Playa Del Carmen, Cenote Diving and Cozumel

Next stop Mexico - I flew into Cancun but taking the advice of everyone who had been I got as far as the bus stop outside the airport and jumped a bus to Playa Del Carmen an hour down the coast. My first introduction to Mexican residents was this little boy on the bus who seemed to get more sense out of Feliz than me!!

I found a hostel dumped my bags and went to explore Playa Del Carmen catching the sunset as I walked along the beach. Still fairly built up and very much aimed at the tourists but a nice little town to hang out for a few days.

It's a hard life chilling out on the beach as you can see!!

I couldn't work out why all the shops were selling a wide selection of 'gimp' masks till someone explained to me that the were in fact wrestling masks from the National sport of Lucha Libre (Mexican Wrestling i.e shown in the Jack Black movie Nacho Libre!)

I loved the football team poncho's - I think this would catch on in Glasgow I can just see the Rangers and Celtic fans in these - using them to hide their bottles of beer and weapons from the polis!!

The locals.....

The reason for heading to Playa Del Carmen was to get a few dives in before I leave the warmer climates. My first dive was a 10 minute boat ride from the beach and we saw some big fish and a huge turtle.

Between dives we had to hang about at this beautiful beach which we had all to ourselves other than the massive Pelican's that were fishing there....

My second dive there were some very big schools of fish, beautiful Angel Fish & Corals and a big trumpet fish.

A couple of spotted eels sticking their heads out from under the rocks.

This little guy was funny - when the piece of shell was put on his nest of eggs he picked it up and moved it away.....

And these guys just love popping out of their holes in the ground.

When all the dive shops were advertising diving in 'Cenotes' I had to go find out what a Cenote was (well did you know?). They are surface connections to underground rivers - the Yucatan Province of Mexico has no surface rivers they all flow under ground and can be accessed through the cenotes. So how could I resist going for a few dives in them and it was very different from the Ocean dives that I have done - you swim through these dark caverns then suddenly come out into pockets of light caused by cave like openings....it was quite strange swimming past these massive stalagmite and rock formations that in a normal cave would be above your head!!

Even under water religous symbolism is to be found - this rock is christened Madonna due to it likeness to the religous icon!

And there was some very very old fossils in some of the rocks.

The little fish were funny as they would follow the torch light as it lights up the plankton and made it easier for them to find their dinner.....

A short ferry trip from Playa Del Carmen took me over to the island of Cozumel for a day trip to what is listed as one of the top 10 dive spots in the world!

I wasn't disappointed with my first dive with really clear visitbilty , interesting plant life, a giant sea cucumber and lots of fish.

Then of course the mandatory break between dives on another deserted beach :-)

The second dive was even more impressive with a huge variety of fish quite a few of which I hadn't seen before, giant lobsters, baracuda and several turtles....

After my diving I had some time to kill in Cozumel before I caught my ferry back to the mainland so I went for a walk around the colourful town. This place was all but wiped out in 2005 when two category 4 hurricanes hit it - the town was repaired quickly but the sea life and corals will take much longer to recover unfortunately.