nodakdive
Contributor
PAAMUL AND SCUBAMEX
On Wednesday the 16th of March, we checked out of Casa del Mar, took a taxi to the ferry and went across to Playa del Carmen. From there we took a cab
south to Paamul, which was $18us, and checked into the hotel there. Paamul is a funky little place. Way, I mean Way Laid Back. It's an RV/camping park.
It used to be a coconut plantation or something like that, and is still owned by the original family that had the plantation. From South to North, there are
cabanas, the hotel, a restaurant, a swimming pool and the dive shop, ScubaMex. Anyhow, most of the lots have palapas over them which cover travel
trailers which have been there for years. They aren't permanent structures, but for all intents and purposes, they are. They build a palapa, sometimes
with second floors, over the trailer and have kitchens and bathrooms and living rooms etc all under the palapa. Some have sliding glass fronts. Many
have porches and second floor balconies. Seems to be mostly ex-pats, many from Texas. Talk about a paradise.
The hotel was fabulous. My travel buddies, 2 women, were in heaven. Well, one of them was booked in a cabana, which I didn't see, but moved to the
hotel before the 1st night. The cabanas were a little more rustic than what she hoped for, and were a ways down the beach to the south. Once she saw
the room we had, she had a hard time staying in the cabana for $20 less a night. Good move. The room was the largest I've stayed in anywhere. Two
queen beds, not right next to each other, but kitty corner across the room from each other. Huge room. The bathroom was large and tiled with a shower/bath.
Classy bathroom. The main room also had a couch and a coffee table, very convenient, and the switches for the ceiling fan and most of the lights were right
next to EACH bed. In addition, there was a wet bar, a microwave, a large mini-fridge, a good sized letter box flatscreen, satellite tv and a huge balcony with
a nice padded couch (6-8 inch thick cushions), 2 chairs, another smaller coffee table and a padded lounge chair. Did I mention that those chicks were in
heaven? We were on the ground floor in Suite 1 which was about 60 feet from the ocean and maybe 80 feet from the excellent restaurant.
I understand that people come out from Playa to eat there. I can understand why. Small menu, but it would have taken me another 2 weeks to try everything
I wanted to try. Their indoor/outdoor grill would gently waft it's amazing smell every once in awhile and I'd go Pavlovian. The prices were "normal", even
somewhat inexpensive actually. A Narajada was 20 pesos. Chicken breast on the grill with rice and veggies was 115 pesos I think. Had a great steak
there. Had the best fried calamari I've ever had. Great Pico. Whole fish was 170 pesos I think, and perfect. The food was outstanding. Nice waiters.
Great breakfast.
This stretch of beach is one of the few that the locals have access to. They can't bring in food or drink. They came out in force one day. (sat or sunday, can't remember).
Very cool. Lots of families. Added to the charm. Sweet people. Other days there might have been anywhere from 5 to 20 other people there. Very mellow.
There's some snorkeling about 100 yards out. It was windy while we were there, so I went out to the reef, but didn't really snorkel it. Though there is iron
shore in front of the hotel (back of the hotel?), they have sandy beach and a path into the water with no rocks to make it easy to get in and out of the water.
I didn't see any rental toys there, or anything like that, but there is a massage hut and a couple days someone set up beside the restaurant and sold some
knick knacks and purses, also some leather I think. Completely unobtrusive. One of my party had a massage. It was inexpensive and very effective.
Wish I'd done one. The infinity pool is fresh water and maybe 5 feet deep though I never got in it. Lots of nice wooden lounge chairs and tables around it.
People seemed to love it. The "infinity" part of the pool was probably 2 or so feet deep. Great for little kids.
