Beth and I have been in Mexico for the past week, doing some scuba diving and general relaxing. We arrived home last night in the middle of a snowstorm! Yuck.
In Mexico, we stayed in a town on the Caribbean coast called Akumal, at a hotel called Vista del Mar. Our room was about 5 feet from the beach and 25 feet from the water’s edge. So we had a constant sea breeze to help keep things cool, plus constant sound of the waves even with all the doors and windows closed. Even this time of year, it’s warm (to me) in Akumal, with temperatures ranging from mid-70’s at night to mid-80’s in town during the day. Water temperature was about 78.
We had 6 dives in the ocean and 2 dives in a cenote cavern, which was a new experience for us. The cenote is cool, fresh water, with extremely high visibility. It was strange diving through caverns with rock walls on all sides. We did our diving through a very small dive shop called Akumal Dive Adventures. The shop was about 100 yards from our hotel, so it was extremely convenient! They took good care of us, though the weather was stormy enough that they had to cancel some of the dives due to waves and poor visibility. We were the only divers there who were trying to dive every (or almost every) day. The rest of the clientele were people who just came by to dive for a day or two and then leave. The group of people who were on our last dive were only doing one dive on their whole trip. Since it takes one or two dives to re-acquaint yourself with being underwater and the way things are done at a particular dive operation, it seemed like a waste to just do a single dive.
I ate as much guacamole and fish as possible, and I think by the end of the trip we’d tried every restaurant in town (including one in Akumal Pueblo) except one. The food varied from place to place, of course, and I may write up a restaurant-oriented trip report based on notes I took during the week.
The region has changed noticeably in just the two years since we were in Akumal last. They’ve widened the highway to four lanes all the way to Akumal and beyond, and put in pedestrian/bicycle bridges for people to get over the highway without getting run over. And there are more housing developments and resorts than there were a couple years ago. The Riviera Maya is definitely getting built up fast, though Akumal itself hasn’t really changed too much.
But now we’re back, and I have to go back to work. And figure out how to lose the 20 pounds I think I gained on the trip. 🙂
Looks like a place Lorraine and I would love. Where did you stay while in Akumal?
We stayed at the Vista del Mar hotel, which is right on the beach of Half Moon Bay. The hotel is owned by the same company as the dive shop, so they have a really good package deal for diving and lodging.