Category Archives: Mexico

Tired Wednesday

February 8, 2014 Craig Leave a comment

We slept in. We tried to sleep in, but ended up both wide awake at 7 am…

We’d decided to take this as a rest day since we’d been logging 12 to 16 thousand steps a day and were pretty tired.

So we sat around the condo for a while catching up on Facebook, news, and Candy Crush until we got bored and went to the beach. On the beach, we found a hotel/restaurant on the beach that would give us a lounge chair, a few daiquiri and guacamole. We read and played Agricola. And drank. Until a storm came in.

What you need to know about Caribbean storms – horrible. They come in quickly, drown the snot out of you for about 10 minutes and then leave just as quickly. So weird. We left and went back home after our long day.

At home, we planned our night, and looked at the next few days. And discovered that we’d made a mistake with our hotel, a very expensive and difficult mistake.

When we planned our trip, we’d decided to stay in Cancun for our last night so we’d be closer to the airport in the morning. Apparently, we’d accidentally booked the hotel for November 24th, 2013 – the day the booking had been made. So we call to check out the situation. We’d been marked as no shows and nothing else had been done about it, except charge us. And they had no availability for the time we actually needed. So spent the next hour frantically looking for a hotel. We succeeded, but it’s still brutal.

After that, I TripAdvisored a good restaurant. We’d been to a number of hole in the walls, random places, etc, but hadn’t yet eaten a meal that I was super impressed with. We went to La Casa delicious Aqua on 5th Ave – the home of the sea. The food was delicious. And I’m not happy that the best food I’ve had here is in a high class expensive restaurant. Miranda maintains that her best meal is at the place near our home, but my meal there wasn’t the best. We’re going back, to check.

Tomorrow, we go to Cozumel. Later!

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Mexico

A little Tuesday morning drive

February 4, 2014 Craig Leave a comment

Tuesday morning we woke up at 5 am to take the 3 hour drive to Chichen Itza. Our plan was to rent a car and leave super early, both to avoid any heavy traffic and crowds at the ruins.

We rented a car from America Car Rental, and the irony is not lost on us. We drove our car home and parked it outside over night for the early morning.

Turns out that McDonald’s is not open at 530. 🙁

The Mexican highways are well built, but the speed limits are fucked. You’ll get sent down to 40 km/hr for no reason, a limited changed from 60 to 80 and back to 60 within the same sight line and…40 on the highway…So…fucked. And we’ve been warned to follow the limits exactly, lest we get pulled over by a cop for speeding.

Once we got past Tulum and onto the highway north speed limit sorted itself out and stayed a decent 90.

Valladolid is a city in the middle of the state it’s filled with narrow roads one way streets. There is a toll road that avoids it, but we decided to go through. Awkward, but we made it.

We arrived at Chichen Itza around 930, and walked around until about 1115. Photos to come. Lunch in the restaurant there was alright. My pibil tacos were a little dry, but tasty enough. Miranda had a pizza that was good.

We left and drove the short distance to Ik Kil, a nearby cenote. It was 70 pesos to enter and you could really spend all afternoon here if you were inclined. The cenote was largely cemented up, with a tunnel and stone stairs leading to the bottom. A little more manicured than Dos Ojos, a lot less than the “eco parks” here (which I’ll write about at some point). We stayed for a half hour and left – we just wanted see place take some photos.

Next we drove to Ek Balam, the site of another ruin. This place doesn’t get much advertising, and is much cheaper. EB was about 120 pesos versus 288 each at CI earlier. There are fewer ruins here, but you can climb on them, which is worth a lot in my books. The largest one is smaller than at CI, but still tall enough to see all of the nearby jungle.

We left there unfortunately early as we wanted to get back to Playa before dark sets in. We took the toll road back through Cancun and down to Playa and man was that a different experience! Two lanes, well marked and a consistent 110 km/hr the whole way to Cancun. Downside is a 258 peso toll, which is around $23…That’s an expensive road!

When we finally got back into Playa drop the car off, one of the monkeys at the car rental place almost tried to claim that we’d stolen or lost one of the car mats. Thankfully, the boss appeared out of nowhere from across the street and made the problem go away!

Leftover pasta for dinner and relaxing after a long day! Again, no photos until i get home, I think. Later!

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Mexico

A case of the Mondays

February 4, 2014 Craig Leave a comment

We woke up early Monday, hoping to get to Tulum before any crowds. Made a quick breakfast of eggs and toast and dashed out the door to catch another colectivo down the coast.

This time we took it all the way from it’s start to finish, in the center of Tulum. The ruins are about a 2 minute bike ride from the center of town, as we discovered.

