Playa del Carmen
I’m writing this now in the van to the airport in Cancun. What an amazing trip. Every trip with Tara is amazing but this one was really special. We woke up Thursday and got on the plane and I told myself if I took a quick nap I could play Civ 6 so I did and it was AWESOME. It made the ride go by like THAT and was just fun. Before I could blink I was at our destination.
Stepping outside the Cancun airport was, of course, craziness. So many people trying to hustle you and sell you something. Such a different experience than landing in Hawaii where everything is totally chill. Poor Tara had her period come right as we left AND had a cold. She wasn’t feeling great most of this trip which makes it even more awesome how great she was to be with, even when she wasn’t feeling 100 percent. But we finally found our shuttle and were off to Playa Del Carmen.
We stayed at Mahekal beach resort. I had found this place on hotels.com from great reviews and I wanted a place right on the beach. This definitely delivered. I had requested a king bed and close to the beach. I don’t know if they got my request but it was both of those things. ROOM 49 is perfect if you can request it! Maybe there are another few like it. The room had a pitched thatched roof and was just cute and comfortable. We settled in and hit the beach for a walk and then came back and were ready for dinner right when it opened at 6:30 because we were starving not having eaten lunch. The beach was great. But dinner was the biggest surprise. Breakfast and dinner were included. I thought that it wouldn’t be good but the food was really good. Breakfast was my favorite. Just a buffet of delicious things and especially papaya and lime. Tara was a great conversationalist and we had tons to talk about. After dinner we braved a walk on the avenue de quincera or something like that (5th avenue) which is the pedestrian mall that runs parallel to the beach and it was crazy. We must have got offered like 500 things from smoke shops to tours to anything in between. It was fun but exhausting we made it all the way to the Cozumel shuttle pier. It was fun just being together in all the craziness and a million people everywhere. This was a non busy time (early March is good, before all the spring breakers get there). I’d hate to see what a busy time would be like!
This was a chill morning where we could sleep in for a while and had nothing to do but sit on the beach. So after lounging around and eating a late DELICIOUS breakfast, we hit the beach. The breakfast had rice pudding, quesadillas, fresh rolls, green juice, guanabannana juice, and watermelon juice. It was just good! We just laid on the beach all morning, mere steps from our room, and then hit a late lunch at one of the cute places by our hotel that had delicious tacos while turtles swam next to us in the garden.
That afternoon we went and took a nap and then just chilled by the pool drinking our pina colada. . We came in and showered and stuff and got ready for dinner. Again we ate dinner at Los Osos. The non-fancy restaurant where everything was included and it was excellent, the food was really good. It was windy tonight so we ate inside. After watching Dex and Emma in the Netflix show One Day (We are INVESTED!) we crashed because we had to get up early.
Saturday was our crazy Cozumel day. So fun. Early breakfast then quick walk to the shuttle pier to catch the 9AM ferry. I think this was the right time. It was so windy! I worried our scuba was going to get cancelled. We disembarked, I texted a rental place, HTL rentals, while we waited to tell them to reserve me a car. Do that because the prices are cheaper than if you just walk in. Not a car but a BUGGY. I originally booked a moped. The night before I realized I didn’t feel comfortable on a moped. I’m really glad I did this. The buggy was the way to go. Still fun and crazy but we had some walls protecting us and a locking trunk. Tara left something in the hotel after breakfast and took my key and left it in the room. So now my cards were loose in my wallet on the back of my phone and kept falling. out. Unfortunately I lost my drivers license this way. We didn’t discover this until the next day….
After getting our buggy we headed out down the coast. We stopped at Money Beach and snorkeled for a bit. It was a nice easy snorkel with public access to the right of the Money Beach Club. We drove down to chuakanak but you had to walk across lava rocks if you didn’t want to pay for the beach. I jumped in and there were cool kelp fans but besides that there wasn’t much. Oh and next time I want to remember to bring my snorkel bag for my phone and stuff so Tara and I could be out in the water at the same time.
Then it was time for our 1PM Scuba with Scuba Tony. We met these nice ladies who suggested the Santa Rosa Wall. The guide was like, “I don’t know, these two are pretty new.” I said we could do it. And he was like okay we will give it a try. This was the most amazing dive ever. The wall was OTHERWORLDLY. I can’t even try to describe it and can only hope that the go pro will do it some kind of justice. (Newsflash–it doesn’t. Not even close) We went through small arches and caves. It was a drift dive where after the descent we just kind of drifted along this wall. Such a neat experience. So glad we did it. In between dives we hit the paradise beach club to use their bathrooms and ate guacamole and drank a soda on the pier. Then the second dive was Udahl. This was also amazing, just in a different way. Huge formations were just everywhere. Coral that I had never seen. We saw so many gross, giant, lobster, a SEAHORSE, some barracuda, and while everyone else was looking at a lobster and I swam to the right and there was this GIANT GREEN MORAY EEL swimming right towards me! This was what I imagined eels looked like. This thing was HUGE. Probably 6 ft long. It was just massive and was super cool to see. Probably the coolest animal we saw on the two dives. We saw an eagle ray way in the distance and a small reef shark. It was amazing. I just felt so lucky to be with her and have this amazing experience together.
