I am by no means an accomplished diver, but I have done my PADI Open Water and Advanced Open Water certifications in Thailand in 2004, and enjoyed some great diving in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 2005. Possibly my two favourite dives over that time were night dives as they seemed to add an extra air of excitement and mystery.

Today however, I have found a different type of diving that I don’t think any of my ocean dives can parallel. Now, I haven’t been diving for over a year, so the buzz that was felt at the time has well and truly gone, but the Cenote Diving I did today in Tulum, Mexico was simply magical.

Cenotes are an underground river system containing fresh water (and saline deeper down, read on for more) that has been filtered threw limestone and so provides amazing visibility well beyond that found in the ocean. The formations, formed over millions of years, provide the possibility of cavern and cave diving that gives you a feeling of being in outer space or on another world with only the air bubbles being there to remind you that you are in water. Magic or no magic, breathing is a must.

As cave diving can only be done by experts, I stuck with the cavern diving, the main difference being that cavern diving has the entrance to the Cenote relatively close by whereas cave diving can mean the entrance/exit being much farther away and so more dangerous should anything go wrong. Overall I did two dives, one at the Grand Cenote and the other at La Calavera (The Skull), or more ominously named, The Temple of Doom!

The Grand Cenote; well, this was described to me as like being in an underwater cathedral, and my instructor wasn’t lying. The beautiful white limestone walls along with the formations gives the feeling of flooding a duomo in Italy, jumping in through the dome and having a good swim about. It is quite the opposite to what you may think would be a claustrophobic experience.

There are a couple of more technical parts however where you do have the cavern walls all round you with little space to get through so does require good buoyancy control to not hit your tank on the formations. The dive went down to 10 meters at it’s deepest point and lasted 38 minutes.

The Temple of Doom; the initial jump in to the water, which is from 3/4 meters, with the full scuba gear on may be a little daunting, but it’s great fun. Getting out is a little harder. This Cenote is much darker and more mysterious than the Grand Cenote and really makes you feel like an explorer.

The guys in the dive shop also refer to this place as LSD due to the halocline or mixing zone, which is the layer where the fresh and saline waters meet which makes your vision go totally blurred. It is a very weird experience! The dive went down to 19 meters at its deepest point and lasted 33 minutes.

With both dives, the visibility is truly astounding. Throughout the dives your interest switches from what is close by, the formations, stalagmites and stalactites back to the glow of the entrance to the Cenote, which when viewed from a distance in the darker areas of the cavern provides an amazing contrast and you just can’t help to stop and stare.

It is also quite amusing to see the snorklers, fools don’t know what they are missing, swimming around on the surface. Although you do feel like a bit of a pervert hiding under the water watching girls in bikinis swimming around. Not that I was looking, of course.

On a more serious note, I do have concerns with Cenote diving. They are nothing to do with fear for myself or anyone diving there, more concerns for the formations that if destroyed have no way to be regenerated. There are points in either dive where you could easily damage the formations and having been diving with others who wave their arms around like they are trying to hail a taxi I would be quite concerned as to the damage they could cause to these wonderful places.

I feel more should be done to control who dives here, with recent dives being a must and preferably Advanced Open Water certified. Unfortunately, the dives are open to anyone who has done their Open Water, I wasn’t even asked to prove I was certified, and no one seems to care when you did your last dive.

Despite my concerns, this was a fantastic experience and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who loves to dive and would like to try something different. As with a reef, just be careful and respect your surroundings. And remember, don’t put on any sun block or mosquito repellent before getting in to the water! Do that when you get out, you’ll need it at La Calavera, the mosquitoes are rampant! Happy diving.

Having researched a bit further, we have put together an Ocean and Cenote diving package with a diving centre in Tulum that seems to be concerned about environmental conservation and safety… try it yourself!

Most species of sea turtles are now endangered, and The Estacion de Investigacion Pesquera on Isla Mujeres is an example of the efforts which are being made all over Mexico to repopulate the ocean with the local turtle species.

The EIP assist turtles in their most critical phase of life: mating, laying of the eggs, caring of the nests, and birth.

The adult turtles are first selected for breeding and kept in the centre during mating time and for the time required to the females to lay the eggs in the corral.

Turtle eggs are a delicacy for many predators (humans having been the most predominant threat in the recent past), and the EIP make sure they are protected, so that a baby turtle comes out from almost every egg laid in their incubation corral.

