Sailing Adventure Part 2 – Mexico.

I guess not so much of a sailing adventure yet as will be travelling some more overland before getting another sailing passage.

Arrived in Mexico on the 29th January into Cancun. I was told to get out of Cancun as its just a bit of a messy city with high prices so i headed like most people do down the road to Playa Del Carmen. OK this is just a big tourist place by the sea but it was actually quite nice, a mix of young families, old folk and young people. Lots of restaurants and bars but all quite civil. The temperature was warm and cool at night, a nice way to get back into living in a warmer climate.

The beach at Playa Del Carmen –

Playa Del Carmen
Playa Del Carmen
Birds on the beach, they were big guys who weren’t afraid of the tourists.
Playa Del Carmen
Playa Del Carmen

A wonderful bird is the pelicanHis bill will hold more than his belican,He can take in his beakEnough food for a weekBut I’m damned if I see how the helican! 

These guys would perform down by the seafront in a local square, they would spin the platform round with ropes attached to the top as they ran around the bottom. After a while they all took it in turns to climb to the top, a good 60-80 ft in the air. From there they proceeded to sit up there for a good 15 minutes before anything happened, in fact i never knew what happened as eveytime i saw them they were either climbing up the pole or sitting on top of it. I got bored of the wait and dissappeared before anything happened. I think they may have thrown themselves off the top attached by ropes but i will never know. Anyway it was bloody high and they got my respect for doing it –
Playa Del Carmen
Playa Del Carmen

The most reasonable place i could find to stay was in fact a Spanish language school, unfortunately the students would come down for breakfast and then all practice their Spanish together. This made me feel a little inadequate on the language front and wondered whether i should be doing a course or not. I had heard that if you go down into South America you do really need to pick up a bit of the lingo otherwise it can be a bit difficult. Not really having the time to spend on a 2/3 week course i will have to pick up a few words on the way to help me get by.

After a few days (noches) i travelled to the nearby island of Cozumel a 45 minute (menos) ride away on a fast ferry. The island seems to get bombarded by cruise ships every single day, some times more than one cruise ship comes into the same dock. The passengers must like to spend their money on jewellery and watches as most of the sea front is full of shops selling expensive items with guards wearing flak jackets tooled up ready for action. These shops normally close as soon as the tourists are seen heading back to their boats.

Cozumel sea front west coast –

Cozumel
Cozumel

Cozumel sea front by the ferry drop off –

Cozumel
Cozumel

One of the many pesky cruise ships –

Cozumel
Cozumel
 A Disney cruise ship i believe almost dwared by another –
cozumel
Cozumel
The east coast of Cozumal has the best beaches but the west coast of Cozumel has all the diving spots. As you really needed to rent a car to reach the other side of the island and i have seen enough beaches on my travels i wasn’t too fussed about travelling to see more anytime soon, the later part of the trip will reveal plenty of beaches and snorkelling oppourtunies and the diving is better elsewhere so i just eased myself slowly into the Mexican way of life.
SimonTheSailor

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.