Scuba Scotty
Registered
My girlfriend and I just returned from 3.5 weeks in sunny Mexico diving and adventuring and I thought I'd share my thoughts.
First off we were there at the busiest time of year, and those reading this report should keep that in mind, secondly we are backpack style travelers and quite uninterested in living in plush resorts. We do however very much appreciate beautiful natural settings, great beaches, great food, and great diving.
Here goes:
Playa del Carmen - from the moment we set foot in Playa we couldn't wait to leave. We had thought we would spend at least a week here, but for us 18 hours was more than we'll ever need. Usually we find that walking a few blocks inland frees you from touristy BS and into the charm of the local lifestyle, that is not what we found in Playa. There are 3 different completely glass fronted, incredibly modern stores here dedicated to... Hagendaaz ice cream. We found accommodations for 500 pesos per night. If you had told me I could have jumped off of a manta onto a whale shark I still wouldn't have stayed there.
Cozumel - we expected Cozumel to be uppity and expensive, especially after playa, we were very pleasantly surprised. There are a lot of budget lodging options here and we happily camped out for over a week in our fantastic hotel (A/C, cable, 2 double beds, mini-fridge, hot & cold, great location), PM for details, at $350 pesos/night. Adolfo Rosada Sallas is the street you want to hit if you're looking for budget digs.
Food was fantastic and ranged from $22US lobster tail to $0.50US tacos. Abuelos has a great Mariscos a la Parilla platter for 2. La Choza was awesome and ranged from economy to quite fancy with prices in all ranges. El Pique Super Taqueria just has flat out good food for cheep. Otates has fantastic Pazole and really good tacos. There's a couple of great Panaderias, and the Churros from the guy in the square still make me wish I lived there. The loncheria on Rosada Sallas was our pre-dive tradition with great sandwiches & smoothies, a great breakfast for two for 80 pesos. The chinese buffet was always good for a fast bite at 35 pesos. Mini supers were abundant, and life was laid back and easy.
Cozumel is very charming and we found the people quite warm and accessible, we are both pretty fluent Spanish speakers however so that helps us a lot. Beaches were beautiful, though transportation to them ($9 taxi or $25US moto rental/day) wasn't cheap. We really enjoyed sunrises on the East side beaches. Mr. Sanchos (free) was our favorite Westside beach.
We dove with Studio Blue and were really happy with their service and straightforward style. Manuel, the owner treated us famously and we enjoyed Divemasters Mario, Javier, Gabriel, Mario II, and Jonathan, all great guys with whom we shared many laughs and great dives.
Favorite sites were: Santa Rosa Wall, The Bricks, Columbia Deep, Delila, Paraiso (by night), Palancar Gardens, and Felipe Xicotencatl wreck. Chankanaab, Yucab, San Clemente, San Francisco, & Tormentos were good but not great. We saw Blacktips, Eagle Rays (close up), Lot's of turtles (one giant), a s*%tload of Queen Angelfish, Scorpion Stonefish, 2 octopus, lot's of sting rays, abundant grouper, lot's of cleaners, lot's of cuda (finally!), nurse sharks, drumfish, spanish lobster, & all the usual (parrot, squirrel, hog, rock beauty, jack, etc). I was however disappointed at the very small number of eels. I've never seen so many angelfish, they are ridiculously abundant there.
Tulum - Tulum was insane. Cozumel had slowed down but Tulum was packed to the point where we literally got the last room in town. The beach here is stunning and at a different time of year the cabanas would have probably kept us for a week or more. The puebla is okay, it features the wonderful Pollo Bronco (about the chicken I've ever had, 80 pesos fed four people), and would have no doubt been more charming at a lower capacity time of year. The Tulum Ruins were small and overrun but the setting is spectacular, we were able to walk to them from our cabana. Cabanas on the beach were about 500 pesos/night. Rooms in town were about 350 pesos.
We dove with Scuba Tulum, a new outfit there and were very happy with our service. The price was about $25 lower than anybody else we say and bought us very new rental gear, included lunch, transport, & 3 cenotes. We had to pay the entrance fees (180 pesos in total). The staff was really really helpful and able to totally customize a trip for us to stay out of the crowds and mania of popular sights like Dos Ojos. The also picked us up from out Cabana.
Tajma Ha . Our first site was fantastic. Visibility was, of course, mind blowing, the halocline was pretty strong and quite different than I was expecting. We took about 50 minutes to do the circuit and were happy with the easy pace.
Chacmool . Our favorite Cenote, Chacmool had it all. We were able so surface in an underground cathedral and see fossils, crystals and crazy spiders. A chamber with a collapsed ceiling offered stalactites pointing in every direction. The halocline here had the full mirror effect thanks to it's naturally lit backdrop. I really can't say enough about this Cenote, truly memorable.
Kukulkan . We dove Kukulkan on our remaining gas from Chacmool, it's main feature was it's blinding Halocline. Kukulkan was a little more claustrophobic than the others, and being pretty much rendered blind in near total darkness is appealing in it's own weird way. This cenote was the runt of the bunch but added diversity to the other two. We even saw a mezoamerican turtle here.
Chichen Itza . having been to Lamanai and Tikal the Mayan ruins of Mexico are quite different. The big difference is that you can't climb on the Templos, but in return the ruins are better preserved. There were hordes of people there but we were able to stay away from the crowds. The vendors everywhere however took a lot away from the sanctity of the place. The ruins are quite impressive and the complex is much bigger than it seems. Well worth the visit.
The other part of our trip was spent in the state of Guerrero, 1,100 miles away, and probably not of much interest too the board here.
We had a really fantastic time and felt the diving was very good. Prices were quite fair with each of us spending about $2,000 US for 3.5 weeks of food, lodging, ruins & tours, and 20 tanks (10 days) of diving.
