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It was Thursday morning that M||3 and I looked at each other from across our breakfast table asking “are you ready?”. Not that catching a plane to Mexico was such a big deal, but it had been a long time since we had gone anywhere, much less left the country. I must admit I was a little on edge and drawing from previous international travel advice plus Google for the know-how about heading to Mexico. It has been a long time since I had wielded my passport, and I wasn’t very sure about how things would go. We rolled out early morning to the airport and caught the plane without much issue besides long lines. Fear of flying aside, the ride was smooth and quick and before too long I was trying to decipher the landscape of Cancun. I was amazed how the landscape was so level with vegetation, and thankful that the plane was finally landing.

We trucked out of the plane into a mall like atmosphere, only to move to the cut throat room of providers. We had to catch a bus down to Playa del Carmen, but we were unsure how to get there. We spend some time with a man who epitomized what we would deal with; sell you at any cost. Although he gave us good information about how to get to where we wanted to go, it was at the price of listening to his pitch about his hotel. Whatever, the ADO awaited and we caught a bus down to the central station of Playa del Carmen, movie with Ice Cube included.After a long walk we arrived. The bus station is at 1st street, and we needed to make it to 28th. It was our first experience with 5th street in Playa, which seemed like forever at the time. Playa del Carmen is essentially a huge tourist town with one main street as its representative, which is 5th street. We headed up 5th with bags in tow and endured not too bad amount of cat calls from the locals for nearly thirty blocks to arrive at our hotel, Quito Sol. It was a very relieved arrival, since we were not sure exactly where our hotel was located.

We successfully checked in, and was greeted by Lynne soon after our arrival. She pulled us into a welcome that only Lynne can provide, and soon we were off to her house in Playacar to meet her fellow travelers. We spent some time in her very beautiful home and socializing before we headed our for a Mayan dinner. Towards the end, however, we were exhausted and had to call it a night. So began the rest of our time in Playa. One of our main objectives was to get some diving in, and I had had some notion about how that would work. We started out with some snorkeling to get us familiar with the water via the dive shop Tank Ha. Arriving about 9 we jumped on to a boat with an Irish man and French woman and boated down to a reef just south of Xcaret. It was where we should have had the underwater camera, because the reef was teaming with life. Saw huge schools of fish, a stingray, a turtle, and a blowfish that was the size of a medium sized dog. I would say that anyone who is not afraid of the water should take such a dive.

The next day was spent wandering the town and setting up for our first Scuba dive on Monday. The pace of Playa del Carmen is very leisurely and its very easy just to amble up and down the street looking at one million dollar restaurant/bar/hotel after another. The place must be considered touristy, but not in a way that makes one sick to the stomach. Sure, there are plenty of t-shirt vendors pawning tasteless logos and places carrying every single type of souvenir that you might imagine you would return from Mexico with. I will have to admit though that the care and effort put into nearly every establishment is staggering. Not only to maintain the 5 star restaurants/bars/hotels, but the continued construction of even more such establishments. I would say that in another 10 years Playa may just become way over developed and they will have to start another one down the coast somewhere. Monday brought our first open water dive. We found a place near our hotel, named Go Cenotes, that was a little easier to get our equipment to than Tank Ha (2 blocks instead of 15). Arrived around 8, as would become the norm on dive days, and headed to a resort north of town with three very kind and curious French people. Scuba tours are really down to a science. The give you the wet suit and BCD before you hit the water, and they usually have all the tanks on a 20 ft. boat off shore from where you arrive. Each dive involves a dive master who is probably more than accustomed to unskilled divers than I would care to think. The dive was perfect to acclimate back to the unfamiliar world of breathing underwater. We did 2 dives and although somewhat uneventful, they were excellent in providing reassurance that more would be in our future.

We decided to take a break from diving on Tuesday and booked a tour with the company alltournative.com to some of the cenotes. It was kind of a gamble, since we weren’t sure if it would be cheesy or not. We caught the bus down by one of the main hotels and then headed around to various resorts picking people up. It didn’t look to promising on the cheese factor, but the ride included meeting an older man with a gray handle bar mustache named Bill who turned out to be a hell of an interesting guy. He lived in Colorado, and his various jobs included fireman and diver coroner. Basically diving the Colorado river looking for dead bodies. Picking his brain a little bit yielded a great deal of info about diving and where was good to go. It seems that if you spend your time diving in murk with the visibility of about 2 inches, then coming down to dive in the Riviera Maya is a real treat. After about 30 minutes heading south from Playa, we arrived at our destination. It seems that the Mayan people have rights to whatever land isn’t easily profited off of by tourists, but they happen to have some of the most beautiful fresh water caverns in the world, so these tours are hopefully set up to benefit them, which is one of the selling points of Alltournative. We took a tour of the land, spectated an underground purification ceremony, piddled around in inter-tubes in the water, zip lining in several frightening gravity dependant views of the area, and snorkeling in some of the cenotes. All in all, it was a good way to spend a half day and I hope that the money spend of such tours actually goes to the Mayan people to help them.

