Messy-co adventures continue - Cancun and Cozumel

Cancun

Cancun got messy. We flew in from Mexico City and went straight out to get some food. We were staying in a place called Pok-Ta-Pok on the lagoon side. There was pretty much nothing there – hence the cheapness of the hotel in comparison with the hotels on the strip – so we strolled into the first taqueria we could find. Now bearing in mind we’d been in Tequila country for a few days and not had one alcoholic drink, we thought we’d sink a couple of shots. A couple turned into about 8 each and after stumbling out of the bar we were accosted by the police who seemed intent on putting us into the car. We were drunk, but not disorderly, and somehow we managed to talk our way out of being arrested, or paying a backhander. On we walked and the next thing I knew, Baby D had disappeared and I was alone. I knew he had no idea where the hotel was or even what its name was, so I spent what felt like hours searching for him with the help of an Uber driver. Unbelievably, I found him as he emerged from a bush, face coated in blood.

Cancun coast

The next morning, we both woke up covered in some nasty looking bruises; Baby D had cuts all over his face where he had fallen over, and I had managed to rip half of my toenail off. I am pretty sure this was all a result of overdoing the tequila, but we have since read stories of tainted alcohol doing the rounds in Cancun and nearby Playa del Carmen, which could be either dodgy alcohol or drugged booze. Tourists have recounted stories of blacking out, becoming aggressive, being sick etc after not a great amount of alcohol. I think we were just stupid and put it down to a case of 1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila, floor. With impeccable timing, the morning after the night before, we were booked in to go diving. I feel ill even thinking about it.

Once we’d chucked a handful of sea sickness tablets down our necks we set off to the Cancun Bay Resort to dive the underwater museum off the coast. As it turned out, this hotel used to be Club Carrousel where I’d stayed on my last Cancun holiday. The underwater museum, MUSA is a collection of around 400 statues that have been placed on the seabed to encourage divers to go somewhere other than the delicate reef and to promote growth of marine life on the statues. The exhibitions are pretty cool – we saw a group of stone people which was actually a bit freaky, and a replica of a VW Beetle which was cool. The second dive was Manchones reef and a couple of swim-throughs where we saw plenty of life, including a green turtle and some fantastic coral. Once we surfaced, the previous evening’s shenanigans began to catch up with me and I was soon ‘feeding the fish’. We didn’t do much for the rest of the day...

On our 3^rd day in Cancun, we were booked up to go swimming with whale sharks – the reason we were actually in Cancun in the first place. Whale sharks are the largest fish in the world and although they look pretty scary, they are actually gentle giants which live on plankton. Whale shark season in this part of the world is from June to September. There were around 70 boats heading out but each boat had only around 10 passengers. We were allowed 2 opportunities to get in and swim with the whale sharks and went in pairs and with the guide. Baby D and I were first in and we jumped straight in between 2 huge whale sharks, with the guide shouting at us to follow them. They were swimming straight at us with their enormous mouths open, an awesome sight. We frantically swam after them – the visibility wasn’t great so we needed to be pretty speedy to keep up with them, but the current was quite strong as well, probably because of the storms that had battered the US. 

Whale shark

Interesting facts about whale sharks; they are individually distinguishable by the white spots on their skin, and when they die they drown because they don’t have a swim bladder which would offer buoyancy. They can allegedly grow up to about 16m in length, but the ones we saw were only (!) around 6m. 

We were lucky because we had quite a few people being sick or that were scared to get back in after their first go on our boat, so we got to go in 3 times – each time seeing at least 2 whale sharks. The second time was the best as I managed to swim right above a whale shark for a few minutes with great visibility. Fantastic experience.

Cozumel

To get to the island of Cozumel we had to get down the coast to Playa del Carmen, about an hour and a half’s drive away, to take the ferry. We took a local bus to the ADO coach terminal but before we made it into the building we found a ‘colectivo’ which is a mini-van, to take us for 40 pesos each, which is less than £2 each. The ADO bus was about 65 pesos (about £3). At the ferry port we were accosted by a guy selling ferry tickets to the island. 

Cozumel art

Baby D was suspicious and when he looked at the tickets he noticed that the date on them was for 3 days’ earlier. We went off in search of the legitimate ticket office much to the dismay of the guy, who ran off, and soon discovered that he had also been trying to charge us double the fare. If anyone goes to Cozumel, make sure you buy from the proper ticket offices. We paid 180 pesos each for an open return. There are 2 or maybe 3 main ferry companies which go every half hour, and the journey takes about 45 minutes.

Cozumel is a smallish island off the coast off the Yucatan peninsula, well known for its amazing diving on the Belize Barrier Reef there which is the 2^nd biggest in the world. We were staying in a bed and breakfast near the main strip and Teresa the lovely landlady soon got us booked up to dive on the following day. We spent the rest of the first day walking around and getting a feel for the island, and the next day we were picked up to go diving.

Cozumel

We had booked 2 dives and we had our own Dive Master, Martin. We drift-dived the famous Santa Rosa Wall and the Palancar Gardens. The Santa Rosa Wall is a vertical reef which drops down from 15m and there are a number of swim-throughs. As Baby D was still in recovery from Cancun, we spent the rest of the day relaxing and mooching round town. 

San Gervasio

The next day I was getting a bit of cabin fever so left the patient at the B&B, borrowed our landlady’s push bike and set off on a 32km round trip to San Gervasio, the largest Mayan ruins on the island. I’m not going to lie, there were several times I thought I was actually going to die from heat stroke – the weather had a ‘real-feel’ of 41 degrees -but I pushed on and made it to the site.

San Gervasio

I paid around $10 entrance fee and declined the US $20 tour and the US $10 mosquito spray and wandered around on my own, gatecrashing the large American tour groups who had guides. The site was a place of worship for the Goddess Ix Chel and was abandoned in the 1500s. 

Size of it!

That evening Baby D had bucked up enough to try a few ‘hairs of the dog’ and we settled in at Wet Wendys for some MASSIVE cocktails and then found ourselves at Ohana’s for some peanut butter tequila. 

And that was delightful Cozumel. We were soon on the ferry heading back to Playa del Carmen to get the bus down to Tulum.


#tequila #cancun #cozumel #wetwendys #musa #palancar #santarosawall #sangervasio #manchonesreef #whaleshark