But first…rain. When we woke up it was sunny and bright in Playa. As we drove, clouds appeared. Then they got dark. Then they started spitting on us. Then they just opened up into an amazing downpour. Once in Tulum we found a cafe and sat and used the Wi-Fi while eating a baked good and drinking our caffeinated drinks until the rain stopped.

When you look up Tulum, biking is a thing. There are a ton of bike shops in town and it’s super easy to get a few bikes for the day. Just be sure to bring id to leave for the rental.

At this point, it was ridiculous out. Hot (Canada style) 28C weather, plus a ton of rain equals humidity of horror. Still not as bad as Cin’s wedding (where there was no wind), but pretty bad.

We cycled to Tulum ruinas, where we learned that “cycle Tulum” actually just means cycle TO the ruins. Once inside you had to walk. Which was ok by me, as I wanted to take a bunch of photos and cycling isn’t really good for stopping and being slow.

As we bought our tickets, we decided to get a tour guide. I remember in Guatemala that the tour guide was amazing and totally worth the price, and hoped we’d have a similar experience. We got a friendly Mexican lady who’s English was very good, but clearly was entirely related to her job – I had to help her with a few words as we talked and walked. That’s fine – communication is a two way street no matter the language.

This place is gorgeous! Clearly taken good care of, the ruins are roped off, with manicured dirt paths lined with wood, and freshly cut grass. The sky was blue, the grass was green, the ocean was turquoise and the ruins were a motley of greys. Just a really picturesque place.

After taking us though most of the place, our guide left us once we reached the top of the ruins – rather abruptly, but we were glad to have the time to wander and take more careful photos.

The rest is fairly boring. We had lunch at the “Coffee Bar+Restaurant”, which was edible but not delicious. After we ordered, our waitress brought me two Corona’s, saying it was a promotion. Well, alright. 🙂 I didn’t finish both, but made a good effort.

We wandered, booked Miranda’s birthday event and then cycled back to Tulum. I’m writing this on my phone on the bus back – strangely it seems that the bus is exactly as expensive as the colectivo…40 pesos each. We have lots of space between us and ac.

I think I’m going to post photos separately, when I get back, so i can do some processing on them. Sorry!

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Mexico

Dos Ojos photos!

February 4, 2014 Craig 2 Comments

Miranda was trying to get a photo that was split between above and below water. She got these cool photos instead, as the camera must only be able to focus in one area at once.

Trying to catch a little fish.

They have hammocks set up near the vendors. We took advantage of them.

A few photos of the Second Ojo.

A cool hole in the ceiling.

More underwater selfie!

Mexico

Akumal snorkelling turtle photos!

February 4, 2014 Craig 2 Comments

Miranda preps to snorkel.

Turtle photos!

Snorkel selfie!

Birds on a boat.

This map is pretty important to successfully swimming at Akumal. Otherwise, you might not swim far enough and might miss “a turtle oasis”…

Mexico

Akumal and Dos Ojos, take two.

February 3, 2014 Craig Leave a comment

After our trip to Akumal the other day, we decided had to go back. We rented fins and went swimming to find turtles, and unlike in Hawaii, we found them pretty quickly!

Despite our scouting trip, we still missed something somewhat useful – the map of the bay. There are specific areas for snorkeling, and the best turtle areas are marked on it. As we swam back into shore we spoke with a man who hadn’t seen any. Miranda ran into him a little later and he said he’d kept going and seen a whole bunch. To bad we didn’t keep going, but we were done with Akumal by that point.

A quick lunch and then off to DO. We took a taxi there, and were surprised to learn that he’d take us all the way in – the cenote is about 3 km along a dirt road.

This place is still stunning, even when you can’t go all the way under. 🙂 Photos will be coming in a day. 🙂

That night decided to make dinner at home and relax. Really nice, just a simple meat pasta, but it was lovely to be able to do that sort of thing. That’s why we get a condo on vacation, for exactly that.

Mexico

Saturday diving

February 3, 2014 Craig Leave a comment

I’d looked up a diving company weeks before we left and booked my day of diving.

Also, on a whim I decided to take a nitrox course, because why not. Erik at Beyond Diving in Playa was a fantastic guy to work with on this. He encouraged my questions and answered most of them with patience. I’m now nitrox certified for scuba, which I hope will come in handy. This experience also taught me how better to plan my own dives if I know where we’re going before hand – a necessity for nitrox diving.

I woke up early and caught a cab to his dive shop 40 blocks up the street. It was me, Erik and another instructor from Colorado diving that day, and everyone was super friendly and excited about the day. We drove down to The Pit first.