After birth, the little turtles are nursed and kept first in small pools, and then in protected areas of sea near the shore until they become big enough to be self sufficient and to be released together with their parents.

Only one negative note: when I arrived to the turtle centre I noticed I could buy some turtle food together with the entrance tickets. I personally do not think this is a good idea, as the turtles’ diet should be balanced and regular, and they should not be overfed by curious tourists who just want to see them as close as possible.
A few photos of EIP

I am still not sure how I liked Isla Mujeres… good place to chill out, enjoy clear waters and superb seafood, but there is very little of the Island’s life which is not revolving around the tourism industry.

Things I liked:
- The island’s crystal turquoise waters
- The Tortugranja
- The many bike rentals for visiting the island
- The frequent boat rides by the Marine Park Guards checking the snorkelling guides’ credentials and the tourists’ behaviour on the reefs.

Things I could live with:
-The ‘young backpackers’ atmosphere
- A couple of eco-chic beach resorts built with some good taste and almost hidden in the vegetation.

Things I could have lived without:
- The many ‘rent a golf cart/scooter’ to visit the island
- Some entry fees to the beach, like Playa Tiburon, near the Garrafon Park.

Things I hated:
- Hacienda Mundaca‘s gardens (see Paul McMillan’s comments about it on gloCaltravelling)
- A few concrete resorts on the popular North beach (nothing like in Cancun but still visible scars on the island’s face).
- The huge number of ‘building sites’ for beach combos and holiday private villas leaving little portions of public beach access near Punta Sur.
- The contrast between the new built holiday villas and the ‘shanty-town’ near Punta Sur, clearly not a part of any public renovation plan.

It is no news that I do not like Cancun, and every time I see its lagoon and that amazing long stretch of Caribbean beach ruined by the concrete jungle of the Zona Hotelera I feel sooooooooo irritated.
I landed at Cancun airport a few days ago after quite a long trip and I did not have the energy to escape as far away as possible, as I usually do every time I visit the Yucatan peninsula.

After all, I am not in a hurry; I have decided that this trip to Mexico will be longer than my usual visits…
Furthermore, I have been receiving many requests by gloCal travellers asking me to recommend a convenient place to stay when they have a late arrival or early departure to and from Cancun airport.

Since staying in the Zona hotelera was out of question, I decided to check Cancun town, as I did not know it that well.
I heard there were a couple of places that were not bad, and I have indeed found a decent place to stay a couple of blocks from the Central bus station and just 5 minutes by taxi to Gran Puerto, where you can catch the ferry to Isla Mujeres.
The place is called El Rey del Caribe, and it is recommended by many travel guides, now also by me
The rooms are facing an inner garden with a lot of green, a nice fountain and a small swimming pool. It was nice to see many different garbage bins for collecting and recycling paper, glass, and plastic. The hotel also had a few leaflets about eco-policies and a very interesting one about the many ’swim with the dolphin programs’ which are advertised everywhere along the Mayan Riviera.

Thumbs up for El Rey del Caribe then, although I still would not recommend anyone to stay in Cancun. Once out of the hotel you will have to slalom amongst cars and taxis trying to get to the main road, the Avenida Tulum, which is noisy, polluted and does not offers much more than a few places to eat at quite high prices, some shops, and the inevitable local Burger King… or was it McDonalds?

Unless your flight leaves or lands at a ridiculous time, get out of there and go to Puerto Morelos instead (you can catch any bus to Playa del Carmen, there is one every 10 minutes and the journey to Puerto Morelos is only 35 mins from the airport).

Well, although I should be writing about Mexico and thoughts/experiences so far, I feel compelled to start with the flight from Philadelphia to Cancun; the one important part of this flight being Sky Mall! This is the inflight magazine in which you can buy absolutely anything, including and starting with my favourite, The Solar Powered Bible! Laugh, I nearly… well you know. This is a bible that gets powered up and speaks the words of the Old Testament. Genius!

Some of my other favourites were; a dog kennel that doubles as a bed site cabinet, your own personalised branding iron for your BBQ and last but not least, a tracking device to see what your naughty spouse gets up to behind your back. This is a great magazine, the only concern is that there are clearly enough people out there to make it worth the airline stocking it, they can’t all just find it funny surely?

