Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico)

Well as some of you are aware I have recently got back from my holiday in Mexico. Booking the holiday was easy, through Thompson. We knew we wanted to say in the eastern side of Mexico as this is the Caribbean side, on this side is the Yucatan Peninsula which contains the most well know destination of Cancun. We stayed about 70k south of here in Playa Del Carmen.

We were extremely lucky with the weather, there was a powerfull hurricane a week before we got there and another that skipped up the gulf of Mexico to Florida! We had about 12 days of glorious sunshine out of 14!

We stayed at the Riu Yucatan, I’m not sure if many of you know that a lot of travel groups have merged to form the Tui group, these include Thompson and the Riu Hotel chain. The Riu group have hotels round the world in Spain, Mexico, Dominican Republic and many more.

The hotel itself was fantastic, the room was spacious and clean. It was an all-inclusive and the food was great also. We had two a la carte restaurants that we could use with booking and a buffet any other time, the buffet had great carverys every night and the most wonderful soups, fruit and traditional Mexican food. The hotel was a 4* in the brochure but out there they claim to be a 5*

In the hotel grounds they have huge trees about that actually home a fair few monkeys – wild ones too! This is a great site to see – though they can be noisy!

The entertainment at the hotel was amongst the best I have come across, they had professional dancers come from Mexico City to do the shows – they also had a nightclub open till 2am, I remember after my 21st birthday I promised I would not drink tequila again! Here I was on my 24th birthday shouting in the tequila slammers! - hmmm, I didn’t spend too much time in there! You don’t believe me do you? ...no?.... So you shouldn’t!

You also had the use of two other hotels in the local area, these were also Riu hotels, we tended to stick to ours as ours was on the beach front however you could take a trip over to the others for their nightclub… which was bigger. The worst thing was a song they always played by Las Ketchup…. What was even more terrifying was that when we got home it was Number 1 here! And we thought it was just another tacky holiday song never to be heard again… no such luck!

The beach was lovely, the sand was white and the sea was a beautiful crystal blue colour – really fantastic. The only set back was that it was extremely busy, I have never been to a beach/resort that has been so busy.

There is plenty to see in Mexico including the famous Mayan ruins, including the huge pyramid Chichen Itza, this is actually a calendar, on the four sides it has 91 step and one at the very top that add up to 365! It is an amazing site, you can climb to the top – though not for much longer so get in there quick! The stairs are very steep and they don’t have any lovely handlebars like your staircase at home, as most of their tourists are American I’m surprised they haven’t been sued yet!

You can swim with dolphins and visit a place called Xcaret – this is like a national park, they have flamingos, parrots, dolphins, turtles, big cat things and much more. Here they also have an underground river network, you can snorkel through this, the water is so clear, this is as the water has filtered through the rocks and is purified. An amazing site. My other half would also recommend going out into the jungle and diving these caves, they have huge stalactites and stalagmites, some join into huge columns that you couldn’t even wrap your arms around. Sounds truly amazing but not something I fancied, especially not after he told me about the tarantula he saw in the toilets out there! Aaargh

Mind you, talking about bugs, there weren’t really that many, we got bit a few times but nothing major. Good job, creepy crawlies sort of ruin a holiday for me… the wet fart I am!

We visited Cancun on the local bus that costs around a £1 and takes about an hour, we enjoyed the day there but found we were very pleased we were not staying there. There we cinemas, huge shopping complexes but all were terribly over priced. Cancun was an unbelievably touristy area, too much if you ask me. It’s nice to get an idea of what a place is like without it being completely set up and run for the Americans. Luckily we were out of season for the American tourists but it was extremely busy, not that I have anything against Americans it just would have been far too busy.

The locals are lovely as well, especially the bar tenders etc. Mexico is also the only place I have been so far away and not got a dodgy belly… that makes it an even greater holiday – when you don’t have to run to the loo every 5 mins!

Mexico was more beautiful than I imagined, this has certainly pushed other destinations out of my top 5 but it’s still only at Number 2. Don’t let this put you off, I would certainly go again but recommend you stay away from Cancun and you will be more than happy.

Thank you for reading

Paula
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