Paamul has 24 hour security. We were on the ground floor. All rooms face the ocean. We didn't leave expensive things out on the patio, but my guess
is that we could have. We left trunks and towels and wetsuits out to dry all day and night and nothing was ever taken. Was out on the patio at all hours of the
night and saw their security patrolling with a flashlight on many occasions. The place is gated, and you have to be let in or out of the grounds. The guys at the
gate check closely too, even the residents would get looked at before the gate would come down. We felt completely safe there, as we did everywhere. I don't
know if I'd go roaming Playa del Carmen in the middle of the night alone, but that's just common sense anywhere. One other neat thing about Paamul is that the
people there are very friendly. There's a convenience store on the highway where you turn to come into Paamul. It's a little hike. On our way back, Vic, who's
lived there for 13 years picked us up because he saw we had bags. Someone there, could have been anyone, said, "Oh, there's a Chedraui just south of here.
Let me know if you want to go." Like that. I got a couple tours of palapa homes, which was interesting, and everyone was just laid back and nice. While we were
there, they had a grand opening for a library that they (I think the expat population of Paamul, and probably others) built in a little mayan village called Chupron.
The hotel office doesn't speak much english, but it made no difference. Very, very helpful office. You just have to ask if you want to know something. There's a
deposit for the TV remote control, 500 pesos. I paid $50us, he wrote 500 pesos on the receipt, but when I checked out, he gave me back the $50us. It's only right,
of course, but he remembered and I didn't have to say anything about it.
PAAMUL ADVICE/Wish list
1. You'll probably be more comfortable if you rent a car. It's about 15 minutes to Playa del Carmen. 20 minutes to Tulum. 1.5 minutes to the convenience store on
the highway. Chedraui is about 5 minutes south, or less. Friends went to Coba and really liked it. Sounded like it was an hour or so away. I think flying into
Cancun and renting a car there would be the way to go. Playa would work too, and you might be able to rent one there and return it at the Cancun airport?
I don't know too much about car rental, here or abroad.
2. The hotel didn't have an ice bucket in the room. We got some ziplock bags and had them filled at the restaurant bar. Worked perfectly for the little freezer in the fridge.
3. Though I'd have expected otherwise, there isn't a laundry facility there. I suppose long term campers take their stuff to Playa del Carmen? The residents
all have washing machines I think. In a pinch, I think one of the residents would have helped us out, but it wasn't necessary.
4. Room only had one key. We had to work around this, but it was very little hassle. It never happened to us, but during office hours if you got locked out they could
get you in. For the most part, we just hung out there and didn't need to worry about who had the key. One of us was always around, but I could see it being a pain
if you were in a room with someone that was in and out of Paamul a lot.
5. Don't turn the shower on full blast, or have it pointed at the side wall or glass partition. It doesn't need to be on full blast to work just fine. If you don't heed this
advice, you may wind up with a lake in your room. My long haired, 40 minute shower, room mate never did figure this out. I had no problem.
6. Xcaret is close. Go if you've never been. Stay for the whole show that starts at 6pm and ends at 8:15pm. You won't regret it. Made my 3rd trip there this time.
Finally saw the whole show. Worth it.
7. My 30 foot length of thin gauge nylon cord (Dandy Don, if you're reading this, don't let the tears well up too much, I know you'd be proud.) got pressed into
service as an inflatable raft anchor/tether. It wasn't needed, really, but I'd have used it to fashion a drying line of some sort. As it was, we draped stuff on the cement
patio walls and the chairs, which worked fine. Really wasn't anywhere to hang stuff to dry.
We asked about another key for the room, which was basically a no-go, and the laundry, which was also a no-go, but the rest we just dealt with. We probably could
have asked at the office and they may have been able to help us out with the other small issues. No doubt they would have helped out if they were able. That
was my impression anyhow.
SCUBAMEX DIVE SHOP - in Paamul
The dive-shop, ScubaMex, has been there since the early 80's and one of the owners of the shop, John Everett, has been diving there since 1969. Ok, this shop is
another whole level of laid back. They do 2 tanks a day, and maybe a night dive. The morning dive happens every morning. The afternoon and night dives go out
based on having enough divers to send the boat out. (4 minimum) The morning dive, at 9am, always had enough people, mostly residents, many dive instructors.
