Posted by kathy.web on October 04, 2002 at 21:34:37:
WE HAD A WONDERFUL TIME!! My husband Danny and I arrived at the Cancun airport on 9-18. The only reservation we had made was for a car through National. We got to National car rental, and there was nobody there! No waiting around for us, so we accepted an offer from Payless for a similar deal. We got a brand-new Dodge ATOS. It was a little tin can on doughnuts, but the A/C was cold! We arrived in Playa and got a room at Las Golondrinas. The pool and surrounding garden were lovely. We strolled 5th, stopping for drinks at Kegs, Pez Vela, and Don Emilione. Back to the hotel for a swim in the pool. 9-19 Breakfast at La Cueva del Chango (saw this on Mapchick's map) We love this place! Lovely garden setting. We got a pass to Mamita's beach club from the hotel and spent the entire day there. Great lunch and weather. Later on, drinks at Kegs, then a very good dinner at Apasionado. 9-20 Grocery shopping at Chedraui, then we moved to Akumal. Got a room at the Vista del Mar. Snorkeled Half Moon Bay, lunch at La Buena Vida, then more snorkeling. Little did we know that this would be the last we saw of the sun for six days! 9-21 Xel-Ha. We loved it! We snorkeled all day, only getting out for lunch, and a drink here and there. It was windy all day, but did not start raining until 5pm. Back to La Buena Vida for drinks and then to Lol-Ha for dinner. 9-22 Drove to Tulum pueblo, had a yummy breakfast at Don Cafeto. Found an ATM and internet cafe. Bought rain ponchos, then toured the ruins. We hired a guide, which was a good idea since we learned so much from him. Back to La Buena Vida for dinner. The Vista del Mar has satellite TV, but only one or two channels at a time. The hotel manager told us he was going to turn on FOX weather so we could see what Hurricane Isidore was doing, but he turned on FOX sports, so we watched a football game instead! Ignorance is bliss, because we did not know until later that Merida was evacuated and the Cancun airport was closed. 9-23 We were leaving Akumal in the morning, and saw that the palapa roof of a building was on fire. It was the building right next to Cueva del Pescador, maybe Turtle Bay bakery? Turtle Bay was closed in September, so I wasn't sure which building it was. Before they got a water hose on the fire, there were guys running into the restaurant, and bringing out bottles of soda, shaking them up, and spraying on the roof of the Pescador to keep it from burning, too. They did a good job, because it didn't burn! We took a couple of pictures, but that was the wrong thing to do, because the camera broke right then. It worked as soon as we got home, and the only pictures that didn't come out were the ones of the fire!! 9-24 This morning there is no power. It had gone off several times during the weather, but this was the longest it had been off. What to do? Road trip to Coba! The road to Coba was never boring since it took both of us to spot potholes and topes. When we got to the town, we ate at Bocaditos and it was good. We saw the ruins and were glad we had our rain ponchos from Tulum, because it was windy and rainy. Danny climbed the pyramid and said the wind nearly blew him off! Coba was great and we had a wonderful time! On the way back, we stopped at the Aktun dive center's restaurant (the intersection of 307 and the road to Coba) I had Molletes yummy! 9-25 We had been waiting for good weather to snorkel Yal-Ku, but went in the rain. We were the only two people there, had a wonderful time! Later drove to Casa Cenote, but they were closed because they were cleaning up from the storm. They did serve us cervesas, though! Today we noticed lots and lots of trees down everywhere, and on 307, a majority of the highway signs were down. We went to Oscar y Lalo's for lunch. Back to La Buena Vida in the evening. 9-26 Today the wind and rain are gone. The sea is quiet. The bay looks like glass compared to the violence of the last few days. We went to the Loncharia again for lunch. We went to Akumal bay, the snorkeling was awesome! There are rest bouys right around the best snorkel places. On the way back in, I saw four sea turtles. I swam with one of them for quite a while. This was the highlight of the trip for me, it was great! we went back to our room and snorkeled half moon bay again. 9-27 Moved back to Playa! Breakfast at Bip Bip, it was good. Checked into Hotel La Tortuga. Went down close to the ferry dock and went bar hopping. Went shopping at Chedraui for grocery items to take home (achiote is hard to find in the midwest) shopped 5th ave for gifts, shopped Covi for liquor. Out of all the driving we did, I have to say that that intersection of Constituyentes and 307 was the scariest! It felt like a demolition derby, but I was never sure if we were about to be demolished by a truck, or we were about to demolish a bicyclist! 9-28 Our last day. Breakfast at Agora restaurant is included at La Tortuga. It was very good! On the way north, we stopped at Jardin Botanico, and we probably would have enjoyed it, but there were clouds of mosquitos! We saw some of it, then had to leave. We stopped at Puerto Morelos and drank cervesas at Los Pelicanos until we had to leave for the airport. There it is! It was wonderful and we cannot wait to plan our next trip!
After that tragedy, we went to Aktun Chen cavern and enjoyed it. Back to Akumal and ate at Loncharia del Akumalita, a locals place, we were the only vacationers I ever saw there. The food was delicious.
That night, we had a hurricane party with some neighbors. Sat on the patio, it was kind of protected from the rain, and listened to music and the steady roar of the sea. It's kind of hard to describe the crazy wind, the rain, the big waves in the bay, and the incredible roar of the sea. When we first arrived at Akumal, there was a marked turtle nest right outside our room. Sadly, after Isidore, it was gone. I guess I did not mention that the patio door of our room was about 25 feet from the sea!
We had lunch at Casa del Agua, very good. We ended up at Kegs several times that day. They play American music, and it was always either very good or very goofy! We ended up getting a slice of pizza from the place across the street.