After scuba and saying goodbye to our lady friends (they live on Cozumel 3 months out of the year and scuba dive every week, how cool is that?) we continued our trek down the coast. But the places I wanted to stop were not open so it was really just a tour around the bottom and east side of the island at this point. And we didn’t have time for anything else anyway, by the time we return ed the buggy it was 715 anyway and we had to catch an 8PM ferry back (the latest for Ultramar, winjet has a 9). We ate tacos in a delicious tiny restaurant that was so so good and fun and just a great place to hang out. So many tacos and guac make me happy. We walked to the ferry and we were just DEAD. The scuba made Tara’s head cold flare up and the ride back was kind of long and hard. We got a taxi to the hotel and I’m glad we did. When we got back it was like 915 and dinner didn’t close till 10 so we had a 2nd dinner with appetizers and dessert🙂 (after showering of course)
Sunday morning we were renting a car to go Cenote hopping. We were both pretty beat, so we slept a little later than expected. Tara was in charge of this day. I was in charge of the previous Cozumel day. Renting the car took FOREVER. Nothing is super efficient but this was especially inefficient. Driving me crazy. This is when we realized my license was gone. Sad face. So Tara had to drive the car! Finally we were off to our first Centoe!
Cenote Sac Actun (pet cemetery) was at the end of a long dirt road (but was fine in any car). We got there and the guide told us we could explore around a bit before we got started. It was a beautiful blue pool, I thought that was it. And I was so happy with it! We got life jackets and wet suits (I’m glad we had the wet suits) and then were off on the tour. It was a full underwater cave tour complete with underwater features and tight squeezes and underwater passages and it was just beautiful. Imagine swimming around underwater in a cave. So much fun. I could have never imagined all that was inside. It blew me away.
The next cenote was very different, Jaguar cenote. It’s an open water cenote. It had jumping platroms– There are two heights, like 8 ft and 20 ft. Tara of course jumped off the 20ft just right off the bat. She looked so good and her form was flawless. She is so brave and so fun! We jumped in a couple times and then swam around and swam to the end and back. This one was really small but also had a zip line! So we each rode the zip line once. Good times.
We drove 15 more minutes down the main road to Tulum and had time for a quick late lunch at Rincon Jaguar which was EXCELLENT. Probably the best food of the entire trip. I had some honey chipotle chicken tacos that were so good. The guac was so good the passion fruit agua fresca was so refreshing.
Then we went to Calavara cenote which is sometimes called “the temple of doom” because you jump through a small hole into the water below. We had a blast for an hour jumping off the side and jumping through the hole. We were there from 4PM to when it closed at 5PM so it wasn’t very busy and this was the perfect timing. It was such a cool vibe. We did this funny video where tara was just walking and fell into the hole, we thought it was pretty funny.
The last event of the evening was snorkeling with turtles at Playa Akutal. This is crazy during the day with lots of people harassing you for tours, but going at night was the way to go. We got there about 5:45. We couldn’t stay long because the car had to be back by 8 but it was the perfect amount of time. Tara just let me go out because her head cold was acting up. They say you have to be in a group with a paid guide to see the turtles. But this is NOT the way to go because the visibility is crap where they have the turtle pens from all the people. I just snorkeled down the beach in front of a resort and swam out to the buoy line and this is where the visibility cleared and I saw tons of turtles (8 or so) with pilot fish on them and a big sting ray. We had a crazy drive back (go tara!) but made the car back in one piece and walked to the hotel in time for dinner!! We got the car back about 730 or 745 and then back to the hotel to shower and dinner at 830. Such a fun day and evening together. That night we finished watching One Day and we both cried when Emma died.
We didn’t have much to do on Monday morning. Tara’s head cold came back. A leisurely sleep in and reading and then we hit the beach for a bit. Tara talked to Halle while lounging on the beach and Halle was in RWANDA!!! I searched for a paddle board but no luck. We hit the pool for one last pina colada and then showered and got a quick smoothie lunch with fish tacos and rushed to catch our shuttle back to the airport.
Tara and I talked a lot about these trips. For me, they are always a win when I get to spend continuous alone time with her, it helps me know her and know her heart better and I love knowing that. We talked about me taking the boys back and doing this same thing on a boys trip. Maybe we will. But I just love her and I had a blast and now I have to board a plane and go home which makes me sad😞