Very nice groups. They don't have a dock, so you enter the moored boat from the beach.
They get your tank and bc on and off the boat, and rinse it too. You deal with your mask, weights and fins. Piece of cake. So easy. Their dive shop guys, Marcelo,
Alfonso and Juan are super helpful. They help you get your bc on. They take the bc and tank from you before you exit the water. Easy to use ladder to get back
in the boat. The boat has no seats. You sit on the edge of the boat. I don't think we spent 8 minutes getting to the sites. Usually about 4 or 5 minutes, and not ever at full
throttle. It's all right there in front. I managed to get 9 dives in while I was there. One was a night dive, two dives were Cenotes; Eden and Taj Mahal. They basically do
one hour dives, or a little longer, mostly at about 50 to 60 feet. If you leave at 9am, you're back by 10:30 or so. Sometimes people would do a little more than an hour.
They only do one tank at a time. Though several resort dives were done while I was there, it doesn't affect the other divers. They send an instructor out for each resort
diver, in addition to the DM, which was always either John or Lester, the two owners of the shop. I've forgotten the number, but I think they've certified something like
10 or 15 thousand divers between the two of them. I'm pretty positive they've each done 5 thousand certs. And that's just those two. This is a guess, but the night dive
was about 16 divers, give or take, and I suspect that 3/4ths of them were at least DMs. Most were probably Instructors. And it sounds like they've got just about every
agency covered When it comes to instruction too. Paamul is FULL of divers. As John said, "we love to dive and we love people that love to dive". This shop is a labor
of love. It probably pays its' bills, employs some local guys, and that's about it. They do this because they love it, not because they want to make any money. The cost
is about the same as Cozumel if you have your own gear. I didn't price it out if you were renting gear, but it's probably on the same par. They have dive packages,
and to give you and idea about the clientele, they have a 50+ dive package. I think it's something like $17/dive with your own equipment for that package. Most of
the divers on any given boat live in Paamul.
The diving, as I mentioned, was basically in about 50 to 60 feet and was live boat drift diving. Basically no boat traffic above you, or none that I recall. Very quiet. In
addition to drift, there was some very mild surge. What I dove, was, as I had recalled, reef as far to the left and right of you as you could see. Loaded with softness.
Saw a little of everything. Several Turtles, saw sharks, eels, etc. Not as fishy as Cozumel, except for lion fish. If you want to take a lion fish picture, go to Paamul.
It's not over-run by any means, but you'll have lots of photo ops. A few weeks prior to my being there, if I understood correctly, the divers got to see a whale shark.
Saw all the usual suspects on the night dive. Didn't do any deep dives while I was there, so I didn't see any walls and there isn't a ton of structure, but it's very nice
diving.
Oh yea, Glenda(?), the tea lady. When she wasn't on the boat, the others were noticeably sad. When she was on the boat, after the dive she'd give everyone a cup of tea of
some sort. I'm not a tea person, but I did try the ginger/something or other. It was good. And after the dive one day, she had a cheese cake waiting back at the shop.
It was some kind of chocolate cheese cake and it was amazing. I think one other day, she had cookies there. Or someone did anyhow. What a sweet lady. This is
how Paamul is. Very nice people that love to dive and do very relaxed diving, before, during and after the actual dive.
Flight back home from Cancun was basically uneventful. Cancun airport is nice and full of shopping and eating opportunities. We were early for check-in and glad we
were. Our flight was delayed, but they put us on another flight that was leaving at the same time our original flight was to leave. (a little earlier, actually). Our flight
from Minneapolis to Bismarck, ND wound up being an hour late, but we got home just fine in spite of the snow that had fallen and my pick-up having sat in it for a week.
While we were in Mexico, there was a big storm here, and our little town of 700 people hosted tons of stranded travelers. 800 extra people if I understand correctly.
The National Guard was called in for this one. Glad we missed it.
Sorry to be so windy. If you have any questions, ask away. I'm back out on the road again for work again I don't have access to Scuba Board working on my road
computer, so I'll catch up with anything on the weekends.
