 59 feet max depth for 35 minutes.
After the dive we motored Mark back to the pier. Mark was very apologetic, but apparently he spent the entire time we were diving hurling over the side of the boat. The three of us then motored out to "The Last Buoy", which is simply the last buoy on the Puerto Morelos reef. This site was similar to the Bridges, but lots more reef. Lots of holes and canyons in the coral that dropped down 5-6 feet to a sandy bottom. Lots more variety of fish here, queen angelfish, damselfish, parrotfish, squirrelfish, wrasse, coney, trumptetfish, & groupers. Very colorful. At one point I was swimming through a canyon and looked over my shoulder to see I was being stalked by a barracuda. When I turned around he swam off. Found a 2-3 foot spotted moray eel who swam up to us I assume he was just curious, as he kept close to the coral and finally swam off. A large gray angelfish kept swimming up looking for food. When Bret released air from his alternate reg the angelfish started dancing in the bubbles over our head. That was fun. I took lots of pictures. Almost no current but there was some pretty good surge so you had to be careful or you'd get smacked into the coral. Max depth for this dive was 48 feet for 49 minutes.
I taxied back to the condo and spent the afternoon out at the pool. We ate dinner at the beachside restaurant again.
Wednesday: The four of us got up early and took a tour out to the Chichen Itza ruins. We had purchased the tour from a street vendor in Playa Del Carmen on Monday. The price was pretty good, but instead of the expected 3-hour bus ride out it ended up being closer to 5 hours to get to the ruins. Our tour bus picked up several people at hotels along the way, then went all the way South to Tulum before we started heading inland. Then we headed Northwest on a gravel/dirt road for a couple of hours before we finally met up with the main East/West Cancun-Chichen Itza road. Apparently we bypassed a toll road, but paid for it by traveling on those potholes. The tour guide gave his spiel in Spanish, then followed up in English. Pretty informative, and gave us a chance to learn some more Spanish. There were two busses total (the other bus was all German & Italian) for a total of about 100 or so tourists. Finally we got to the ruins (we had a brief stop at a small village about 30 minutes before we got to the ruins). There we were delivered to a Mayan guide who spoke English fairly well. He toured us around the ruins for 1-1/2 hours, then gave us another 1-1/2 hours to tour on our own. Got some great pics from the top of the big pyramid. The weather was frightfully hot, with very high humidity. Since I'm pretty claustrophobic, I chose not to climb the inside of the pyramid - apparently it's really close and confined inside, and very hot. Finally we headed back. We stopped for lunch (dinner?) at a small town, and they fed us a buffet Mayan lunch. That was pretty good. After that we stopped at a large cenote. This was a huge cavern with a couple of holes - 1 at the very top about 100 feet above the water and 1 leading down a small, very steep cave entrance with steps carved into the floor. Inside they had built platforms for people to stand on and swim off of. We were told to bring our swim suits (which we did) but we only had 30 minutes there so we didn't bother jumping in. About a dozen or more people from our busses went swimming. As we all climbed back in the bus we were swarmed but dozens of small Mayan children wanting to sell us trinkets, postcards, etc.. They were all about 3-6 years old. They were cute but they kind of acted like a Mayan mafia if they didn't get enough pesos out of you. The final stop was to a large village called Valladolid. Our guide reported this city to have the fame of containing the oldest christian church in all of the Americas (North, South, & Central)! Frommers says that parts of the "Franciscan monastery" in Valladolid was built around 1552, so that's probably where they get their statistics. Finally we headed back again we had to turn South on the gravel road and drive all the way to Tulum before heading back North again to our condo. We got back around 9:30PM - about a 15 hour day instead of the 11 they promised us.
As soon as we got back my wife and I went out to the poolside restaurant to meet up with two ScubaBoard members I had met online, Amelia and Kerry (amyj). They were from Ohio, and were also staying at the Mayan Palace. They were very nice folks, and it was a joy to meet them. They were diving with a different dive operation out of Playa Del Carmen, Dive Diablo. We chatted for an hour, then said goodbye and turned in.
to be continued...
Here's a synopsis of our trip to the Mexican/Mayan Riviera two weeks ago (10/24-10/31).
Day 1 - Sunday: My wife and I Arrived at the Mayan Palace condo about 5PM after 20 hours of travel. Pretty exhausted. Freebie award miles from United Airlines included a redeye and 3 hops from Portland to Chicago to Charlotte, NC to Cancun. My parents had taken a much shorter trip on American Airlines via Dallas/Ft Worth, and they arrived in Cancun within an hour of us. When we checked in we got a free upgrade from the Mayan Palace to the brand new Grand Mayan condo. They had just opened up two new wings of the Grand Mayan, and they were very nice. Absolutely no Timeshare hassles at all. After checking in we went for a swim in the huge pool. Ate dinner at the restaurant on the beach (one of 4).
Monday: Recuperated from the trip. Slept in and ate a leisurely breakfast and lunch. Taxied into Playa Del Carmen to shop. I bought a double hammock. My favorite thing to do in PDC is to sit in a bar/restaurant overlooking the street and watch the people go by. We ate dinner in town.
