Maggie and Craig at Happy Hour
Our summer trip to Akumal started off well, with the Champion Air charter flight leaving early and also arriving a bit early. Sitting near the front of the plane allowed us to exit and get through Immigration about 20 minutes from the time the plane's wheels touched the ground. Of course there's never any chance of the baggage getting into the terminal so quickly, so we had a bit of a wait for that but Customs was a breeze. I looked for the familiar ATM near the exchange booth but it appears to have been moved to the new Terminal 3. At least we couldn't see it. No problem...lots of pesos left from last trip. It seems that the ATM wasn't the only thing at Terminal 3...our car rental pickup was also there. A quick phone call to the Caribbean rep soon righted the mistake and we were off to the office to finish up the paperwork and heading south in a high-milage Atos that looked almost brand new. The car ran flawlessly, though, for the entire week. Pretty much an uneventful drive south, with the new divided highway section complete to Akumal. We checked into bungalow 132, finding it to include a king bed and couch, the usual fridge and now a coffee pot too. Plus a telephone and high-speed data jack. We learned later that if we wanted to use the network connection, the charge would have been $5 per day. Since we don't bring a computer along, we'll likely never want it, but it's nice to know that they are available now. The afternoon continued with a walk on the beach. At Happy Hour we had a nice visit with Maggie from the Locogringo board then we had dinner at the beach bar.
Summer means smaller crowds, normally, and so the main Lol Ha restaurant is only open for the evening meal. However I'm not sure how long that will continue, since the beach seemed to be about as busy this summer as it usually is in March. At any rate, we had breakfast at the beach bar and then headed over to our usual palapa just south of the Akumal Dive Center and got set up for the day with beach chairs. Our first snorkel brought us over two turtles, a couple of rays, grouper, and other fish. We spent a very relaxing day under the palapa napping and reading and, of course, watching all the people on the beach. It seems that there are many more snorkel tours taking place now, both from shore and from visiting boats. Things get far too crowded quite early in the day and stay that way throughout the day.
On Monday we changed the routine slightly by having breakfast at Turtle Bay, but then went right back to the same palapa. During the day a film crew arrived and set up in the next palapa south of us. Later we learned that they were from a Travel Channel show called "Five Takes".
Tuesday we breakfasted at Lol Ha and then headed out for a day inland. We had a snack at the Hacienda Sanchez at Valladolid, then headed north to the Ek Balam ruins.
The next day was another clear, sunny one, but maybe a bit more windy. We breakfasted at Turtle Bay then claimed our palapa for the entire day. For lunch we picked up pollo asado from Hafez and Hamid, in the pueblo and brought it back to the palapa. After Happy Hour we went to the main Lol Ha restaurant for dinner...ahhhh, Grouper en Escabeche! And a brownie dessert.
Thursday was again hot, sunny, and windy. Lol Ha was our breakfast choice again, and the same beach palapa beckoned afterwards. I shot some video while snorkeling, seeing much more of the same marine life as has been around all week. Back in the palapa we were bugged (literally) by some tabanos, also known as devil flies. We both received several bites and decided to head out. Apart from some localized itching, I had no real trouble with the bites, but Kathy reacted quite a bit. It seems that's often the case with tabanos. Jen at Turtle Bay recommended some creme that her husband Bart uses called Andator. She had some at the bakery and let Kathy use it. Another person recommended that she remove her wedding rings, which was a good call. A little later and it wouldn't have been possible to get them off. We went south to Nacho's for lunch. The food was good, but the prices were still pretty high. Then we went back north, stopping briefly at the DIF beach, which previously has always been fenced off. Now it's right in the middle of the Bahia Pincipe resort complex and the fence is gone. There is a turtle nursery in the area, too. We kept heading north to Playa, where we picked up some Andator and also some Don Julio tequila to bring home, then came back to Akumal. After Happy Hour we went back up the hill into the pueblo. We had planned on having dinner at Ultimo Maya restaurante, but they were closed when we got there. We'll try again another day. We came back down the hill and ate at La Buena Vida, where we had some of the worst service I've ever experienced anywhere in Akumal. I'm not sure what was up...there certainly weren't a lot of customers keeping the waiters busy.
Our last full day started with breakfast at the Lol Ha, then we had beach time for the rest of the day. We chose a different palapa and didn't have any return visits from the tabanos. I snorkeled solo and saw an eagle ray almost immediately in about 4 feet of water. Then I managed to see and photograph a lot of the same things...barracuda, grouper, the fish ball, and of course turtles. We had lunch at the Ultimo Maya. Good food and reasonable prices. We were hoping for Yucatecan dishes, but that's not on the menu any more. When we were at the Chedraui store in Playa we got a gift card as part of a store promotion, so I dropped that off with Maggie at the library. I figured they could use it more than I could. During Happy Hour we sat with some Locogringos: "Rudi to Go" from Alberta, Texan "Captain Randy" (a new LG), and another Texas couple who book through Locogringo but haven't been active on the message forum.
For a change we had plenty of time on our last morning to have a leisurely breakfast at Lol Ha. Something new...they had a buffet breakfast. I would have preferred to order from the menu, but that wasn't an option. We walked on the beach for a bit then packed up and checked out. We had more than enough time for the trip north, and swung through Puerto Morelos on the way. Caribbean met us at the terminal and we returned the car without a problem, then checked in at the Champion counter, had lunch at the Jose Cuervo restaurant, then said goodbye to the Yucatan until next time. The flight home was uneventful and completely on time.
I've found a place to post the three short, low quality videos I got on one of our snorkeling excursions into Akumal Bay. You can find them here:
Barracuda and fishball
Turtle and Barracuda
Turtle including surfacing for air