Gran Porto Real Resort & Spa Playa del Carmen

... famous archaeological site built by the Maya civilisation for photograph taking feast.<br><br>In tour van, disaster, nobody had even heard of Billy Ocean, disaster, nobody spoke English, luckily tour guide was bilingual. His time was split between English, Spanish, our van and another van - that was why it was 20 dollars cheaper than the other tour, figures. Anyways, we reach Chitchin Itza, out of this world, amazing place. Let ...

... down for a long time. When my computer showed me getting close to no deco, I let the DM know and ascended a little to safety. Myk follows within a minute and our DM and his associate (a DMT) leave us to fend for ourselves and guess the route while they decend even deeper for another 15 minutes. I guess they never realized the dangers since I noticed when we were finally reunited that neither of them had a computer. They didn&#8217;t bother ...

... trying all the shops these stand out as our favourite, not the cheapest but definitely our preferred. In fairness, all of the dive shops are a thousand times less indifferent than Belize. MBD are incredibly organised, they check our credentials, we fill in stacks of paperwork, there is a full dive briefing&#8230;..I have nothing bad to say about them. Our guide, Marie, is clearly crazy in the best possible sort of ...

... guilty, so I made sure I done something today. I went diving in the underground rock pools an hour inland of Play Del Carmen. This was amazing. It was just me and the instructor and we went early to beat the crowds. <br> The rock pools are a popular place for families and tourists to spend the day snorkelling or just paddling in crystal clear fresh water. But as a diver, we swam down to the bottom of the big rockpools and found some underground caves. It was black ...

... in Tulum and then I took a van to Playa Del Carmen. I bought a ticket to Cozumel, thinking that I{d spend a couple days there and then come back through here for a few days, on my way to Cancun and Isla de Mujeres. But I got a good price on a room and am going to stay in Playa until Thursday. Then off to Cozumel for a few days and then, probably, to Isla de Mujeres for the weekend and first of next week.

... and tacos at 2 different street vendors (which was enough to turn me off red meat forever.. I´m sticking to pollo from now on). A memorable experience was sitting on the beach after dark watching the waves and having a mariachi band with instruments on their backs walk by in front of us. If that´s not classic mexico, i don´t know what it. After Playa we left for our first travel destination of Belize. We only made it as far as ...

... each of them must have been about a metre long! Absolutely crazy! Our second dive was also good with huge schoals each ranging between 100 -300 fish - it made us seriously wish we had invested in a quality underwater camera! After that much excitement, we decided to spend the rest of the day chilling in the sun (this place even has beds and sofas for hire on the beach) and reading up on Havana, our next stop.

... we got to see them from the shore feeding in the seagrass area in the mornings and evenings. It was after all the end of the turtle season. I also decided on this ...

... water hole, it's massive with twists and turns everywhere. You can see the fish from above. We were smart and bought underwater cameras in the U.S. so we saved about $15 there. We took a snorkeling class per se in Jamaica, so we remembered the basics but that was four years ago. We were both a little nervous and did the panic fast breathing underwater for the first few minutes so we staid close to the rocks. Once we got going ...

... Playa for the afternoon, and we separate as Chris and I head back to Lucy's again and Tim and Susy head up the sidewalk to 307 . Apparently Lucy doesn't open on Sunday at all, and we too take to the sidewalk. We catch up to Susy and Tim and once we hit 307 their northbound collectivo pulls up. Elapsed time, 3 seconds. We wave goodbye, and I quickly realize I am standing in an ant bed. Yes, this just keeps getting better. Man ...