Today starts our small roadtrip in Quintana Roo! In Tulum, given the several car rental companies, we’re able to rent a small silver Golf for 3 days all included (even insurance) for just 25€/day. Time to take advantage of every last litre of gasoline! Our first stop is at Akumal Bay, the perfect place where to swim side by side (never closer than 3m!) of marine turtles. We never had the chance to be in place where to see them but this time how could we miss this amazing opportunity: that’s why this is our first stop!
Getting to the beach is pretty straightforward (just follow directions for Akumal Bay) and then you’ll literally have to park no more than a 2min walk from it. Easy peasy! Once there though, information on what are the regulations to swim with turtles starts to get a bit shady. In fact, once at the beach you’ll see plenty of signs (and guides) saying that, in order to be allowed snorkelling, you need to wear a lifejacket and have a guide. Guess what, at the price of just 250MXN/pp you can have both…! We know there must be more and after a short walk along the beach the few people (tourists, fishermen and workers) around that early confirm what we thought: there’s no need of anything. Since the beach is free, you can freely swim/snorkel on your own and enjoy the beautiful marine fauna but you can’t pass the red buoys (a.k.a. marine reserve buffer zone) that separate marine reserve from open sea.
se puede observar libremente la fauna marina. Unbelievable! Bright coloured fish everywhere, manta rays passing beneath us and most amazingly, marine turtles eating seagrass no more than a couple of meters away. Nothing like we’ve seen before!
Thanks to our early wake-up, we leave Akumal at around 9.30am just when all the mass tourists start to flow in and “invade” the place like an army of ants. Our second stop is at the Yal-ku Lagoon, a kind of mix between salty-sweet water where you get to see the most amazing variety of fish species. At the entrance, they tell us that the entrance price is 270MXN/pp (yep, super-expensive!) but we’re lucky once again; seeing our shocked faces, a worker tell us that if we want he knows a friend who owns a hotel nearby and that for just 150MXN he can let us through and enjoy the place. Well, how could we say no!
It’s only when we get very close to the lake/lagoon that we realise how amazing the fish-fauna in that place was! For more around 1h and a half we snorkel around without breaks, trying to make the most of this special place and… there’s so much! Every tiny corner hides a new different more colourful fish species than the one before. During our break on a rock just in front of the water, we even have an encounter with a pissed-off iguana which gently tell us to share our sandwiches with her…
Our third and last stop is at Cenote Casa. At this point, it has been a pretty long and tiring day but who doesn’t have some strength left to have a refreshing swim in a cenote? Plus, with the entrance ticket you also get to wear a lifejacket so in the end the short swim is even simpler. Be aware! In this cenote there are underwater passages but these cannot be done if you don’t hire a guide. Summary of the place? Well, there are not many fish but there’s quite a number of people above and under the water (apparently diving here is great). In all honesty, it’s no the best we’ve seen so far but letting the current do the job and enjoying a bit the surrounding fauna, make it a nice stop if you’re on the way. As clouds start to fill the sky and a nice British shower starts to fall we agree our day has been long enough. Time to go home!
And tomorrow another day exploring Quintana Roo!
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