Teamramble is back from Playa Del Carmen Mexico. This great little town can be found about an hour south of Cancun right on the Caribbean in the state of Quintana Roo on the Yucatan Peninsula. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort called the “Viva Maya Wyndham” where we would start almost every day with a swim in the ocean, and then jump into the pool with trips to the swim-up bar. It wasn’t all relaxing though. We spent the day at the Xcaret ecological park, explored the ruins of Tulum, and drove the world’s oldest car around Cozumel. Also on this page you will find our Playa Video Montage, enjoy.
It takes a bit of work to get to Playa Del Carmen. From the Cancun airport, you find the guys that hook you up with the $8 bus ride down south. The bus takes off hourly from the airport and you can buy tickets as you are getting on. The ride only takes about an hour and you get to watch Rush Hour 3 in Spanish. It is that easy.
The town of Playa Del Carmen or “Playa” as it’s called by those of us lucky enough to go there used to be just a sleepy little village and the place where you could catch the ferry to Cozumel. It has grown up, but hasn’t lost a laid back feeling not possible in Cancun what with all the MIS majors from Wisconsin and Communications majors from Toledo boozing it up major.
The resorts are actually not in Playa Del Carmen proper, but in a gated neighborhood called “Playacar” that had originally been designed as a luxury neighborhood. Much like the Cancun Hotel Zone, the streets of Playa Car are lined on both sides with plush resorts. However unlike Cancun, Playa Del Carmen has an ordinance limiting building height to 3 stories. Nothing is over 3 stories and almost every rooftop offers a view of the ocean or the jungle. From the Viva Maya Wyndham you could either take a ½ mile walk or a $5 (50 Pesos) cab ride to downtown Playa Del Carmen. Almost every day we would walk to town and took a cab back later in the evening.
Viva Maya Wyndham (Top): The resort is HUGE, offering 3 bars, 2 pools, 2 theme restaurants, a large beach front area and many other amenities. My favorite part involves those magical words, “swim-up bar!”
Food: When people ask about an all inclusive, the first they ask is “how is the food?”. The Viva Maya Wyndham has the best food of any all-inclusive resorts we have visited. The theme restaurants were pretty good—one had a gorgeous view of the ocean and was open air so we could see the stars and feel the ocean air. The breakfasts were fine (you should have seen the omelet bar!), the snack bar was pretty good; As usual, dinners in the cafeteria should be avoided. Not awesome. We
went into town most nights for dinner. The food we found in town was definitely worth the walk (or the cab ride).
Shows: I had thought nightly shows at the resort were something confined to Kellerman’s Resort in Dirty Dancing. Not so as it turns out. The staff at the resort put on a different theme show every evening. They are pretty silly and reminded me of the talent shows my High School put on but it looks like the staff is having a pretty good time. While we were there they had a 70s show, a slightly disturbing remake of Grease, a thoroughly unauthorized Disney tribute and one night the posters proudly announced that the show that night was “Madonna”! We didn’t see that show but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t actually there—although can you imagine her surprise if she was there and found out there was a show where she was the star?! Silliness notwithstanding, the shows drew a surprisingly large audience every night.
Resort Attractions: In the brochure and on the web site, the Viva Maya Wyndham lists all sorts of fun-sounding attractions from free catamarans and water sports to diving lessons to archery and tennis. While we did get to try archery (man are we bad….), the rest of the activities remained largely out of our reach. We didn’t have the right shoes for tennis – apparently flip-flops are not appropriate athletic shoes, whatever.
The diving lessons never happened. The resort guide list a number to call to schedule your lesson, I called 8 times. Nobody ever answered the phone and voicemail never picked up. Maybe they were under water??
Now TeamRamble loves us some sailing. Love it love it love it. We were really looking forward to sailing in the Caribbean because as anyone from Seattle knows, it is beautiful here but the water is cold. Jumping in is rarely the option you choose! So here’s what happened: Our beach had an official rating system. There was an official looking sign and official looking pictures letting us know that on a “green flag” day, the winds were calm, the seas idyllic, and sailing just a short walk away. On a “yellow flag” day, the winds were feisty; the seas even more so but sailing—still an option. On a dreaded “red flag” day, the weather was a-howlin’ with winds and seas as angry as someone who’s been banned from the swim-up bar (although I don’t imagine that actually could happen but anyway). So we saw gorgeous calm days come and go. We saw windy days come and go. We saw days you only imagine in a postcard come and go. Every morning though same thing greeted us—red flag. A GIANT red flag still as can be hanging limply from the pole. We decided they only had one flag. Maybe the rest of the money went into buying the sign?
Like other resorts, to take out a catamaran you need to pass some sort of certification test. I passed it our first day on the beach. We didn’t sail until our last day because of various reasons including “Not possible today” on an idyllic day, because as I walked away I noticed the catamarans weren’t even rigged.