If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them if I can.
-Scotty
First off we were there at the busiest time of year, and those reading this report should keep that in mind, secondly we are backpack style travelers and quite uninterested in living in plush resorts. We do however very much appreciate beautiful natural settings, great beaches, great food, and great diving.
Here goes:
Playa del Carmen - from the moment we set foot in Playa we couldn't wait to leave. We had thought we would spend at least a week here, but for us 18 hours was more than we'll ever need. Usually we find that walking a few blocks inland frees you from touristy BS and into the charm of the local lifestyle, that is not what we found in Playa. There are 3 different completely glass fronted, incredibly modern stores here dedicated to... Hagendaaz ice cream. We found accommodations for 500 pesos per night. If you had told me I could have jumped off of a manta onto a whale shark I still wouldn't have stayed there.
Cozumel - we expected Cozumel to be uppity and expensive, especially after playa, we were very pleasantly surprised. There are a lot of budget lodging options here and we happily camped out for over a week in our fantastic hotel (A/C, cable, 2 double beds, mini-fridge, hot & cold, great location), PM for details, at $350 pesos/night. Adolfo Rosada Sallas is the street you want to hit if you're looking for budget digs.
Food was fantastic and ranged from $22US lobster tail to $0.50US tacos. Abuelos has a great Mariscos a la Parilla platter for 2. La Choza was awesome and ranged from economy to quite fancy with prices in all ranges. El Pique Super Taqueria just has flat out good food for cheep. Otates has fantastic Pazole and really good tacos. There's a couple of great Panaderias, and the Churros from the guy in the square still make me wish I lived there. The loncheria on Rosada Sallas was our pre-dive tradition with great sandwiches & smoothies, a great breakfast for two for 80 pesos. The chinese buffet was always good for a fast bite at 35 pesos. Mini supers were abundant, and life was laid back and easy.
Cozumel is very charming and we found the people quite warm and accessible, we are both pretty fluent Spanish speakers however so that helps us a lot. Beaches were beautiful, though transportation to them ($9 taxi or $25US moto rental/day) wasn't cheap. We really enjoyed sunrises on the East side beaches. Mr. Sanchos (free) was our favorite Westside beach.
We dove with Studio Blue and were really happy with their service and straightforward style. Manuel, the owner treated us famously and we enjoyed Divemasters Mario, Javier, Gabriel, Mario II, and Jonathan, all great guys with whom we shared many laughs and great dives.
Favorite sites were: Santa Rosa Wall, The Bricks, Columbia Deep, Delila, Paraiso (by night), Palancar Gardens, and Felipe Xicotencatl wreck. Chankanaab, Yucab, San Clemente, San Francisco, & Tormentos were good but not great. We saw Blacktips, Eagle Rays (close up), Lot's of turtles (one giant), a s*%tload of Queen Angelfish, Scorpion Stonefish, 2 octopus, lot's of sting rays, abundant grouper, lot's of cleaners, lot's of cuda (finally!), nurse sharks, drumfish, spanish lobster, & all the usual (parrot, squirrel, hog, rock beauty, jack, etc). I was however disappointed at the very small number of eels. I've never seen so many angelfish, they are ridiculously abundant there.
Tulum - Tulum was insane. Cozumel had slowed down but Tulum was packed to the point where we literally got the last room in town. The beach here is stunning and at a different time of year the cabanas would have probably kept us for a week or more. The puebla is okay, it features the wonderful Pollo Bronco (about the chicken I've ever had, 80 pesos fed four people), and would have no doubt been more charming at a lower capacity time of year. The Tulum Ruins were small and overrun but the setting is spectacular, we were able to walk to them from our cabana. Cabanas on the beach were about 500 pesos/night. Rooms in town were about 350 pesos.
We dove with Scuba Tulum, a new outfit there and were very happy with our service. The price was about $25 lower than anybody else we say and bought us very new rental gear, included lunch, transport, & 3 cenotes. We had to pay the entrance fees (180 pesos in total). The staff was really really helpful and able to totally customize a trip for us to stay out of the crowds and mania of popular sights like Dos Ojos. The also picked us up from out Cabana.
Tajma Ha . Our first site was fantastic. Visibility was, of course, mind blowing, the halocline was pretty strong and quite different than I was expecting. We took about 50 minutes to do the circuit and were happy with the easy pace.
Chacmool . Our favorite Cenote, Chacmool had it all. We were able so surface in an underground cathedral and see fossils, crystals and crazy spiders. A chamber with a collapsed ceiling offered stalactites pointing in every direction. The halocline here had the full mirror effect thanks to it's naturally lit backdrop. I really can't say enough about this Cenote, truly memorable.
Kukulkan . We dove Kukulkan on our remaining gas from Chacmool, it's main feature was it's blinding Halocline. Kukulkan was a little more claustrophobic than the others, and being pretty much rendered blind in near total darkness is appealing in it's own weird way. This cenote was the runt of the bunch but added diversity to the other two. We even saw a mezoamerican turtle here.
Chichen Itza . having been to Lamanai and Tikal the Mayan ruins of Mexico are quite different. The big difference is that you can't climb on the Templos, but in return the ruins are better preserved. There were hordes of people there but we were able to stay away from the crowds. The vendors everywhere however took a lot away from the sanctity of the place. The ruins are quite impressive and the complex is much bigger than it seems. Well worth the visit.
The other part of our trip was spent in the state of Guerrero, 1,100 miles away, and probably not of much interest too the board here.
We had a really fantastic time and felt the diving was very good. Prices were quite fair with each of us spending about $2,000 US for 3.5 weeks of food, lodging, ruins & tours, and 20 tanks (10 days) of diving.
If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them if I can.
-Scotty
