Got a bus to Playa del Carmen, which wasn´t for a couple of hours so more time spent sitting in the airport as fun as that is. The bus ride was uneventful but did give us a sense of being in a completely different country and very different to Cuba. Within a km of the airport there´s a big fat M on a stick, which we could do without seeing. So instead of billboards and signs advertising the revolution we get advertisements for resorts, beer, jewellery and a whole lot of other crap. I was finding it all very strange after being in Cuba for 2 1/2 weeks where there´s basically no advertising as it´s illegal to post propaganda and advertising could be considered propaganda. It´s quite a good refreshing change not having to look at in your face advertising and promotions, especially considering we´d just entered tourist land.
When we arrived in Playa del Carmen it wasn´t quite what we were expecting, loads and loads of shops and americans. And the first food we got was blended smooth salty guacamole with greasy corn chps, arrrgggh.
Hotel (Luna Blue) is very nice, with a comfy feel about it. Would recommend staying there if you happen to go to Playa.
Over our 6 nights in Playa we spent quite a bit of time looking around the shops, at the beach, wandering and doing a couple day trips.
The beach club down the road which we had access to was packed early on, so we´d have to wait around for a lounger to come free and quickly grab it before anyone else. Swimming was fantastic in the oh so warm caribbean sea.
The main street where all the restaurants and shops are is a mad place, lots of tourists and the only mexicans you see are trying to sell you their wares, the same wares you see at the shop next door and next door to that. There are a few exceptions and finding them is great.
We managed to find a couple of good restaurants, one with a varied menu almost too huge but with plenty of vege options and yummy juices. The other next door to the hotel run by a family from Mexico city, not so many options for me but the fajitas were tasty and the service very friendly and helpful. Also found a chocolate shop which we visited a few times (a day almost) for mayan chocolate (chocolate, water, spices and orange peel) which I don´t think had any sugar, chocolate frio and other goodies. And spent some time at the internet cafe catching up on posting about Cuba and not paying the earth for it (approx 2USD an hour vs 6USD an hour in Cuba).
The shops stay open till close to midnight every night, quite a change from Cuba. So anytime we´d go out to dinner there´d be all the same shops open. One in particular always a guard armed with semi automatic outside, quite odd. In some ways the situation in Cuba with lots of free labour is just replaced with lots of cheap labour, almost amounting to the same thing.
The 2 day trips we did were to Tulum and the Hidden Worlds cenotes (underground caves filled with water). Both of these we skipped the overpriced tour and got a collectivo which is a mini bus/taxi service where they wait till they´re full (about 14 people) and head off down the highway dropping off people and picking up when they´ve got room. Works very well for getting to the various sights and hotels for some people along the highway and is very reasonably priced. What´s up with speed bumps on the highway though, that´s just madness.
We got to Tulum and it´s in a very impressive location being the only ruins right on the sea which is probably one of the main attractions, since it was built towards the end of the mayan era and borrows quite heavily from other sites such as the more restored Chichèn Itzà. It survived later than a lot of the other sites as well. The views and location are very impressive. If you visit take you swimmers, togs, boardies or bathers with you so you can go for a swim right below it. There were plenty of iguanas sunning themselves on the ruins.
A couple days later we checked out the Hidden Worlds cenotes and upgraded to the package with more in it, which I think was a good idea as it let us visit the better of the two cenotes. We had to travel through a dirt road by truck, well kinda of a truck as it didn´t have a body just the bare and I mean bare minimum for it to work.
Got to the main area where they serve lunch and zip lined down to the cenote. Next we repelled down into the cenote which wasn´t that good. Then we zipped line from the same spot into the water in the cenote which was much more fun and we did it again backwards, keep your legs up as much as you can to get more distance.
We then went snorkeling with flashlights through the cenote with a very informative and keen guide. The snorkeling was really good as you see caves like you would at Waitomo but filled up with water, we turned off the lights at one point and it was pitch black. Quite a lot of small fish around which we weren´t really expecting. Was very exciting to see lots of bats, including a few baby ones roosting in the cave.
To get to the next centoe we did some sky cycling along a cable hung up in the jungle so we could see everything from above. The next cenote wasn´t as good as the first, in part it was the same and also the guide was not as interesting.
We thought the whole day trip out to the Hidden Worlds was quite fun and glad we did it.
So that was Playa del Carmen for us. Next stop Cozumel.
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