viernes, 25 de noviembre de 2011

25th of November. Xel-Há

Today we have spent the day in Xel-Ha, which is a natural aquatic park, It is difficult to explain what it is, it is fun, all related with water, in a natural environment.The basic tickets are expensive ($80) but it includes Unlimited food and soft and hard drinks It is all included, with the exceptions of some spacial attractions, like swimming with dolphins(which we didn't do) or swimming and touching stingrays (which we did)

There is abundant wildlife, lizards, birds, etc. Not just fish too see.There was a good amount of snorkeling, jumping from cliffs, zip wires etc.

 


 

jueves, 24 de noviembre de 2011

24th of November 2011. SHARKS!!!!!

 

First thing in the morning Alberto, Javier and me we went for a dive with SHARKS !!! It was fantastic 45 minutes surrounded by 7or 8 huge Bull sharks in the wild. Pictures say it all.

 


We were still excited about the experience, and with adrenaline still flowing through our veins, when we arrived to the hotel. We couldn't stay dry with all that addrenaline, so snorkel again, and we found the relax there. I was finally able to see 3 turtles. Everyone else saw them, and there are even photos and videos, but I don't have them with me.

Then at night after dinner, Alberto and I went for a night dive. It was my first time .Again fantastic.



Filo Un anonimo conocido

 

miércoles, 23 de noviembre de 2011

23rd of November 2011, diving in Akumal beach

Today we planned the day to be around the Hotel. In the morning, Alberto Javier and me went to the scuba center in the beach next to the Hotel and took 2 dives. While we were down there, Nuria was relaxing, in the Hotel, got a massage, and while doing snorkeling she found turtles.

We joined Nuria by lunch, snorkeling, eating burgers, and relaxing a bit. We spent the afternoon in the hotel getting ourselves ready for Mr Akumal contest.

The Alberto, Javi and myself got dress to impress, with our Stravaganza shirts, which were the sensation of the night. The Mr Akumal contest consisted in a series of test. Alberto and myself won one test each of us, and myself was in the last test (a musical test) but got mind blocked, and the French contestant scored his second point winning the Mr Akumal price. Two things to mentioned, first was that the speaker constantly called me Philip, while Alberto was Alberto de España, as the was one Alberto from Italy. The second thing to mentioned, and it is very important to keep it in writing is that Javi didn't scored a point. Now that it is written we can remind him in the future.

 

 

martes, 22 de noviembre de 2011

22nd November 2011 Maya experience

What can you do, if it is 6:45 am, you are in a hotel resort in the Caribbean, with a great beach full or corals and life, and you have a bit of jet lag ? There is o ly one thing. SNORKEL before breakfast.


And that is exactly what we did. After breakfast we were going on a tour to visit some Maya culture, and to swimming in a "Cenote"

In the tour we visited

  • Tolum, a Mayan city 10km away from playa del Carmen, which is the only one by the sea.


  • swimm in a Cenote

  • Coba, which is the highest Mayan Piramid, and the only one you could climb

  • .And visit a Mayan village. Well really this was something we could have missed, as the was nothing really interesting or significant about it.


Tulum, Coba and the Cenote was something really good to visit, unfortunately for us we had a bad Tour guide. He was awful, we walked in silence most of the time, while we were seeing how other groups stopped and were told things, and when the finally stopped, our guide talk about the things we were seeing without any emmotion. He memorized list of food, and dates which he was naming in a fast maner. And some of the data was as a minimum questionable, as he tends to invent the answers with things that looks similar to what he remembered.

Listening to him was like reading a book, he was talking everything by memory, but was a bad book, because he mentioned that one of the main reasons Mayan people died of was Osteoporosis. The guy would probably meant tuberculosis. That was the topic of conversation all day, and it is likely to be the the main joke of the trip, it was funny to think how Mayan could die the weakening of bones in the body, caused by lack of calcium deposited, we were trying to picture Mayan cities with everyone with soft bones, like plastic families. in the bones, normally common in elder people :).

 

Anyway we learned more by listening to other guides as we walk by them.

 

Back in the hotel, we had dinner, and also time in the bar. We learned that tonight was Karaoke night, and so we went, finding that we went the only ones, but we had a good time. Thank god that Nuria and Javi sung most of the songs.

 

Of course e boys, Javier, Alberto and me, were dressed with ellegants clothes, and drinking tequilas


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lunes, 21 de noviembre de 2011

21st of November 2011 Sunrise in the Caribbean

21 November

We woke up earlier then we thought, around 6 am. We started to see the beauties of the Hotel, really good beach. The hotel is old, that is true, but the sea in front of us, the white sand beach is great.

We found the gem in the buffet breakfast: omelettes and then in the bar ask for an espresso coffee, because the one in the buffet was, as usually are, quite bad.



We had at midday the Introduction talk by pullmantour, the Tour operator. We decided not to take any of the recommended tours they offered but was good to make our mind about what we wanted to do all week, and of course we went to Playa del Carmen in the afternoon to buy some gifts, and book tours from the multiple much cheaper tour operators we foun there.

We also found much more "appropriate"shirts.

Back in the hotel we did a bit of Snorkel in the hotel beach by sunset. It was amazing we didn't know the we're that many corals and live just in front of us. We found later that Akumal beach, where we were, was a tour by itself, and people paid to do snorkel in the beach. Apparently turtles were easily seen in this beach. The hotel is getting better.



We had dinner at the hotel dinner, with our "elegant" shirts bought in the morning. After hotel bar with live music. Needless to say that we had a few tequilas, and cocktails, but unfortunately they couldn't do cocolocos



 

 

domingo, 20 de noviembre de 2011

Riviera Maya D day 20 November 2011

From Evernote:

Riviera Maya D day

20 noviembre!


!que viva México cabrones!

Up at 8:30 in the airport at 10:30 for a 14:30 flight. We found a Huge queuing time for check-in.

The airport was a huge Boeing 747-400, what we previously used to call "jumbo". The flight was tiring, food was not good either, but it was at least, direct flight, 10h30 long though.

We arrive at about 18:00 local time, then after about 1.5 hour for picking up the luggage, we took the bus that 1h15min later took us to Akumal Beach Resort, close to 10:00 pm local, 5 am in Spain. We almost lost dinner, and we are so tired that we are not looking very positive today.

Maybe tomorrow we will have a different perspective but today we are finding the hotel a bit old.

 

sábado, 19 de noviembre de 2011

Riviera Maya D DAY -1 19-November-2011

Finally the trip that my friends and I have been planning for few years has arrived.

Few years ago my Friends and I decided to start collecting 2€ coins and on 11-Nov-2011 (tat is 11-11-11) we would go to the Caribean, to an all included. Resort. The most active members of the group choose Riviera Maya as de destination, because we were notary good fans of the all included type of resorts.

At the end only 4 of us went to the trip, and instead of the 11-11-11 we took 20-nov-11. So today here we are in Madrid Javi, Nuria, Alberto and myself, on the table having dinner, and trying a Juan Gil 18 months, which by the way is great.

Pitty that Andres and Gema couldn't make it. They were the biggest promoters of the idea, and also Marta and Maria Jose didn't come either so Nuria is the only girl in the trip. I know that I will particularly going to miss Mariajo, but she cannot take vacations outside August.

Tomorrow our trip to Mexico start get the cocolocos ready for us!!!!!!!