Mexico – Playa del Carmen 3/12/16 – 7/11/16

Just over an hour on the bus at a cost of NZ $3.50, and we arrived at the ADO bus terminal on 5th Avenue. We’re staying at the Hotel Posada Mariposa right on the famous 5th Avenue thanks to a great deal via booking.com. It really does pay to travel the Caribbean out of season for the deals you can pick up, especially if like us you only book a couple of weeks in advance, there’s some great bargains. Plus we mentioned we were honeymooners and had a room upgrade with a bottle of wine. Did make us laugh as the towels were shaped like swans with a veil and bow tie from toilet paper, ha ha!
Playa del Carmen is another great seaside holiday destination, full of sand, sea and blue skies. On our first venture out it appears to have a great vibe about it, some may say “shabby chic” and I would agree with them. The streets are adorned with a vast array of bars, restaurants and boutique shops. Yes there’s the odd souvenir shop selling tacky plastic wears, but mostly there’s trendy clothes shops with a host of Mexican silver wear from ornaments to jewellery. To the south of its very attractive white sandy beach lies the port, with ferry’s going over to the nearby island of Cozumel, which is handy as that’s our next destination. There’s a host of ferry companies, and as you get closer to the port, the staff of these companies are everywhere, hassling you to book through them. Have a little haste , as again there are bargains to find. The ferry’s run every 15 minutes with one company or the other, and during “off season” you can just turn up, find your bargain, book an board the vessel.
It appears that Carmen is more expensive than anywhere else we’ve visited in Mexico, however prices are still reasonably cheap compared to NZ or UK prices.
We booked a guided tour snorkelling with turtles. Our van picked us up at 7.45am and we drove around 1 hr to reach our destination. There were 7 in our group along with 2 guides who spoke good English. The cost was USA $60 pp that’s around
NZ $85 for a half days trip, which included the snorkelling equipment, lunch, life jackets, transport and a swim in a Canote and walk in a cave. Snorkelling with turtles was brilliant, however the sea wasn’t as clear as some we’ve visited, that’s because of the numbers of people around kicking up sand from the sea bed. I managed to film 6 turtles swimming around. At one point the guide beckoned me to follow him in the sea. I did and he showed me a small reef, here there were an abundance of tropical fish swimming around, in very clear waters. We were in the ocean for around 45 minutes and the going was fairly tough, as there was a swell in the sea, making swimming difficult, but the life jackets were perfect for these conditions. Once back on the van, we drove another 30 minutes to the Canote. This was larger and better than the ones we visited around Merida, and colder to swim in. Once at the waters edge deep in a cave, we had to jump in, the depth we were told was around 9m. The water was very refreshing when you first got in, but soon it warmed up. This canote tour was different as you swam in the cave, through many cavernous areas. At times you had to dip your head in the water to get under the stalagmites only for a second or two though. In places it had no lights so as I was at the rear of the single filed group I was given a torch, the guide at the front had the other torch. It was magical, thousands and thousands of stalactites cascading down from the ceiling of the cave, each one dripping freezing water droplets onto your head as you swam by. Cave after cave we swam through, some huge some tiny with only space for your head to get through whilst swimming. Some parts were nerve racking whilst others took each of us in awe. Gasps of delight came down the line of people one by one as they entered yet another cave all lit up in beautiful colours. We stayed in the canote for around 45 minutes again. Once back above ground our guides served us lunch then we were walking into the cave. Beautiful, vast, cavernous areas stretching around 200m, with a lake at its base, it’s waters ever so still and reflecting all that lie above it. A great optical illusion as it looked like the lake had various caves below it, when in fact it was only a few feet deep. The cave had lights within it, again illuminating every curve in the rocks making its Vista even more pleasing on the eye. A great half day trip and we’ll worth the cost.
Well I said our initial thoughts were this town was a party town, well it definitely is. One night we decided to have a naughty night out with a cocktail or two. We only stayed on 5th Avenue but did not realize how big this Avenue is, or the amount of bars that suddenly come alive when the sun sets. From street level at night you can see various roof top bars all lit up in twinkly lights so headed straight for one. Finding it’s entrance was difficult as it was on the roof of a shopping mall, once walking the entire length of the mall we asked one of the shop staff, who directed us out, along the street, a turn to the right and along 12 Avenue. Talking to locals is a great thing as we’d have never found it otherwise. There on 12th Ave was a lady standing in front of a very dark corridor. She directed to a lift and within seconds we were on the roof. Wow what a sight, the complete roof was taken over by this very attractive sight. There were various seating areas, including private booths all kitted out in plush velvet, all manor of very posh deck furniture, circular beds, swings, even chairs in paddling pools. The lights were very soft, so soft that I had to turn the light on my cell phone to read the cocktails list!!!! With pewter blue lights set inside various sized pools. Very posh indeed. This place was called the Raw Bar, and talking to one of its serving staff, (cos it’s the type of place where it’s clientele don’t queue at a bar), he informed us that there are 4 Raw Bars around the world – Dubai, LA, New York and here in Playa. Cocktails ordered and we sat on one of the many circular beds. The music playing was soft, nothing with a hard core beat, nor was it lousy lounge music, but something in between. Really nice find.
From here we ventured further along the Ave and came across a bar called the Tequila Barrel. This time a loud, boisterous bar overflowing into the street with great 80’s music bursting the eardrums. This bar is particularly great for sipping your cocktails whilst watching other tourists going by doing their thing, great fun. Further along another bar, this one called Fat Tuesdays. A tiny bar and again sprawling onto the street, with ‘bum designed seats’ and even louder pop music. Pina colada’s ordered at the bar, but looking behind the barman I noticed all cocktails are already made up in “slushy machines”, about a dozen or so different varieties of cocktails. Now I know why it takes a kid ages to choose his/her flavours of slushy! Very novel idea, not only that but as Tina and I waited for our slushy, another barman gave us shots of Tequila, for free. We loved this bar. Our drinks were placed on the bar counter, not in the normal glasses, but in ½ yard plastic glasses. We had 2 of these each in this bar, and yep the music got louder and louder, and more and more toe tappingly funky. Yep our favourite bar in Playa. We had now reached the end of 5TH Ave, so started walking back the other way. Glad we did as we had either missed a few great bars or they weren’t open earlier. We saw strobe fluorescent lighting coming from a side street so had to go and see where it was coming from. At this stage I have no idea what street it was on nor what the venue was called, but this open air nightclub was pumping and packed. People in their Sunday best, jiving and shaking their butts to the latest tunes. What a buzz, the strobe lighting flashing every colour, mirrors everywhere, bouncing the lights everywhere. It’s main dance floor surrounded by high tables and an area that raised from ground floor in tiers of maybe 4 or 5 all with leather couches, not that anyone was sat down. By this time it was around 3.30am and way past our Cinderella bed time, so we opted to go back to our hotel. I don’t really know how we managed this walk, or how long it took us, all I remember is waking up at 9.30am. What a great night out, even if we couldn’t move when we woke up.
The following day, well shall we just say it was spent mostly in our hotel room and leave it at that. The day after this we were on the move again, leaving Playa for Cozumel.
Playa del Carmen really is all you expect from a Caribbean party town, it’s beaches are made of the finest white sand, the skies are blue and the waters are warm. It’s beachfront location makes having a soft breeze at night very pleasant. It’s famous 5th Avenue is a shoppers paradise full of coffee shops during the day and in the darker hours it transforms itself into an amazing colourful party town with music blaring and lights flashing. You just gotta go there and experience it in all its glory. This was one of our favourite places.