-Blair
On Wednesday the 16th of March, we checked out of Casa del Mar, took a taxi to the ferry and went across to Playa del Carmen. From there we took a cab
south to Paamul, which was $18us, and checked into the hotel there. Paamul is a funky little place. Way, I mean Way Laid Back. It's an RV/camping park.
It used to be a coconut plantation or something like that, and is still owned by the original family that had the plantation. From South to North, there are
cabanas, the hotel, a restaurant, a swimming pool and the dive shop, ScubaMex. Anyhow, most of the lots have palapas over them which cover travel
trailers which have been there for years. They aren't permanent structures, but for all intents and purposes, they are. They build a palapa, sometimes
with second floors, over the trailer and have kitchens and bathrooms and living rooms etc all under the palapa. Some have sliding glass fronts. Many
have porches and second floor balconies. Seems to be mostly ex-pats, many from Texas. Talk about a paradise.
The hotel was fabulous. My travel buddies, 2 women, were in heaven. Well, one of them was booked in a cabana, which I didn't see, but moved to the
hotel before the 1st night. The cabanas were a little more rustic than what she hoped for, and were a ways down the beach to the south. Once she saw
the room we had, she had a hard time staying in the cabana for $20 less a night. Good move. The room was the largest I've stayed in anywhere. Two
queen beds, not right next to each other, but kitty corner across the room from each other. Huge room. The bathroom was large and tiled with a shower/bath.
Classy bathroom. The main room also had a couch and a coffee table, very convenient, and the switches for the ceiling fan and most of the lights were right
next to EACH bed. In addition, there was a wet bar, a microwave, a large mini-fridge, a good sized letter box flatscreen, satellite tv and a huge balcony with
a nice padded couch (6-8 inch thick cushions), 2 chairs, another smaller coffee table and a padded lounge chair. Did I mention that those chicks were in
heaven? We were on the ground floor in Suite 1 which was about 60 feet from the ocean and maybe 80 feet from the excellent restaurant.
I understand that people come out from Playa to eat there. I can understand why. Small menu, but it would have taken me another 2 weeks to try everything
I wanted to try. Their indoor/outdoor grill would gently waft it's amazing smell every once in awhile and I'd go Pavlovian. The prices were "normal", even
somewhat inexpensive actually. A Narajada was 20 pesos. Chicken breast on the grill with rice and veggies was 115 pesos I think. Had a great steak
there. Had the best fried calamari I've ever had. Great Pico. Whole fish was 170 pesos I think, and perfect. The food was outstanding. Nice waiters.
Great breakfast.
This stretch of beach is one of the few that the locals have access to. They can't bring in food or drink. They came out in force one day. (sat or sunday, can't remember).
Very cool. Lots of families. Added to the charm. Sweet people. Other days there might have been anywhere from 5 to 20 other people there. Very mellow.
There's some snorkeling about 100 yards out. It was windy while we were there, so I went out to the reef, but didn't really snorkel it. Though there is iron
shore in front of the hotel (back of the hotel?), they have sandy beach and a path into the water with no rocks to make it easy to get in and out of the water.
I didn't see any rental toys there, or anything like that, but there is a massage hut and a couple days someone set up beside the restaurant and sold some
knick knacks and purses, also some leather I think. Completely unobtrusive. One of my party had a massage. It was inexpensive and very effective.
Wish I'd done one. The infinity pool is fresh water and maybe 5 feet deep though I never got in it. Lots of nice wooden lounge chairs and tables around it.
People seemed to love it. The "infinity" part of the pool was probably 2 or so feet deep. Great for little kids.
