TeqP
19th June 2007, 11:02 PM
Okay, here is the first installment of our trip report. Since this is Tulum.info, we wanted to get Akumal and Cancun out of the way first. Tulum will be coming shortly.I hope you all enjoy.
Day 1- LAX to Akumal Beach Resort
We were both very excited about the trip, and kept waking up in the middle of the night. We got up early 4:30 am and got to Los Angeles international airport about 7:30am. We did the online check-in the night before, so the check-in at LAX was a breeze. We heard about the car-rental horror stories on Tripadvisor forum (credit card scam, dollar-peso conversion scam, etc) so we decided to exchange some money at the airport prior to Mexico. Big mistake, the exchange rate was so bad. Don’t exchange $$$ at the airport. It is true that they have the WORST rate.
Our plane left LA on time at 9:30 am. Here we come, Mexico!!!
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/LAX.JPG
(http://ourworld.cs.com/teqp/HL12.JPG)
After arriving Cancun, we went through custom pretty quickly, and it’s green light for both of us. It takes about roughly 30 minutes from the plane to actually get out to the car rental desk at the airport. It took another 30 minutes to do the paper work and we were off to Hwy 307 around 5pm.
We got to Akumal Beach Resort (ABR) in 1.5 hours,
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/ABR.JPG
(http://ourworld.cs.com/teqp/ABR.JPG)
and they have a sign for ABR on the highway, so it was easy to identify. We got to the resort about 6:30pm and the guard at the gate wouldn’t let us in. He didn’t speak any English, and our Spanish is poor. The funny part is that the local people all spoke Spanish to me during our entire stay in Mexico because I am Hispanic. My girlfriend (gf) kept laughing at me all the time when they would speak to me in Spanish. We finally got in and checked into our room. We headed toward the main buffet restaurant. We had some delicious Mexican food (pastor taco and pulled pork), and the guacamole and chips were the best we had our entire trip. They have diced habanero peppers in lime juice so we can make our guac extra spicy like we enjoy. We were pretty hungry so everything tasted great to us. My gf had 3 full plates, and she started yelling that her stomach hurt, but we both keep having guac and chips at the same time. It really was that good. We went straight to bed after dinner. Lights out at 9:30pm.
Here’s the bar area.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/ABR1.JPG
Day 2- Akumal Beach Resort
We got up around 6:50am and went to the main buffet restaurant for breakfast. Breakfast was good with a decent selection to choose from every day. It was raining pretty hard, but we decided to follow our plan to visit Coba anyway. We didn’t get to Coba until almost 11:30. I know, we are two big procrastinators, let’s just leave the detail behind how we wasted our morning in the resort. :)
Luckily, the clouds went away and it stopped raining at Coba. We rented the bike (30 pesos per bike) and started our Mayan adventure. Thank you everyone on the board for the GREAT suggestion on bike rental. It’s definitely the way to go in Coba! The total trail is at least 2 miles. We felt bad for the walking tourists, seeing them sweating and panting in 90 degree weather. We climbed the main pyramid and that was fun, but a little intimidating on the way down. Tips: get there early so you can have the pyramid to yourself. We got there so late and there are tons of people climbing it.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/Coba1.JPG
Looking down from the top. Not good for those of us that are afraid of heights! I had a slow time getting down, while my gf did it with no trouble.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/Coba.JPG
We got back to ABR about 3pm, have a snack and headed out for snorkeling off the beach. ABR is really a nice location if you like snorkeling. You can see fish in the very shallow area. Snorkeling is fun, with lots of reef right in front of hotel beach. We saw tons of colorful fish, bright yellows, oranges, purples and silver. It was my gf’s first time snorkeling and she was just amazed by it.
On the way up to Cancun after our stay in Tulum, we stopped in Akumal for some shrimp tacos and ice cream from Lucy’s.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/ABR3.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/ABR4.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/ABR2.JPG
This was the perfect way to start our trip back up to Cancun. The shrimp tacos was great and the mango and chocolate ice cream were just as good!
Cancun:
We stayed at the Hilton which is a bit further from the party zone.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/C1.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/C2.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/C3.JPG
The biggest pros about this hotel is the pool and the AC. I guess we were both pretty tired from running around (we drove close to 1000km in 6 days). Cancun gives me the Las Vegas feeling, tons of big hotels; but the part that those resorts exploit those poor workers, I would suggest anyone not to go there. If you want to party, go to Vegas.
We did have a few decent meals while in Cancun. La Habichuela is a fancy Mexican place in downtown that we both enjoyed.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/C4.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/C5.JPG
We returned the rental car and used the bus (65 peso per ride) system while Cancun. We also really enjoyed Los Bisquetes for breakfast in downtown Cancun. We had café con leche, 3 sauces scrambled eggs and Molletes con chorizo. This was our best breakfast of the trip by far, even though Mezzanine is a very close second. I think the clincher was that the bill with tip came out to $15 USD.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/LB.jpg
OK, stay tuned for the next installment which will be Tulum related. I just need to get my girlfriend back into the trip report writing mood!