Every time we went to borrow a catamaran the red flag or “no water craft allowed due to extreme danger” flag was flying. Sometimes it was limp due to a lack of weather. Just to see what would happen I asked to borrow the boat when there was no wind, which the guy at the sail rental place explained, he couldn’t explain why the red flag of doom was flying on a day with zero wind. Our theory is they only bought the one flag.
While the other resorts allowed their guests to take out the catamarans, the staff at the Viva Maya preferred to keep theirs on the beach. This was a very strong contrast to other resorts we have visited in the past. As a heads up, Teamramble is made up of avid sailors, and I even attended a maritime academy, so it isn’t like we can’t handle a catamaran.
If you are considering a visit to the Viva Maya to take advantage of the resort activities, find a different resort.
Xcaret (Top): Pronounced (Ish – Ka – Rhett, I think) is something called an “eco-park”. Think Disneyland for tree huggers.
Xcaret is an entire day adventure, and well worth the $100 a head admission fee. We had a great lunch, snorkeled through an underground river, saw some really big Turtles, Sharks, Sting-rays, a Cougar a Panther and a Leopard, swam in a beautiful lagoon and met one ugly Crocodile.
One highlight of the Xcaret trip was the nightly “Viva Mexico” show. The, Viva Mexico show features well over a hundred performers in elaborate costumes while depicting the progression of the Yucatan people from the Maya empire to Spanish invasion and beyond. My favorite part was the beginning when they performed an exhibition of Mayan sports, like “Ball”
(the one where you can’t use either your hands or feet to get a ball through a hoop in the air), and a flaming puck version of street hockey. The flaming puck street hockey was really cool.
During the show we got nervous that we would not be able to get back to our resort so we left early hoping to find a cab. We found several score of them. If you go to Xcaret and stay for the Viva Mexico show, don’t worry about getting home. There will be a small army of cabs waiting to ferry you back to your resort.
As Xcaret is an eco park, you can only wear bio-degradable sunscreen that washes right off in the water. Keep that in mind.
Tulum (Top) : Although less “historically important” than bigger brother, Chichen Itza, Tulum is still pretty cool. Case in point, Tulum is the most visited historical site in Mexico, likely because it is right on the beach, and Chichen Itza is in the middle of a deep jungle. So the old adage holds true even in ruins, location, location, location.
Getting to Tulum is breeze; there is a bus that drops you off about ½ mile from the historical site. Admission to the site is $3, and you have the opportunity to hire a guide for another $40. We opted out of that, but they did have a night tour that sounded really cool. In true Mexico fashion, you can get 2 for 1 Coronas just a stones throw from the ruins. I really love that.
The ruins at Tulum are spectacular set against the Caribbean Sea. The day we visited the sky was dark and ominous with 
consistent winds that gave the feeling of being in the first reel of a horror flick. Even with all the modern the trappings around Tulum (2 for 1 Coronas!), it is easy to believe you are discovering the ruins for the first time, as they have been left more or less alone. There are several structures ranging in size from the quite small to a massive temple. To get a complete walking experience of Tulum it only takes about 2 hours, so no need to make this your entire day. Also, included in your admission is access to that beach I mentioned earlier. Guess where everybody was….
Driving around Cozumel (Top):
As Playa Del Carmen first became famous as the ferry dock to Cozumel, we thought we would take the ferry and see the island.
We decided to rent a scooter to take us around the Cozumel, which is really big, but when we got to the scooter rental place we found a woman covered in bandages and holding multiple ice bags to scraped-up flesh. Her husband (although visibly unscathed) wasn’t doing much better as he was on the phone with his bank trying to convince them that he did need them to transfer a couple thousand dollars to pay for the scooter they just broke.
It was about this time I remembered two things: I don’t really know how to operate a scooter, and I really didn’t want to part with a few thousand bucks to see if I could fake it. So we “upgraded” to a car, and bought the insurance.
They gave us two tone, red and rust, VW bug circa early Beetles land in the US with 737,657 kilometers. That works out to
458,359 miles. The breaks didn’t really work, the floor was nearly rusted through, and the driver’s side window didn’t have a handle. Besides that it was adequate.
Driving around Cozumel is not like driving around back home. Mainly because there are swarms of tourists on scooters everywhere (guess they were more confident in their banking prowess than me) gumming up the works.
Cozumel has one main highway that circles the island. So we took that one. On the eastern side the beaches are mostly un touched by people, that means they are rocky. On the other side they are well loved, that means there is a Senior Frogs every 2 blocks. Take your pick.
We stopped at a little café on the eastern side for lunch and take in the sights. The view from our table of nothing but Emerald Ocean, punctuated by an occasional boat while having a fish taco is not to be missed. Also awesome, the restaurant was playing the Sirius radio reggae station. Did you know there is new reggae music being made? Yeah took me by surprise too.
All in all, Cozumel wasn’t that interesting and unless you a diver I don’t see why you would put any extra effort into getting there.
