Playa Del Carmen (or just Playa as it’s commonly referred to as) is about a 45 minute colectivo ride south of Cancún. I decided to stay at The Yak Hostel thinking it would be a good place to recharge and detox for a couple of days before heading across to Isla Cozumel. This lasted one day before I was saying yes to day drinking at a beautiful beach called Akumal.

Unfortunately, right now along the Caribbean Coast there is a lot of seaweed called Sargassum. It poses a lot of problems not just for tourism as its not pleasant to swim in and it stinks as its decomposing, but it is also a massive problem for the marine life for example turtles getting caught in it when trying to come to the beach to lay their eggs.

However Akumal is less concentrated and people are out there everyday working hard to remove as much as possible. We have to pay to access this beach but absolutely happy to do so to help support the workers and the environment. We filled the chilly bin with cold ones and went for an adventure. Swimming, shotguns and attempts at volleyball:

The evening followed with Mojito night. Pay your $100 pesos ($7 NZD) at the bar and make and drink as many Mojitos as you can in 1 hour. Lets just it was pretty carnage and leave it there. Night life is Playa is pretty good times but the next day I knew I had to leave and find my detox elsewhere.

So it’s off to isla número tres: Isla Cozumel

Wearily after a late night out in Playa I jumped on the ferry to Isla Cozumel. It is famous for its scuba diving and a lot of backpackers were heading here to do their PADI certification. Considering they would be up early to dive and studying during the afternoon I thought it would be the perfect island to retreat, recharge and detox.

Arriving at Amigos Hostel, the owner Kathy gave me a full run down on ALL there is to do on the island. She was extremely thorough and my eyes glazed over slightly as she described how the roads were named and in which direction they were one way, both ways, north to south, east to west, who gives way, local restaurants, days the cruise ships arrived, when not to get money out, where to surf. Disculpe?? Perdon?? Excuse Me!!!?? Did she just say WHERE TO SURF!! Coming back into the conversation she explained that there a couple of surf schools on the east side of the island and you can easily enough get a colectivo over there and rent a board for the day. Yeeeeehhhhhaaaaa! Next day plans sorted!

With the intention to spend the full day on the eastern side, I made it to the colectivo pickup point a little after 10:30am and had to wait and wait until there were enough people to fill the van. So about 1 hour and 45 minutes later we were finally on our way. I still don’t know how to ask how to stop to get off in Spanish as the van zoomed past the beach that had the recommended surf school. But not to worry I later realised the colectivo only makes one stop and lets everyone off at the same point. This point also had another surf school so all is good. Nacho was the guy here and he was just about to take some kids for a lesson and was happy for me to tag along. I cannot wipe the smile off my face as I catch my first wave in Mexico.

As I waited for the colectivo back (luckily not as long a wait as to get there) people were crowded over on the other side of the road. This is what they are looking at, yikes luckily they do not like surfing haha

I certainly didn’t party on Cozumel but it certainly wasn’t a detox either. There are always new friends to be made poolside and soon my new amigos Dani and Chas from England, Veronika from Montreal and Craig from Australia and myself are finishing off Chas’ second bottle of rum at about 3am, thanks mate! The next morning I was surprised that I made it up onto the top bunk and kept the noise down as I knew there were plenty of peeps needing to get up early for diving. Kate later tells me… I didn’t… I couldn’t find the ladder so proceeded to try and jump/lunge/climb/leap onto the top bunk. Haha not so subtle after all.

Braving the incredibly hot sun and a dusty head we stocked up at the supermarket with hair of the dogs and made our way to a jetty to recover.

Although I had already been over to the eastern side of the island, together we were keen to explore and the thought of hiring a car between the 6 of us seemed reasonably achievable. Check out our wheels

We explored some beaches and circumnavigated the island. Yes there are 6 of us in a 5 seater and yes we got pulled over by the police and yes we got away with it…just… Craig had to walk back to the hostel, luckily were not too far away. It was an absolute blast cruising around in this beetle.

Check out this amazing drone footage courtesy of @travels_of_chas_and_danielle

https://video.fgua3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t42.3356-2/37171687_10160802617605454_3302709836352847872_n.mp4/video-1534699729.mp4?_nc_cat=0&vabr=2431676&oh=4db02f8b5635bc5785d4d0f4f76a94ec&oe=5B7AEF78&dl=1