Our more than 8000 km trip started on the 13th of
March 2000. We
bought the trip through a company called Apollo
here in Norway. It was sort of a package deal where we got the flight and
the hotel arranged. First we had to go to Oslo and then we had to go to
Stockholm in Sweden to get the flight that went straight for Cancun in
Mexico. The distance is as I already mentioned more than 8000 km and it
took us about 12 hours and 30 minutes to get to Cancun. It has been a long
time since I have been on a plane for such a long period and it got really
really boring towards the
end of the flight. The airline company that took
us there was Novair. It was a pretty
new Airbus plane. The only thing that annoyed me was that there were
little TV screens in all the seats and we still all had to see the same
movies even if there was potential for playing games and to change
channels on the TV. And when going on chartered airlines it means that you
have to buy all the drinks and even buy the earphones and I'm not used to
that since I have travelled more with KLM and British Airways.
We finally arrived in Cancun airport at about 11 pm and Apollo rented
buses that took us to our destination Playa del Carmen. Playa
del Carmen is a small town located about 45 minutes (by bus) outside
Cancun. We stayed at a hotel called Paradise.
The hotel itself was OK.
We had a room with some kitchen equipment in it
so that we could at least make some breakfast there. There
was a nice pool in the garden of the hotel that we used quite a lot. We
did have trouble getting used to the noisy air condition (so we only
used the fan) and the hard beds. The location wasn't too bad either. It
was maybe 300-400 meters down to the beach and about the same to get to
the main street in Playa del Carmen (called 5th avenue).
The first thing when we did when we got to the hotel at 1 am was to go
straight to bed of course. There is nothing like sleeping in a bed after
you have spent lots of time on a plane (in a chair where it is almost
impossible to get some sleep). The next day was spent walking
around in Playa del Carmen to get to know the place and also to get used
to the heat and the new time zone. Yes, it was pretty hot and it was so
nice to go from the cold Norwegian spring to 30 degrees Celsius during the
day and 20 degrees during the night. And even if it was quite windy the
first few days it was still very nice and warm and clouds only covered the
sun occasionally.
As I mentioned there is
a sort of Main Street in Playa del Carmen. This
is filled with restaurants, bars and little shops. The shop owners was of course very interested in getting us into their stores and that can be
annoying. At first it is charming but as the days go by it becomes more
and more annoying. To start out with I was polite and said no thanks and
looked at them but as the days progressed I ignored them more and more.
I'm not used to this tactics from here in Norway so I get a bit stressed
up about it. We got suckered one day when we saw a big iguana on some rugs
and we went over to touch it. The guy asked if we wanted to take a picture
and I said "sure". He put us down in chairs and before we knew
it he had put rugs and a sombrero on us and he put the iguana on our lap
and then he said "I charge 100 pesos to take the picture"...and he
was using my camera :-). So he got me there. The main products of the stores
are silver, sombreros, tequila (of course), cigars and handcraft.
The street (5th avenue) was filled with places were they had Internet
cafes. They charged like 0,5 pesos a minute and that is not bad. But the
connection wasn't great either but it was good enough for me to be able to
check if I had enough money in my account to have fun :-) Talking about
money: I'm still surprised how great it is to travel without money. On the
first day I just had to find an ATM and I took out some cash and then I
was ready to spend.
The beach in Playa Del Carmen was looong and it was very nice. The water
has this green colour that just makes it look very attractive. There is a
reef right outside the beach and people did snorkel on that. We stuck to
just having fun in the waves.
After a couple of days in Playa we decided that it was time to get
around.The first place we went to was the
park Xcaret. This park is a
combination between a zoo, aquarium, a place where you can snorkel, it has
information about the Maya culture and it has some archaeological sites.
It was quite expensive to get into the park (about 750 pesos for two) and
that is about 75 US dollars. But we had a great day there and we stayed
all day. We did of course try the natural underground river that they have
in this place. We put on life jackets and went into the stream and then we
went with the current. It was pretty long actually (so long that it was
great to get back in the sun to warm up :-). At night we saw a show with a
Mexican theme. It included singing and dancing. We also got to see an
"old" sport being performed. The Mayan used to play a ballgame
(it is still played some places in Mexico) where they only use their hips.
There are ball courts in many of the ruins around in Central America.
I'm normally a bit hyper but this time we were able to mix relaxation with
activities. Every second day we went out and every second day we stayed in
a relaxed by the pool.Apollo had many trips that they arranged but we decided to go by ourselves.
The bus station in the middle of Playa del Carmen was great and it was easy to get
around by taking the bus. The only problem when taking the bus is that
they always have the air-condition running at max speed :-(. So you get on
the bus in shorts and t-shirt and then you freeze and wait to get to your
destination.
