Tulum is crowded with tourists (best time to visit is between 0800 and 0900). Take towel and swimsuit if you wish to scramble down from the ruins to one of the two beaches for a swim (the larger of the two is less easy to get to). The reef is from 600m to 1,000m from the shore, so if you wish to snorkel you must either be a strong swimmer, or take a boat trip. The site is open 0800-1700, entry US$3, parking US$1.5t), students with Mexican ID free, Sun free. There is a tourist complex at the entrance to the ruins. Guide books can be bought in the shops; the Panorama guide book is interesting; others are available. Local guides can also be hired. About two hours are needed to view at leisure. The parking area is near Highway 307, and there’s a handicraft market. A small train takes you from the parking area to the ruins for US$ 1, or it is an easy 500-m walk. The paved road continues down the coast to Boca Paila and beyond, access by car to this road from the car park is now forbidden. To reach the road south of the ruins, access is possible 1 km from Tulum village.
Akumal
A luxury resort, 102 km south of Cancun, 20 km north of Tulum, Akumal is reached easily by bus from there or from Playa del Carmen (30 minutes). There is a small lagoon 3 km north of Akumal, good snorkelling.
Sleeping and eating L Hotel Club Akumal Caribe. One of many luxury hotels, villas and condos which can be booked in the US through Caribbean Fantasy, PO Box 7606, Loveland, Colorado 80537-0606, caribbfan@aol.com, accommodation is all LL-AL.
Cancun
The ever-expanding resort of Cancun (pop 100, 000) is built on Quintana Roo's northeast coast overlooking the blue waters of the Caribbean. Size and glitz are the operating principles here, and the resort is beginning to have crowding problems that resemble Fort Lauderdale at the height of Spring Break. There is nothing older than 1970 in Cancun, except for some tiny vestiges of Mayan temples; for antiquity or colonial sights, you have to head west to Yucatan or south to Tulum and Coba. Cancun is divided into downtown and the hotel zone. The latter is a 33-kilometer (21-mile)-long sandbar (hat
Playa del Carmen
A pleasant little town on the beach which still maintains some of the charms of its former existence as a fishing village. The beach is dazzling white, with crystal-clear shallow water, ideal for swimming, and further out there is good scuba diving. There is accommodation for every budget, and plenty of good restaurants and bars of every description. Many travelers choose Playa as their base for trips to the ruins of Tulum in the south, and archaeological sites such as Coba in the interior.
The town is laid out in a grid system, with the main centre
Holbox Island
Also north of Valladolid, but in the neighbouring state of Quintana Roo, turn off the
road to Puerto Juarez after Nuevo Xcan (seepage 566), to Holbox Island. Buses to
Chiquila for boats, three times a day, also direct from Tizimi'n at 1130, connecting
Holbox 0600 and 1430, one hour, returning to Chiquila at 0500 and 1300. A bus to Merida connects with the 0500 ferry. If you miss the ferry a fisherman will probably take you (for about US$14).
You can leave your car in the care of the harbour master for a small charge; his house
is east
Xcaret
Back on the mainland, there are some Maya ruins at Xcaret, a turn-off left on Route 307 to Tulum, after Playa del Carmen. The Maya site, an ancient port called Pole, was the departure point for voyages to Cozumel. It has now been turned into an overpriced and very tacky theme park catering exclusively for day-trippers. â– US$37 (children under five years free). This entry fee entitles you to visit the small ruins, the aviary, the -, K beach, lagoon and inlet, to take an underground river trip (life vest included) and to use all chairs, hammocks and palapas.
Mexico resorts getting back in the swim
Tourism officials in the hurricane-battered Mexican state of Quintana Roo hope to have 80 percent of the accommodations and amenities in the affected Caribbean coast resorts fully operational by February.
The Yucatan Peninsula state, home to tourism magnets Cancun, Cozumel and the Riviera Maya, accounts for about 36 percent of Mexico's nearly $11 billion tourism industry, according to Quintana Roo tourism secretary Gabriela Rodriguez.
Hurricane Wilma hit Cancun the hardest in late October, closing most of its hotel rooms. Between 8,000 and 10,000 of the city's approximately 25,000 hotel rooms are now open, and officials expect
Chetumal is a city on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. It is the capital of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. In 2000 it had a population of 238,520 people.
The city is on the western side of Chetumal Bay near the mouth of the Rio Hondo, at 18.50° North, 88.29° West. Chetumal is an important port for the region, and Mexico's main port of trade with Belize.
History of Chetumal
In Pre-Columbian times a city called Chactemal (sometimes rendered as "Chetumal" in early European sources) was the capital of a Maya state of the same name which controlled
Hurricane lashes Mexico's popular Riviera Maya resorts
Hurricane Emily ripped roofs off luxury hotels along Mexico's Mayan Riviera, stranded thousands of tourists and left hundreds of local residents homeless today, forcing many to remain in crowded, leaky shelters.
Residents of Yucatan Peninsula resorts, including Playa del Carmen and Tulum, began wading through knee-deep flood waters to assess damage under a light drizzle, as the storm barreled west into the Gulf of Mexico.
There were no immediate reports of death or serious injuries on the peninsula, but Emily was expected to regain strength and threaten Mexican oil rigs before slamming into northeast The worst
Six dead as Wilma batters Mexico
At least six people have died as Hurricane Wilma lingers over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Reuters reports.
Two deaths been reported on the island on the island of Cozumel, and one person died in Cancun when a gust of wind blew out a window.
In the resort town of Playa del Carmen, two people died when a gas tank exploded, while to the west of the Yucatan Peninsula, a large tree branch crushed a man to death.
The slow-moving storm has sent waves as high as the third storey of some hotels in the resort of
Hurricane Wilma slams into mainland Mexico
Ocean waves surged over the narrow strip of land that holds Cancun's resort hotels as Hurricane Wilma slammed into Mexican mainland, where some 30,000 tourists huddled in hotels and shelters amid shrieking winds and shattering glass.
The eye of the category 3 storm, which had already killed 13 people, first slammed into Cozumel Island _ the worst-hit, and now cut off _ and then headed north-northwest onto the mainland near the beach town of Playa de Carmen, south of Cancun.
The howling winds caused severe damage in Playa de Carmen, flattening dozens of wood-and-tarpaper