Our next dive was Wednesday. Again we went with Go Cenotes and our friendly French family down to an area called the Tortugas. On the way our dive master began to explain with some seriousness about how the dive would proceed. It was to be a drift dive where we would quickly enter the water and head down. The current would basically take us the rest of the way. Hit the water and dropped down to about 45 feet and then the magic began. The current that we had been warned about was nothing but a firm but gently push to give you the sense of flying over the bottom of the ocean. Although the floor was not very populated with coral, there were more sea turtles doing their thing than you usually see on the Discovery channel. It was one of those moments when you can experience things that one usually only reads about. Luckily, Rosendo, who had tried to pimp us a DVD of the dive joined us that day. I told him I wanted the DV tape instead of the regular DVD he offered, and he seemed very confused by this, but he agreed and it allowed me to put together the video I now have hosted here.

Thursday’s dive was to the famed Cozumel. We booked the tour with Tank Ha, since they seem to be one of the only companies that will jet you out to the island off the coast instead of catching the ferry. M||3 and I didn’t feel like hassling with that. Arrived at Tank Ha early and suited up then headed to the boat. The ride out there was about 45 minutes and along the way I met another interesting expatriate who was now living in Singapore. We talked about the world’s perception of the United States for quite a while. It was refreshing to hear an outside view since my patience with such American ignorance grows thin. Once we arrived the dive master went into the standard “this is what we are going to do” speech. The first dive was a more serious one. We went down to about 80 feet, where the reef was on an underwater cliff that disappear to who knows how far. I’m not sure if it was the depth or the abyss that fell off of the reef, but I was not feeling very comfortable at all. I was having trouble with my mask and feeling a little panicky, which is never a good thing under the water, especially at that depth. M||3, who is just experiencing her first dives, seemed to have no problem at all, although she could tell I was having difficulty. I keep trying to come up a little higher, which brought me into a warmer current that kept pulling me away from the group. It was simultaneously breathtaking and frightful, but the dive was survived without incident. The second dive turned out to be much more fulfilling. Went to a reef at about 60 feet with no mysterious cliff and drift dived the coral without any concern. We had heard that much of the life was damaged by the recent Wilma hurricane, but it was hardly noticeable to us.

That evening, my sinuses started acting up. Don’t know if it was a bug caught along the way or just over exertion from pressuring too much to dive. It pretty much rendered me into some kind of recovery mode so Friday was spent taking it very easy and trying to get over whatever was bothering me. Who knows how many germs are on all these borrowed regulators, right? Nonetheless we booked a cenote dive for Saturday. Pressurizing with sinus problems is notoriously a bitch, but I was hoping that since the cave dive wasn’t too deep that it wouldn’t be a problem. The morning of the dive I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it, but we powered through and headed for the dive. It took much longer to get everyone together and get out to the cenote, including a bumpy 40 minutes ride off the highway that I wouldn’t really want to experience again for all the tea in China. Once there, they broke our group in to subgroups and Beth and I ended up together with a very interesting American fellow as our dive master named Eric. He was cool and seemed to have traveled much of the world before ending up as our dive master. We waited for nearly an hour before it was our turn. I was having some trouble pressuring due to my sinuses and my buoyancy was worthless, but we finally got it together to head out. It was a completely different experience than open water diving. You basically are handed flash lights and given instructions for signals if you get into trouble. Then you follow the dive master along a tiny string through the underwater caverns. Believe me, if you have any type of claustrophobia, you don’t want to do this. If you can handle it, it is one of the more unusual environments you’ll ever be exposed to. It almost doesn’t seem real. There are rock structures that don’t really seem to make sense physically, but beautiful nonetheless. We we started to surface from our 45 minute dive, my ears blew out in a way that I knew I had to stop, so we sat out the second dive. I regret it now, but under the circumstances, I was in no condition to make another dive. Better to skip it than get into trouble in an underwater cave. We made it back from the cenote just in time to meet someone who was to rent us a car for the following day. Checkout was by noon and we didn’t need to be at the airport until 5, so we decided to rent a car and drive down to Tulum before heading back up to the airport. We had a good New Years Eve dinner and bought an extra bottle of wine before heading back to Quinto Sol to relax and watch the people celebrate by from a perch at the hotel.

Packed and ready the next morning, we loaded into our mini car and headed south. Driving around the city was a little crazy, but the open road was easier once you figured out the norms of passing. It was about 45 minutes from Playa del Carmen to Tulum. Once you arrive, you pull into a parking lot that is reminiscent of Six Flags. We grabbed our camera and some water and join the huge multitudes of people walking down to the ruins of Tulum. The area is well taken care of considering the amount of feet that must tread on it nearly every day, and new years day was no exception. The place was inundated with throngs of sightseers. I’m glad we spent the time to visit, but even moreso that we had taken our own wheels to do so since it was a good feeling to not have to get back on a bus full of tourists when the time came. The ruins are roped off and you’ll catch a glimpse of a lucky lizard presiding over the whole affair. I wonder if they wonder why the humans don’t come after them. After Tulum, unfortunately it was time to go. A plane to catch, we trekked back north and after a little mystery as to where the airport was located we returned the car with no problem. Can I posture a summation? Playa del Carmen is a wonderful visit. It’s expensive, but your needs are certainly looked after. The more road worn traveler may not have as much interest in the area unless diving was an absolute must. For M||3 and I however, it was a perfect honeymoon, although diving is not without its exhausting effort. Definitely take some naps so that you can recharge for an evening of good food and drinks. The availability of ATMs makes money a complete breeze, as I’m discovering more and more in any sort of international travel. Although I was weary, I never really felt at any time that I was in danger or really needed to be too worried about it. The business of Playa makes sure that it is safe to encourage repeat visits. I am certainly looking forward to returning for some dives with whale sharks and other underwater adventures, and would do so in a heart beat.