Tuesday: Got up early and taxied myself into Puerto Morelos (about 10 minutes North of the condo). I chose to dive with Dive Puerto Morelos. Puerto Morelos is a lot closer to the Mayan Palace than Playa Del Carmen, and I had read good reviews about the dive op there. I told them I wanted to do some reef diving, wreck diving, a cenote dive, and a couple of dives over in Cozumel. We agreed on a fixed price before I came over. I met the dive shop owner, Catriona (Cat), the Dive Master, Bret (an American entrepreneur from Utah who had moved to Mexico 3 years ago), the local boat driver Vincente, and one other diver, Mark (from Ohio), who was on his first dive after OW certification. They did have a steel 100 available for me, but apparently there is no Nitrox available in Puerto Morelos. Dive Puerto Morelos is a block from the pier, and Cat drove all our gear down to the pier for us. Vincente brought the boat around: the Cisne Negro (Black Swan). The boat was about a 20 footer with a canopy to keep the sun off. The two dives we were to do that day was the "The Bridges", and "The Last Buoy" - both off of Puerto Morelos reef. The 4 of us piled in and motored out about 20 minutes to the reef. We did a back flip into the water. Mark got pretty sea sick as he geared up, and when he got in the water started hyperventilating. We floated on the surface several minutes before Mark decided he was done for the day and crawled back into the boat. Bret and I dropped down to about 50 feet, and discovered we'd drifted a ways from the site Bret was looking for. When we found the site it was a great site.. Lots of coral with 5-10 foot deep canyons and swim throughs. We saw huge schools of French Grunts, lots of parrotfish and angel fish, a couple of trunkfish, spiny lobster, and a couple of small spotted moray eels. One eel, about a foot long, was in a hole in the coral with just a bit of his head sticking out one side and a bit of his tail out the other. I was briefly tempted to tweak his tail, but decided that it was probably not the same thing as tweaking my cats tail, so I refrained. Zero current and zero surge at this site, which was nice. This dive was 59 feet max depth for 35 minutes.
After the dive we motored Mark back to the pier. Mark was very apologetic, but apparently he spent the entire time we were diving hurling over the side of the boat. The three of us then motored out to "The Last Buoy", which is simply the last buoy on the Puerto Morelos reef. This site was similar to the Bridges, but lots more reef. Lots of holes and canyons in the coral that dropped down 5-6 feet to a sandy bottom. Lots more variety of fish here, queen angelfish, damselfish, parrotfish, squirrelfish, wrasse, coney, trumptetfish, & groupers. Very colorful. At one point I was swimming through a canyon and looked over my shoulder to see I was being stalked by a barracuda. When I turned around he swam off. Found a 2-3 foot spotted moray eel who swam up to us I assume he was just curious, as he kept close to the coral and finally swam off. A large gray angelfish kept swimming up looking for food. When Bret released air from his alternate reg the angelfish started dancing in the bubbles over our head. That was fun. I took lots of pictures. Almost no current but there was some pretty good surge so you had to be careful or you'd get smacked into the coral. Max depth for this dive was 48 feet for 49 minutes.
I taxied back to the condo and spent the afternoon out at the pool. We ate dinner at the beachside restaurant again.
Wednesday: The four of us got up early and took a tour out to the Chichen Itza ruins. We had purchased the tour from a street vendor in Playa Del Carmen on Monday. The price was pretty good, but instead of the expected 3-hour bus ride out it ended up being closer to 5 hours to get to the ruins. Our tour bus picked up several people at hotels along the way, then went all the way South to Tulum before we started heading inland. Then we headed Northwest on a gravel/dirt road for a couple of hours before we finally met up with the main East/West Cancun-Chichen Itza road. Apparently we bypassed a toll road, but paid for it by traveling on those potholes. The tour guide gave his spiel in Spanish, then followed up in English. Pretty informative, and gave us a chance to learn some more Spanish. There were two busses total (the other bus was all German & Italian) for a total of about 100 or so tourists. Finally we got to the ruins (we had a brief stop at a small village about 30 minutes before we got to the ruins). There we were delivered to a Mayan guide who spoke English fairly well. He toured us around the ruins for 1-1/2 hours, then gave us another 1-1/2 hours to tour on our own. Got some great pics from the top of the big pyramid. The weather was frightfully hot, with very high humidity. Since I'm pretty claustrophobic, I chose not to climb the inside of the pyramid - apparently it's really close and confined inside, and very hot. Finally we headed back. We stopped for lunch (dinner?) at a small town, and they fed us a buffet Mayan lunch. That was pretty good. After that we stopped at a large cenote. This was a huge cavern with a couple of holes - 1 at the very top about 100 feet above the water and 1 leading down a small, very steep cave entrance with steps carved into the floor. Inside they had built platforms for people to stand on and swim off of. We were told to bring our swim suits (which we did) but we only had 30 minutes there so we didn't bother jumping in. About a dozen or more people from our busses went swimming. As we all climbed back in the bus we were swarmed but dozens of small Mayan children wanting to sell us trinkets, postcards, etc.. They were all about 3-6 years old. They were cute but they kind of acted like a Mayan mafia if they didn't get enough pesos out of you. The final stop was to a large village called Valladolid. Our guide reported this city to have the fame of containing the oldest christian church in all of the Americas (North, South, & Central)! Frommers says that parts of the "Franciscan monastery" in Valladolid was built around 1552, so that's probably where they get their statistics. Finally we headed back again we had to turn South on the gravel road and drive all the way to Tulum before heading back North again to our condo. We got back around 9:30PM - about a 15 hour day instead of the 11 they promised us.
As soon as we got back my wife and I went out to the poolside restaurant to meet up with two ScubaBoard members I had met online, Amelia and Kerry (amyj). They were from Ohio, and were also staying at the Mayan Palace. They were very nice folks, and it was a joy to meet them. They were diving with a different dive operation out of Playa Del Carmen, Dive Diablo. We chatted for an hour, then said goodbye and turned in.
to be continued...