Paamul has 24 hour security. We were on the ground floor. All rooms face the ocean. We didn't leave expensive things out on the patio, but my guess
is that we could have. We left trunks and towels and wetsuits out to dry all day and night and nothing was ever taken. Was out on the patio at all hours of the
night and saw their security patrolling with a flashlight on many occasions. The place is gated, and you have to be let in or out of the grounds. The guys at the
gate check closely too, even the residents would get looked at before the gate would come down. We felt completely safe there, as we did everywhere. I don't
know if I'd go roaming Playa del Carmen in the middle of the night alone, but that's just common sense anywhere. One other neat thing about Paamul is that the
people there are very friendly. There's a convenience store on the highway where you turn to come into Paamul. It's a little hike. On our way back, Vic, who's
lived there for 13 years picked us up because he saw we had bags. Someone there, could have been anyone, said, "Oh, there's a Chedraui just south of here.
Let me know if you want to go." Like that. I got a couple tours of palapa homes, which was interesting, and everyone was just laid back and nice. While we were
there, they had a grand opening for a library that they (I think the expat population of Paamul, and probably others) built in a little mayan village called Chupron.
The hotel office doesn't speak much english, but it made no difference. Very, very helpful office. You just have to ask if you want to know something. There's a
deposit for the TV remote control, 500 pesos. I paid $50us, he wrote 500 pesos on the receipt, but when I checked out, he gave me back the $50us. It's only right,
of course, but he remembered and I didn't have to say anything about it.
PAAMUL ADVICE/Wish list
1. You'll probably be more comfortable if you rent a car. It's about 15 minutes to Playa del Carmen. 20 minutes to Tulum. 1.5 minutes to the convenience store on
the highway. Chedraui is about 5 minutes south, or less. Friends went to Coba and really liked it. Sounded like it was an hour or so away. I think flying into
Cancun and renting a car there would be the way to go. Playa would work too, and you might be able to rent one there and return it at the Cancun airport?
I don't know too much about car rental, here or abroad.
2. The hotel didn't have an ice bucket in the room. We got some ziplock bags and had them filled at the restaurant bar. Worked perfectly for the little freezer in the fridge.
3. Though I'd have expected otherwise, there isn't a laundry facility there. I suppose long term campers take their stuff to Playa del Carmen? The residents
all have washing machines I think. In a pinch, I think one of the residents would have helped us out, but it wasn't necessary.
4. Room only had one key. We had to work around this, but it was very little hassle. It never happened to us, but during office hours if you got locked out they could
get you in. For the most part, we just hung out there and didn't need to worry about who had the key. One of us was always around, but I could see it being a pain
if you were in a room with someone that was in and out of Paamul a lot.
5. Don't turn the shower on full blast, or have it pointed at the side wall or glass partition. It doesn't need to be on full blast to work just fine. If you don't heed this
advice, you may wind up with a lake in your room. My long haired, 40 minute shower, room mate never did figure this out. I had no problem.
6. Xcaret is close. Go if you've never been. Stay for the whole show that starts at 6pm and ends at 8:15pm. You won't regret it. Made my 3rd trip there this time.
Finally saw the whole show. Worth it.
7. My 30 foot length of thin gauge nylon cord (Dandy Don, if you're reading this, don't let the tears well up too much, I know you'd be proud.) got pressed into
service as an inflatable raft anchor/tether. It wasn't needed, really, but I'd have used it to fashion a drying line of some sort. As it was, we draped stuff on the cement
patio walls and the chairs, which worked fine. Really wasn't anywhere to hang stuff to dry.
We asked about another key for the room, which was basically a no-go, and the laundry, which was also a no-go, but the rest we just dealt with. We probably could
have asked at the office and they may have been able to help us out with the other small issues. No doubt they would have helped out if they were able. That
was my impression anyhow.
SCUBAMEX DIVE SHOP - in Paamul
The dive-shop, ScubaMex, has been there since the early 80's and one of the owners of the shop, John Everett, has been diving there since 1969. Ok, this shop is
another whole level of laid back. They do 2 tanks a day, and maybe a night dive. The morning dive happens every morning. The afternoon and night dives go out
based on having enough divers to send the boat out. (4 minimum) The morning dive, at 9am, always had enough people, mostly residents, many dive instructors.
Very nice groups. They don't have a dock, so you enter the moored boat from the beach.
