Adios mis amigos

We have spent our last full day lounging around in the sun and in the pool and tonight we will head out to one of the local restaurants for supper (the kitchen at Casa Meade has closed).  Tomorrow will be laundry day so that everything here is fresh for our return, although at this time we don’t know when that will be.  We are currently running the dehumidifier through one cycle to make sure everything works as expected.  We don’t leave for the airport until around 4pm so lots of time to enjoy a good portion of the day tomorrow as well.  The forecast for Calgary looks a little better than the past few weeks and hopefully we can bring some warmer temperatures back with us.  I hope you have enjoyed catching up with our news….

Paamul

Today we went to the beach at Paamul – just 5kms north of PA and the beach that we had seen from our boat tour.  It has what I have to describe as the most funkiest RV park I have ever seen; RVs are parked on their lots and some of them have palapas built over the top of the RV and brick & stucco walls around some of the edges.  Each lot is fully serviced with electricity and sewerage hook-ups and the RVs are used for sleeping/bathroom facilities and the remaining space under the palapa as kitchen/eating/living area.  There is a small sandy beach with a cenote-fed swimming pool, restaurant and dive shop.  There are chairs and small palapas for shade on the beach and all facilities are fully available to the public.  Definitely worth a return visit at some future time.

View from the restaurant where we ate lunch

South end (furthest from the restaurant) of Paamul beach

Palapa-covered RVs
(note the hurricane shutters on the middle one and the commencement of palapa building on the left hand side)

Mexican movie night

Another first… last night we went to the movies to watch El Paleador (The Fighter).  The movies are shown in the regular (English-speaking) format with Spanish sub titles.  The trailers/ads at the beginning are interesting because some are in English while others are in Spanish.  The movie theatre itself was located in a relatively new mall, was very clean and even had reclining seats.  All for 45 pesos per person (just under $4).  We then went on to Avenida Quinta for supper & coffee treats.

Sam's Club purchases

Three bottles of Kahlua, one bottle of Bacardi and one bottle of vodka; all are 980ml – 1.14L in size for a grand total of ~$36.50.  Gotta love this place!

Turtle encounter

Today we hired the services of Captain Roberto, sidekick Palo and his 26’ Regal boat for a couple of hours.  I don’t have the best sea legs in the world so I gulped down some Gravol before we left but luckily it was a very calm day.  We asked to be taken around some of the different arms of the marina and then headed out to sea for some sightseeing and snorkeling.  A short distance south of PA was some very shallow, clear water with some Mayan ruins in view – apparently we could likely find our way here on the bikes although not formally on a pathway.

We then headed north and pulled into a beach area known as Paamul.  The entrance to the road leading to the beach is directly opposite the roadside café that we have stopped in for lunch on a couple of occasions.  While we had intended to check out the beach via car, this was our first view of the area.

Next stop was a reef area very popular with snorkeling tours.  When we arrived there was only one other boat with a snorkeling party on board and it left shortly afterwards.  Roberto & Palo always bring their guests here and in addition to the fish and the reef, it is also home to some turtles.  They had packed some fresh fish and very soon we had a turtle swimming around with Malcolm and Palo, both of whom fed the turtle by hand.  It was perfect timing; shortly before finishing the swim three more boats turned up and the turtle disappeared.  Palo also found a starfish for us, which we got to handle before he placed it back in a safe place (apparently if you just let them back into the water other fish come along and eat them).

We headed a little further along the coast before turning around and motoring back to PA.  We thoroughly enjoyed the whole afternoon and I think swimming with the turtle was the highlight of Malcolm’s vacation.

Hasta luego!