WorldScubaTrip: Cozumel and Playa del Carmen

Getting off the bus and walking through the streets of playa del Carmen I immediately had the feeling of being in some Spanish holiday resort. There were burger restaurants, American bars, souvenir shops, many well fed Americans, British holidaymakers, a town square with some local music playing put on for the tourists and some Aztec Indians dressed up so the kids could get their picture with them. The streets were clean and newly built. No building was older than 30 years. Basically there was nothing Mexican about it. I wanted to leave immediately. So I got my ferry ticket to Cozumel in the hope this was an untouched hidden gem with long white sandy beaches. How wrong i was!

So this is the tropical paradise of Playa Del Carmen, it stank...to be fair though atleast the sea weed is a completely natural unavoidable thing here, unlike the town...I guess you could say this may have been the most naturally beautiful thing about the place

The first thing that bothered me was the unfriendly people in the queue to the ferry, a couple with a huge red suitcase who had just come from a week in an all inclusive holiday resort with a private beach in Playa Del Carmen (apparently much nicer than the shitty beach with stinking sea weed that we were standing next to). Reluctantly they spoke to me (I tried to tell them about my adventure but I could see they would just never get it) to tell me they had a great deal on this for $100 a night. (all inclusive you see) I said I could only afford $10! To which the the girl replied it was what you save up for to go to a place like that - yeah right. She said I was on a different budget cause I was traveling. True I guess, but still who wants to pay $100 a night for some manufactured holiday, a lot of people by the looks of Playa Del Carmen. They assured me Cozumel was much nicer and the American boyfriend had had family there for years - it's always a bad sign if a place has become an American retirement spot!

Then on the ferry I was met by stewards with fresh make-up and clean uniforms. She wouldn't let me take my backpack on the ferry but insisted I put it in the luggage cart. I said no because I didn´t want it thrown around as it might break the remains of my laptop! Eventually she called someone over who escorted me to the location of the bags where I could leave mine, about 5 metres away. It was as if I had broken one of the ten-commandments by the looks on her face. This made me think of that shitty cargo ferry I took for 7 hours to get the Corn Islands, just how different and underdeveloped, but more fun it was. The next bad Omen for Cozumel was the constant adverts playing in the passenger lounge telling me about all the deals I could get if I go to Jerry´s burger bar, or some bike rental place. Apparently with my boat ticket I can get a huge margerita that looks like it could quench the alcoholic thirst of 10! Or you could get a free shot of Tequila if you went to the Mexican themed bar, it would make you feel just like you were in Mexico. (just go to the real Mexico for Gods sake) This just all made me feel massively depressed and I immediately knew I was not going to like this place.

However, my couch-surfing host is an amazingly awesome guy. He met me in his rented out Volkswagen Beetle infront of the ferry port. This car was old, it looked like it could fall apart at any minute, no hand break, gears you could only guess at, a steering wheel that wobbled and never went straight, and a clutch that barely functioned. Still for an old car it was pretty nippy! I got up to atleast 100km/h when I drove along the coastal roads. We had also stopped off for a crate beers that we ended up consuming while driving round, a little irresponsible but fun nonetheless. First we drove along the main Cozumel beach front. From Playa Del Carmen I had seen sky scrapers in the distance, I hoped this wasn´t the dream island, unfortunately it was. It was like driving along a rather shitty Hollywood Boulevard. There was a Cartier shop, next to a gift shop with Mexican nick-nacks, followed by an American Bar and fake Tacos restaurant, and then a huge Hotel. All this is built up for the cruise ships that come through, 8 a day! Que Horrible. Still I enjoyed being with my host, he was wonderfully eccentric and smart and the best host you could ever ask for. I believe he had deliberately hired the car just to show me around.

We drove all around the island, to the very northern point where there was some hippy rasta bar and waves crashing on the rocks. Unfortunately Cozumel has no real beaches, absolutely nothing like the beaches of Little Corn Island. I have to stay that place is yet to be beaten after all the places I have been to in the Carribean so far it stands out far far more in natural beauty. Still I am going explore it a bit on Edgar's bike and do a dive tomorrow morning, then leave to Tulum and maybe this really remote but amazing sounding place called Xcalak.

Edgar in his VW Beetle!

Stopped off at the beach

Me behind the wheel, I did not drink and drive! (actually I did, sorry Mum and Dad, it isn't illegal here and I was fine)

LOL...so there is a church next to Edgar's house that worships very very loudly ever evening...Edgar has put up with it for too long, so instead of joining them he is attempting to beat them on sound level and bought a Centauri 2, Alien speaker that goes God knows how loud...actually God probably does know because he blasts some damn good music into the church next door and completely drowns out their sounds...he makes a special effort to play a really loud song during a sermon or prayers so that people get the message more! Actually to be fair he isn't a dick about it, he only plays loudly when they are singing loudly.

Are we in Spain here?

A big concrete block of a hotel, just sprawling blocks of offices, shops and hotels

Some crappy American themed bar

And another...that's right get drunk and stop yourself from being bored in this shitty place!

Americans getting their holiday snaps...

It concerns me that this really is someone's cup of tea...

So the deal with this is is that aged American tourists get off their cruise ships for a few hours to see Cozumel, and also to restock on their extremely expensive medications that cost about half the price here...this is part of Edgar Llimbo (my couch surfing hosts job) he is a GP and he basically has to treat these people coming to the island and prescribe them whatever they need to keep themselves alive for the next two weeks of their cruise