The Pit is a 130 foot dive with a hydrogen sulfide layer at about 110, and a fresh/salt water layer at 60. We got everything ready and headed in.

As soon as we got to 60 feet though,I noticed my camera housing was filling with water. The lens port had chime undone, despite me checking it 5 times. I was pissed, but I tried to move on. I asked Erik if I could put it back up at the top so I didn’t have to carry it. Minutes later, angry and with no camera we descended.

The fresh/salt layer was the first interesting part. It’s like someone put a fairly sharp Photoshop blur over your mask. You pass through it quickly and continue descending.

At 110ish, you find the HS. In photos, it’s like a bright sea green cloud. You drop through it and come out the other side and look up at the cloud you just passed through. Unfortunately, in our case the cloud had descended a bit further and when we got to 130 we were still in it a bit. (Only a bit – I couldn’t see Erik 5 feet front of me as we posed through it). So no looking up. 🙂

We started slowly circling up and around the giant cavern. It really is just a giant hole in the ground…Which I find fascinating!

40 minutes of diving later we surfaced near some French free divers. I grabbed my camera and they commiserated with me about my loss. I’d probably be more angry if this hadn’t been the third piece of electronics I’d busted in the last 365, or the third piece busted while doing diving related things. At some point you just have to laugh…(and then reevaluate yourself…)

We drove next to Dos Ojos, slightly more touristy because snorkeling there is very interesting still.

Right now, this is my favorite place on this coast. It’s totally chill. People are there and some have things for sale, but it isn’t crowded and no one was in my face. Add on the amazing natural surroundings, and it’s just fantastic!

Dos Ojos is two cenotes connected by a series of underwater caves. It’s stunning, and currently my favorite dive ever. If you dive, I recommend it highly. I won’t say much more, and will leave it to the photos to help me out.

We did two dives there and then left to get food. Erik took us to a little taco shop who’s name escapes me, but it was a tasty meal after a long day.

We drove back to his shop and I took my nitrox test. 76%…C+ is ok my books…We went over my mistakes and clarified them. Unfortunately, that was the end of a long day and i just wanted to go lie down, when instead i had to take an exam and I made several easy mistakes.

Photos to follow in a few minutes!

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Mexico

Diving photos

February 3, 2014 Craig Leave a comment

Here are some photos from diving!

Starting with my only two photos from The Pit. It’s a big hole in the ground…so cool!

This line is our direction through the caves, there are two lines running through this section and they loop around back to the beginning. I’m told that they are also used for actual cave divers to find their way back from when they go out and lay their own lines into dark caves.

I was told that this is the “Barbie line” so named because an alligator ate a tourist named Barbie. And that the alligator was still out there…Erik made a chompy hand signal when we reached this…I shook my head and you couldn’t see my “funny…” face because of the regulator. 😛

This is a picture of our air bubbles collecting in the rock crevasses. Because, of course, it has no where else to go down there!

Another scuba group. They looked cool over there.

We swam to the “bat cave”. So called because of the bats…

This is the snorkelling area. Miranda and I came back here the next day because I absolutely had to show her this!!

Me!

Mexico

Yesterday

February 2, 2014 Craig Leave a comment

So now I’m on the iPad…installed wordpress and have gone through yesterday’s photos…but now it’s time for sleeping, so I have only a video to show you from yesterday’s haul. It’s from in the middle of diving Dos Ojos, my new favourite place. It’s “cavern diving” not “cave diving” so it’s ok. The difference being that in cavern, you are always within 150ft (I think) of visible, unobstructed surface air. The dive is no deeper than about 10 to 25 feet, but man is it cool! So cool that I convinced Miranda to go there to snorkel today!

Most of the dive looks like this, swimming through underground passages and around rocks and such.

Most of the photos weren’t great anyway, since it’s bloody dark in underground caves, but I think I have enough to show you the gist of it. Tomorrow…

You’ll have to wait for an update on today though…such is life with a backlog.

Mexico

Good news, bad news.

February 1, 2014 Craig 1 Comment

Good news is that I should have some video and photos of my dives to share tomorrow. Bad news is that this is because my good camera went swimming, so I used my waterproof point and shoot on Dos Ojos, which means I can transfer photos.

I shouldn’t be allowed near water with electronics of any kind.

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Stuphes

Category Archives: Mexico

Tired Wednesday

A little Tuesday morning drive

A case of the Mondays

Dos Ojos photos!

Akumal snorkelling turtle photos!

Akumal and Dos Ojos, take two.

Saturday diving

Diving photos

Yesterday

Good news, bad news.

Things!