Day 1- LAX to Akumal Beach Resort
We were both very excited about the trip, and kept waking up in the middle of the night. We got up early 4:30 am and got to Los Angeles international airport about 7:30am. We did the online check-in the night before, so the check-in at LAX was a breeze. We heard about the car-rental horror stories on Tripadvisor forum (credit card scam, dollar-peso conversion scam, etc) so we decided to exchange some money at the airport prior to Mexico. Big mistake, the exchange rate was so bad. Don’t exchange $$$ at the airport. It is true that they have the WORST rate.
Our plane left LA on time at 9:30 am. Here we come, Mexico!!!
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/LAX.JPG
(http://ourworld.cs.com/teqp/HL12.JPG)
After arriving Cancun, we went through custom pretty quickly, and it’s green light for both of us. It takes about roughly 30 minutes from the plane to actually get out to the car rental desk at the airport. It took another 30 minutes to do the paper work and we were off to Hwy 307 around 5pm.
We got to Akumal Beach Resort (ABR) in 1.5 hours,
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/ABR.JPG
(http://ourworld.cs.com/teqp/ABR.JPG)
and they have a sign for ABR on the highway, so it was easy to identify. We got to the resort about 6:30pm and the guard at the gate wouldn’t let us in. He didn’t speak any English, and our Spanish is poor. The funny part is that the local people all spoke Spanish to me during our entire stay in Mexico because I am Hispanic. My girlfriend (gf) kept laughing at me all the time when they would speak to me in Spanish. We finally got in and checked into our room. We headed toward the main buffet restaurant. We had some delicious Mexican food (pastor taco and pulled pork), and the guacamole and chips were the best we had our entire trip. They have diced habanero peppers in lime juice so we can make our guac extra spicy like we enjoy. We were pretty hungry so everything tasted great to us. My gf had 3 full plates, and she started yelling that her stomach hurt, but we both keep having guac and chips at the same time. It really was that good. We went straight to bed after dinner. Lights out at 9:30pm.
Here’s the bar area.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/ABR1.JPG
Day 2- Akumal Beach Resort
We got up around 6:50am and went to the main buffet restaurant for breakfast. Breakfast was good with a decent selection to choose from every day. It was raining pretty hard, but we decided to follow our plan to visit Coba anyway. We didn’t get to Coba until almost 11:30. I know, we are two big procrastinators, let’s just leave the detail behind how we wasted our morning in the resort. :)
Luckily, the clouds went away and it stopped raining at Coba. We rented the bike (30 pesos per bike) and started our Mayan adventure. Thank you everyone on the board for the GREAT suggestion on bike rental. It’s definitely the way to go in Coba! The total trail is at least 2 miles. We felt bad for the walking tourists, seeing them sweating and panting in 90 degree weather. We climbed the main pyramid and that was fun, but a little intimidating on the way down. Tips: get there early so you can have the pyramid to yourself. We got there so late and there are tons of people climbing it.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/Coba1.JPG
Looking down from the top. Not good for those of us that are afraid of heights! I had a slow time getting down, while my gf did it with no trouble.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/Coba.JPG
We got back to ABR about 3pm, have a snack and headed out for snorkeling off the beach. ABR is really a nice location if you like snorkeling. You can see fish in the very shallow area. Snorkeling is fun, with lots of reef right in front of hotel beach. We saw tons of colorful fish, bright yellows, oranges, purples and silver. It was my gf’s first time snorkeling and she was just amazed by it.
On the way up to Cancun after our stay in Tulum, we stopped in Akumal for some shrimp tacos and ice cream from Lucy’s.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/ABR3.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/ABR4.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/ABR2.JPG
This was the perfect way to start our trip back up to Cancun. The shrimp tacos was great and the mango and chocolate ice cream were just as good!
Cancun:
We stayed at the Hilton which is a bit further from the party zone.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/C1.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/C2.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/C3.JPG
The biggest pros about this hotel is the pool and the AC. I guess we were both pretty tired from running around (we drove close to 1000km in 6 days). Cancun gives me the Las Vegas feeling, tons of big hotels; but the part that those resorts exploit those poor workers, I would suggest anyone not to go there. If you want to party, go to Vegas.
We did have a few decent meals while in Cancun. La Habichuela is a fancy Mexican place in downtown that we both enjoyed.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/C4.JPG
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/C5.JPG
We returned the rental car and used the bus (65 peso per ride) system while Cancun. We also really enjoyed Los Bisquetes for breakfast in downtown Cancun. We had café con leche, 3 sauces scrambled eggs and Molletes con chorizo. This was our best breakfast of the trip by far, even though Mezzanine is a very close second. I think the clincher was that the bill with tip came out to $15 USD.
http://ourworld.cs.com/TeqP/LB.jpg
OK, stay tuned for the next installment which will be Tulum related. I just need to get my girlfriend back into the trip report writing mood!