After
a few days we went into Cancun. According to what I have read this was
just a little place with 100 people living there in 1970. Now it is a
city with 400.000 people and they have a string of hotels in the hotel
zone. We came to Cancun in the middle of spring break and that means
that Cancun was filled with drunk, loud and sunburnt Americans.
I'm
being a bit mean now but we sat on the bus and these college guys are
bragging about how many times they threw up last night and how much beer
they drank. I found Cancun very "artificial". When you get into stores
all the prices are in US dollars and not in pesos. We went into some of
the shopping malls and played some minigolf. The beaches in the hotel
zone are great by the way. Miles and miles of white sand. Cancun is just
45 minutes north of Playa del Carmen and buses leave from the bus station
every 15th minute and it only cost about 25 pesos per person.
Talking about being sunburnt. I did manage to avoid being sunburned but
that is only thanks to plenty of sun cream :-). I think I used of most of a
factor 10 the first week. I also used a bit of 6, 20 and 30. The sun was
very strong indeed but it was nice to feel its warmth again. So I did
actually manage to get some tan before I got back to Norway.
We went snorkelling one day at the island of
Cozumel. This is located
just outside Playa del Carmen and the ferry over takes about 30-40 minutes. The reef
that goes from Mexico down to Belize is the second largest reef in the
world and I was impressed when we started snorkelling. The depths varied
from 1 to 15 meters but it was not a problem to see straight down to the
bottom. We saw lots of fish, lobsters
and we even spotted a couple of
manta rays. We bought this "deal" on the pier in Playa and I
think that we paid something like 500 pesos for two. We were taken out to
three different locations in a glass bottom boat and the instructor that
went into the water with us was great. He was constantly on the move and
he pointed out were we could spot interesting stuff. And it was great to
have a cold beer after snorkelling :-). The waves were pretty big when we
went in the last time and he was pretty exhausting to keep up with the
instructor. But this part is something that I will remember for a long
time.
One day we got up early and we got on the bus to go to the Mayan city of
Chichen Itza, which is located near Merida. The bus was once again a great
way to travel even if the scenery was pretty boring. The toll road from
Merida to Cancun is especially boring and there is noting to see on that
route. Chichen Itza is one of the best places in the Yucatan to see ruins
after the Mayans.
The area is quite big and some of the stuff is
spectacular. It costs about 75 pesos to get in but it is worth that. I do
regret that we didn't go for a guide when we were in there because they
seemed to be giving out lots of interesting details about the buildings
and the Mayan history to their groups. The main building in Chichen Itza
is great pyramid "El Castillo" (The castle). I was hoping that
we could go inside it or maybe climb it but it was off limits when we were
there. It was very hot the day when we went to this place (probably 35
degrees) so it was hard walking around there all day.
South of Playa
del Carmen there is another eco park called
Xel-Ha. One day we decided
to go there but to save some money we decided to rent snorkelling gear in
Playa del Carmen instead of in Xel-Ha. When we rented the stuff the guy in the store
recommended that we should go to a place called Akumal instead of going to
Xel-Ha.
The places basically have the same but Xel-Ha is more commercial.
So we got on the buss once again and we jumped of at Akumal. When we
looked at the map it looked like it would be a short walk from the main
beach to the lagoon but it turned out to be like 3 km :-). But we reached
the inlet/lagoon in the end and it was great. The water wasn't that clear
because people were splashing around. But there were fish everywhere.
Rocks surrounded the lagoon so there wasn't really a nice place to camp
down but we spent most of the time in the water anywhere.
We went back to Cancun later on in the vacation to go to a place called
Parque Nizuc. This place is a sort of Wet 'n' Wild waterpark. It cost
about 250 pesos pr person to get it and there were not that many rides
inside. We even had to pay
extra to get a tiny locker inside and we had to
put down like 200 pesos in a deposit to get this. This park is connected
to other attractions (such as a place where you can swim with dolphins)
but it costs extra to get into these places. But we did have fun in the
park for several ours and we did try most of the slides 3-4 times. There
is a wave pool in the middle of the park and the waves were great :-)
Apart from this we just relaxed at nights. We went out to eat in the
different restaurants in Playa and we had some drinks here and there. The
drinks are very cheap compared to what I'm used to here in Norway :-). It
was a great vacation but it would have been even better if we had had the
time to travel around more in Mexico cause I think that Mexico has a lot
more to offer than the Mayan Riviera.
In
the end it was time to go home. The trip home actually went a lot
faster. I guess we had a strong tail wind because used like 9 or 10
hours to go to Sweden (compared to the 12 hours it took us to get to
Mexico. Please get in touch with me on
gardkarlsen@hotmail.com if
you have any questions or comments about the trip.