Anyway, on with Mexico; I’m currently sipping (that’s a Scottish sip which may equate to a gulp for other cultures) a Mojito in Puerto Morelos in a little bar off the main square, there is a tiny chihuahua running riot, good music and a local kid on a bike with stabilisers, maybe 3 (I am hopeless with the ages of children) just pulled up in a t-shirt and nappies and uttered something inexplicable, but he looks happy enough. There has not been a tourist in site for the past hour, it is low season, but I just came from the beach and there are loads of locals in the water instead of the abundance of tourists seen up the coast on Isla Mujeres.

The place has a generally happy feel to it. The waters are not as nice as on Isla Mujeres but I think some of that is due to the hurricane that went through and has brought some of the coral from the reef to the shore as debris. Our lunch earlier was in a place where the only non Spanish speaker, to my shame, was me (hopefully not for much longer). It seems very easy to get a boat out to the reef for a spot of snorkeling. The reef is visible just off shore where you can see the waves crashing over it.

We (that’s myself and Barbara, founder of gloCaltravel, we’re on a trip to Mexico/Central America for the rest of the year) met Randy earlier, nicknamed “The local Gringo”, he has been here for the past 3 years, seems to love it and is very chilled. He assures us they rotate the areas for the snorkeling so as not to damage the reef too much. I can’t confirm that but at least the thought is there to begin with. If you are looking for a laid back place to stay and relax near Cancun with a little less of the ‘put on for tourists’ feel, give this a shot.

Back to Isla Mujeres; well, if it’s a choice between there and Cancun, no contest, Cancun is a pit and should be avoided at all costs. The huge, monstrosity of hotels in Zona Hotelera are seriously appalling, despite the “oohs” and “ahhhs” from the dim wit in our shared taxi from the airport, and downtown is just not a nice place to stay. Fly in, get out. As for Isla Mujeres, the island has a very touristy backpacker kind of feel to it, filled with bars and places to eat, which may or may not appeal depending on what you are after. The waters are crystal clear and have that amazing Caribbean light blue (I’m sure it has a name but I’m a bloke and don’t have the word in my vocabulary) that makes going for a swim so inviting and is a constant from the port in Cancun till you get off the ferry on the Island.

The water near the main town is quite shallow, but if you head south down the island you can find some nice waters that are a bit deeper; we stopped at a place that cost 4USD each to get in near the south part of the island with a nice little strip of beach and and a great spot for a swim with a group of interested fish which made it entertaining. If you have swimming goggles with you they will do instead of having to rent snorkeling gear, there is not that much to see, it’s not a reef after all.

It seemed impossible to get on the beach in the south part of the island without having to pay or go through a hotel (unlike the north part near the main town or here in Puerto Morelos where there is plenty of beach and no need to pay). Instead of hiring a moped/scooter or one of the golf carts, which I am sure are fun, get yourself a mountain bike and cycle round the island, which is only 7km long, it’s not tough, and will give you some exercise to burn off the nachos you will no doubt be firing down with your beer. The trip down the Cancun side is not a visual treat but the side facing the Atlantic is scenic and it’s nice to plod along on a bike.

Something I would seriously advise against is going to Hacienda Mundaca, which appears to serve only as a prison for the animals kept there for tourist viewing pleasure. The sight of a deer, alone in a small enclosure cowering from the sun in the only spot with shade, is not my idea of fun. I see no reason for the Spider Monkeys to be there either, they are not even local to the area and just don’t see the point to it. There is also no Hacienda to be seen, not that we found anyway. People may say the animals being there give it an authentic feeling like how the Hacienda would have been, but we don’t see Christians being thrown to the lions in Rome just for that extra bit of reality do we? Although… Just kidding, no religious comments please. Give it a miss and head round to the turtle sanctuary instead where they seem to be doing some good work.

Overall, Isla Mujeres is a nice little place with loads of places to eat and drink, snorkeling and diving easy to come by and enough to keep you going for a few days. It is packed with tourists however and to me everything just feels too fake with little feeling of local life. Puerto Morelos is a better pick for me, it certainly has its tourist element to it, but just seems to have a life not built exclusively for tourists.

The kid on the bike just had a crash after steaming past our table with his hand extended, I think he was going for a high five but didn’t judge it quite right. He seems fine though and is continuing undaunted, good lad.

Not sure what tomorrow brings, we may stay on for another day and try the snorkeling, or may take off down the coast towards Tulum. Seeing the reef so close by is tempting to do a bit more snorkeling, but I have been an idiot and managed to get a little burnt on my shoulders, so may have to give it a miss for a day or two. We’ll see.