They get your tank and bc on and off the boat, and rinse it too. You deal with your mask, weights and fins. Piece of cake. So easy. Their dive shop guys, Marcelo,
Alfonso and Juan are super helpful. They help you get your bc on. They take the bc and tank from you before you exit the water. Easy to use ladder to get back
in the boat. The boat has no seats. You sit on the edge of the boat. I don't think we spent 8 minutes getting to the sites. Usually about 4 or 5 minutes, and not ever at full
throttle. It's all right there in front. I managed to get 9 dives in while I was there. One was a night dive, two dives were Cenotes; Eden and Taj Mahal. They basically do
one hour dives, or a little longer, mostly at about 50 to 60 feet. If you leave at 9am, you're back by 10:30 or so. Sometimes people would do a little more than an hour.
They only do one tank at a time. Though several resort dives were done while I was there, it doesn't affect the other divers. They send an instructor out for each resort
diver, in addition to the DM, which was always either John or Lester, the two owners of the shop. I've forgotten the number, but I think they've certified something like
10 or 15 thousand divers between the two of them. I'm pretty positive they've each done 5 thousand certs. And that's just those two. This is a guess, but the night dive
was about 16 divers, give or take, and I suspect that 3/4ths of them were at least DMs. Most were probably Instructors. And it sounds like they've got just about every
agency covered When it comes to instruction too. Paamul is FULL of divers. As John said, "we love to dive and we love people that love to dive". This shop is a labor
of love. It probably pays its' bills, employs some local guys, and that's about it. They do this because they love it, not because they want to make any money. The cost
is about the same as Cozumel if you have your own gear. I didn't price it out if you were renting gear, but it's probably on the same par. They have dive packages,
and to give you and idea about the clientele, they have a 50+ dive package. I think it's something like $17/dive with your own equipment for that package. Most of
the divers on any given boat live in Paamul.
The diving, as I mentioned, was basically in about 50 to 60 feet and was live boat drift diving. Basically no boat traffic above you, or none that I recall. Very quiet. In
addition to drift, there was some very mild surge. What I dove, was, as I had recalled, reef as far to the left and right of you as you could see. Loaded with softness.
Saw a little of everything. Several Turtles, saw sharks, eels, etc. Not as fishy as Cozumel, except for lion fish. If you want to take a lion fish picture, go to Paamul.
It's not over-run by any means, but you'll have lots of photo ops. A few weeks prior to my being there, if I understood correctly, the divers got to see a whale shark.
Saw all the usual suspects on the night dive. Didn't do any deep dives while I was there, so I didn't see any walls and there isn't a ton of structure, but it's very nice
diving.
Oh yea, Glenda(?), the tea lady. When she wasn't on the boat, the others were noticeably sad. When she was on the boat, after the dive she'd give everyone a cup of tea of
some sort. I'm not a tea person, but I did try the ginger/something or other. It was good. And after the dive one day, she had a cheese cake waiting back at the shop.
It was some kind of chocolate cheese cake and it was amazing. I think one other day, she had cookies there. Or someone did anyhow. What a sweet lady. This is
how Paamul is. Very nice people that love to dive and do very relaxed diving, before, during and after the actual dive.
Flight back home from Cancun was basically uneventful. Cancun airport is nice and full of shopping and eating opportunities. We were early for check-in and glad we
were. Our flight was delayed, but they put us on another flight that was leaving at the same time our original flight was to leave. (a little earlier, actually). Our flight
from Minneapolis to Bismarck, ND wound up being an hour late, but we got home just fine in spite of the snow that had fallen and my pick-up having sat in it for a week.
While we were in Mexico, there was a big storm here, and our little town of 700 people hosted tons of stranded travelers. 800 extra people if I understand correctly.
The National Guard was called in for this one. Glad we missed it.
Sorry to be so windy. If you have any questions, ask away. I'm back out on the road again for work again I don't have access to Scuba Board working on my road
computer, so I'll catch up with anything on the weekends.
-Blair
