Note: This is the first of three posts about Cancún and the Riviera Maya. The series continues here.
As the holidays approached several years ago, my parents had some timeshare expiring and I had some use-or-lose vacation days, and so, overcoming some mild trepidation on my part, we teamed up for a short-notice trip to Cancún. The vague, prejudicial idea I’d held of Cancún as a cliché or as a Mexidisney was quickly proven wrong. And now, having paid the region a second visit (this time with my kids) yet feeling that I’ve barely scratched its surface, I suspect that the Riviera Maya is as engagingly diverse a destination as you’re going to find in this hemisphere — especially within a few hours’ direct flight from most major U.S. airports — with an array of superb, easy-access offerings sure to please everyone from sun worshipers to thrill seekers to shop-til-you-droppers to amateur archaeologists. Sure, you can have a Disney-like experience here, but if that’s your preferred travel style, you’re probably not reading this.
So in this series of three posts are a few considerations for your first or next visit, beginning with some (unrevolutionary but perhaps helpful) tips on where to set up camp, and a Tulum – Cobá day trip that ends with you snorkeling among sea turtles. And if you’ve been, please feel free to share some pointers in the comments section.
BASE CAMP
Having stayed in both the Zona Hotelera and the southern beach I prefer the latter, primarily for its relative calm and its easy excursion accessibility. The 125km stretch from Punta Nizuc to Tulum offers a seemingly unending string of options for every taste and budget, from modest B&Bs to five-star all-inclusives.
Nothing along this corridor is undiscovered, and, despite what your guidebook may claim, here exists no such thing as a “sleepy fishing village that time passed by.” But if you’re looking for something antithetical to the cosmopolitan, beach-urban-chic feel of the Zona Hotelera, you can certainly have a quieter, more “authentic-feeling” stay (not to mention, a considerably less expensive one) within a stone’s throw of the water in, say, Akumal or Puerto Morelos. Or try a smaller, secluded resort such as the Belmond Maroma.
There’s a lot to like about Puerto Morelos, in addition to its cozy town square and cheerful, unpretentious beachfront marked by a Pisa-proxy leaning lighthouse. Its vast reef (a national park protecting extensive coral growths and other inhabitants) allows for guided and outfitted snorkeling within a few minutes’ boat ride from the pier, at $20 – $25 per person for two hours, booked at the Coopertiva booth at the northeast corner of the square. A small flea market offers exactly what you’d expect, and there’s a variety of dining options: Fresh tamales for a dollar each at Caribelos; fantastic, filling breakfasts at El Nicho; very good (not superb — coulda sworn the pesto and mozzarella were from Costco) pasta and engaging street performers at Mi Pequeña Italia; and at Los Gauchos, perhaps the best empanadas (savory half-moon turnovers, baked or fried) I’ve had outside of Argentina, but disappointing pollo portugués (Portuguese-style chicken) and choripan (sausage on a bun) — and it’s really hard to mess up choripan. If you choose to stay in Puerto Morelos, contact the town’s exceptionally gracious and well-connected land baroness, Reina at City & Coast (998-257-8049, @CityAndCoastPM), who can set you up in anything from tidy functionality at $50 per night (such as Casa Zen) to something leaning a bit more luxurious at $150 (the apartment adjoining her own, lovely home).
DAY TRIP: SOUTHWARD TO TULUM > COBÁ > AKUMAL
In normal traffic, this trip can be done comfortably in a full day. Also, if this is your first time seeing pre-Columbian structures in this region or elsewhere, I recommend that you do this (and in this order, i.e., Tulum before Cobá) before you see anything else, so that Tulum doesn’t underwhelm.
First stop: The draw of Tulum isn’t so much the relatively modest ruins as it is their location perched atop cliffs overlooking the obscenely blue Caribbean water — water whose allure seems irrationally irresistible to the site’s visitors (including this author), despite the small beach, Playa Ruinas, being no more attractive yet much more crowded than virtually every other parcel of sandy, sun-drenched felicity available on 200+ kilometers of adjoining shoreline. Excluding whatever time you spend at the beach (and you will, inexplicably, spend time at the beach), Tulum shouldn’t take you more than a couple of hours.
Second stop: Turn right one stoplight south of the Tulum archaeological site and head northwest up 109, about 45 minutes to Cobá. I don’t know anything about the Gran Cenote you’ll pass on the way, but I can recommend that lunch consist of whatever you can grab from any given roadside grill in or around Macario Gomez. We inhaled a dozen or so tacos in several varieties from two different stands, each taco tastier than its predecessor, and I don’t think we spent more than $10 including drinks. Cobá contrasts nicely with Tulum and Chichén Itzá in that the jungle hasn’t been entirely cut back, and in fact several of the primary structures are still largely enveloped in foliage and only partially excavated. This has both the practical benefit of abundant shade (depending on the time of year and day, you will roast at Tulum — which itself may explain the lemming-like procession over the cliffs and onto the beach) and the adventurous perq of making you feel maybe a bit more like Indiana Jones than you will at other sites. The slant-walled ball courts here are is very well preserved, and their small scale allows for greater appreciation of detail than, for example, their huge, straight-walled counterpart at Chichén Itzá. Subsequent to our visit on December 29, 2017, I’ve learned that we were unwittingly among the last to ascend the site’s primary attraction, the Nohoc Mul pyramid, which reportedly closed its perilous stairs effective January 1, 2018. But of course you should visit the pyramid anyway, which is a bit of a jaunt and so I recommend either walking out and hiring a trike-shuttle back for a few pesos, or renting a bike round trip so you can control your pace and your stops the entire way.
Third stop: Your day ends in Akumal, a lovely beachfront town whose main attractions are its calm bay and the gentle residents that feed there on the seafloor grass, primarily Loggerhead and Green turtles. These are wild creatures, of course, so check with local experts for seasonality and other factors and accept no guarantees, but I’ve snorkeled here twice and on both occasions encountered multiple, large turtles (at least half a dozen on this most recent visit, most of them longer than my arm) within a few minutes and a hundred meters of the beach. That said, for your further consideration I’ll add a comment from a well-traveled friend:
Akumal is great, but there’s a beach at Barceló Maya Hotel (not a private beach) where you can swim with turtles and not be cold. We are booking three nights at Barceló Maya just for the purpose of swimming with the turtles. Every time we went to Akumal, we’d have to swim out far and rarely saw turtles. At Barceló, we’d see one or two every time we’d go swimming. Consider going there for a day swim.
There are several dining options along the Akumal waterfront. We chose to explore the cluster of restaurants just beyond the north end of the bay, and enjoyed excellent squid, grilled chicken and whatever the unpronounceable catch of the day was at La Cueva del Pescador.
QUESTIONS FOR READERS
- If someone is visiting the Riviera Maya for only a few days, would you consider Tulum a must-see, or can it be skipped in favor of other sites? If skip, what would you prioritize above it? And does pairing Tulum with Cobá, as I’ve suggested in this post, change your opinion?
- If you’ve visited the Ruta de Cenotes west of Puerto Morelos, how do those compare to other cenotes in the region? As I drove past them late at night from Chichén Itzá, I found myself wishing I’d visited them, but that was our last night in the country.
- Any feedback on cave tours or what I’ll call “more commercial” cenotes such as Xel-Ha or Dos Ojos, in the southern area? What about the Gran Cenote, inland from Tulum?
- Any other good spots in this area to snorkel with sea turtles?
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