Cozumel dive trip, Post 6: Playa del Carmen and Tulum ruins

Saturday, April 30th, was our last full day in Mexico. As our designated sightseeing day, we wanted to go across to the mainland to explore the ritzy resort town of Playa del Carmen and its surrounds. Throughout the week, I had been reading my Lonely Planet guide to formulate a plan of attack!

We ended up having a lazy morning, having decided the previous night to head across to the mainland around noon in order to miss some of the day's hottest hours. We lingered over our continental breakfast in the CDM restaurant with Peter and Marissa, and afterwards chatted some more in our room before eventually saying farewell (they were flying home that day).

We were so happy to have been able to enjoy this vacation in the company of Ken, Liesl, Peter and Marissa... thanks guys! It was fantastic!

We then caught a taxi to the San Miguel ferry terminal, and just made it onto the noon ferry to Playa del Carmen. It cost 140 pesos each (about $12) and took 45 minutes, sitting in air-conditioned comfort. When we reached the mainland, this was the panoramic view from the jetty... the big white resort is where Carmen and Phil (from the previous blog entry) were staying!

We spent a little while wandering around the posh shopping area before heading back a few streets to catch a collectivo. Playa del Carmen is known as an upmarket resort town, and is particularly popular with Europeans. Tourism apparently took off there due to people passing through on their way to Cozumel! (The latter became famous in the 1960s, when Jacques Cousteau called it one of the best places to scuba dive in the world.)

A collectivo is a type of public transport in Mexico - a minivan that leaves when it's full rather than according to a timetable. It cost us 35 pesos (less than $3) each. Our destination was the ruins at Tulum... we'd settled on this location since it is a more reasonable distance from Playa than the famous Chichen Itza, which I would've loved to have seen if it wasn't 5 hours away!

After a ride of about 45 minutes, I fortunately saw a sign to the Tulum ruins flash by (and heard the driver call out "ruinas!"), so off we hopped. It was about 2:30pm by this time, and extremely hot.

It seems that most tourists pay a couple of dollars to ride a "train" the 800m from the highway to the ruins, but we set off on foot. Following are some of the sights along the road. As soon as Ben had snapped a photo of the guys up the pole (who were playing music with what sounded like flutes or recorders), a guy with a donations tin emerged from his hiding place in a tree's shadow to wordlessly demand payment for the privilege of taking a photo. Sneaky!

The Tulum ruins were once a thriving port city, and were at their height between the 13th and 15th centuries. The ruins are stunningly situated on top of 12m-high cliffs on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, looking down over white sand beaches and the bright blue water of the Caribbean Sea. Large iguanas are everywhere, exuding a confident air of proprietorship. Despite the stifling heat (which even had me thinking fondly of Vancouver weather for the only time on the trip), it was well worth a visit!

Here are some of the many photos we took of the ruins, their lizard inhabitants, and the beaches below...

















As you can see, these ruins were rather more impressive than El Cedral!!

After an hour or two at the ruins, we walked the 800m back to the highway to catch a collectivo back to Playa. As we neared the road, a man came over to us with small samples of something held out on small spoons. We were so used to automatically saying "no, gracias" to salespeople that it wasn't until he had already gone back to his stall that we registered it was coconut ice cream he was selling. Si, por favor, si si!! I cannot describe how delicious this stuff is!



Back in Playa del Carmen an hour later, we spent a while looking through some clothing and souvenir shops. I thought a few of our readers might be entertained by these authentic souvenirs I found...


As it approached dinner time, we went to the Playa Car Palace Resort to surprise Carmen and Phil. They'd told us to come and visit them if we came to the mainland, but I don't think they believed we would! After chatting for a while in the lobby - we weren't allowed up to their room since it was an all-inclusive - we set off on a 15 minute walk along the main tourist avenue to find a restaurant called Blue Lobster, which had been recommended to Carmen and Phil by a number of their friends.

There were some pretty sights here and there amongst the restaurants and souvenir shops along the bustling pedestrian mall. The coconut shell lanterns were in an Italian-themed side alley... beautiful!



Our dinner at Blue Lobster (which Carmen and Phil kindly insisted on treating us to) was simply superb. It was definitely my favourite meal of the trip!

My bacon-wrapped shrimp...


Ben's eye fillet...


Carmen and her lobster...



Here are some more pretty coconut shell lanterns we saw during our walk back to their resort and the ferry dock...


Phil and Carmen waited on the dock until they had waved us onto the 10pm ferry back to Cozumel. We'd had a wonderful day on the mainland!

The next morning - Sunday, May 1st - we headed to the airport for our flight home. And that brings me to the end of our Mexican adventure! We hope you enjoyed it too!

Click here to see lots more photos from our Cozumel trip.