Category Archives: Living in Playa Del Carmen

Blog, Living in Playa Del Carmen, SCUBA

A Quick Update on Playa Del Carmen Since New Years (Video)

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It’s been hard work since the beginning of year but incredibly rewarding.  Not much time for blog articles so I thought I’d post a quick update with a small teaser video and attach a promise that there’s more coming 🙂

My Dive Master group are all qualified Emergency First-aid Responders. Yes, folks I can cure what ails you, sort of, well at least keep you alive until the professionals arrive… mostly…

Phil and I have finished 2 weeks of Spanish Lessons.  Our Spanish is a little better but that’s not saying much considering before the lessons it was none existent!  But it’s a start and will help give us a basis to learn more.  They also took the time to share some of the South American traditions over the New Year:

New Years Eve and New Years day was a lot of fun.  We went to dinner at a local place called El Fogon and were home by 21:30.  The plan was to go to one of the Dive Instructors house to see in the New Year.  Unfortunately we fell asleep and woke up at 23:40.  We rushed down to the beach and celebrations started again from there.

Other than that it’s been diving, diving diving.  It’s all about learning, gaining experience and learning some more.  We’ve done a lot of diving in swimming pools (currently nursing an ear infection from said pools), plenty of diving in the ocean and a small amount of diving in cenotes.  I have an awesome blog post on the cenotes dive so stay tuned folks!

For now here’s a small taster of around Playa Del Carmen and some of the diving. The video looks much better if you set it to HD!

Blog, Living in Playa Del Carmen, Photography

Tequila, Panettone and a Slice of Serenity – Feliz Navidad!

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I’ve been privileged to have experienced Christmas in many different countries around the globe and can honestly say I have no preference between a summer Christmas with a BBQ around a swimming pool or a winter Christmas with snow and an open fire. They both paint a wonderful picture on the surface with the reality having both pros and cons. In short, bah humbug!

Not knowing many people, having a student budget and lacking motivation, this year in Playa Del Carmen Christmas was looking like a none event for us. That was until one of our fellow diving students, Ricky, invited us to his place on the 24th for an Italian Christmas dinner. Actually, several people ended up inviting us to dinner. The people around us are just incredibly welcoming and giving!

Antonio Banderas in Playa Del Carmen
Me and Antonio Banderas.. I mean Ricky C

Ricky lives with Marco, a very cool diving instructor and Max, the most helpful and welcoming man in Playa who knows everyone! They’re basically a house full of awesome Italians. Arriving unfashionably early at 9pm, we were welcomed in by Max’s parents, ushered out to the bar by the pool and handed a beer.

As the night progressed we were treated to large quantities of lasagna, aubergine parmigiana (I think that’s what it’s called) and other amazing home made Italian dishes (thanks to Marco’s Mum!). The panettone, pandoro and coffee rounded off a night consisting of several toasts of tequila washed down with margaritas and interspersed with beers.

Moral of the story. If you’re ever invited to Christmas by an Italian, say yes please immediately!

We were fairly well behaved on the tequila and margarita side of things as we had this great idea that we might get to go diving with Bull Sharks on Christmas day. Turns out most of Playa had the same idea and the dive boats were too full for us to join the party. Who knew Christmas day was when everyone in Playa wanted to go diving?!?!

Plan B! We took to the streets to explore more of Playa… Turns out, those that weren’t diving were also exploring Playa!

Quinta Avenida, Playa Del Carmen, Mexico
The Masses…

Wondering down 5th avenue brought as back to a cool little shop we’d seen weeks previous called The Little Teapot. Perfect place to escape the crowds and watch the world go by. Just for fun and because we can here’s a short clip of the adventure. (Phils videography debut!)

With our sanity restored we headed to Mamita’s Beach to walk off the amazing peanut butter cookies. A little stroll north and we discovered a small slice of serenity. A pleasant break from the masses of people everywhere.

Playa Del Carmen, Mexico
How’s the serenity? Espléndido!

With our legs giving in from a hard days exploring we decided to head home for cervezas and chorizo. As usual, despite my best attempt at imitating Ebenezer Scrooge and although some fairly important people in my life were missing, I thoroughly enjoyed my first Christmas in Mexico.

Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad and Merry Christmas all 🙂

Blog, Living in Playa Del Carmen, SCUBA

Sunburn, Bull Sharks and Nitrogen Narcosis!

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Through the very short history of this blog you’ve seen me talk about my travelling buddy Phil. Some of you will know him, some will have seen a picture of him:

image

Since we’re taking this leap at the same time we thought we’d keep the blog interesting and add his point of view from time to time. So without further preamble…

Hola mis amigos!

So one week in and we are burnt, broken and shattered… But life is great!

We are 2 days in to our Rescue Diver course, searching for apartments every night, cooking dinner on what can best be described as a camp cooker and getting more dives thrown our way than we can poke a stick at… it’s exhausting.

Cooking on a Camp Stove
Cooking on a Camp Stove

The diving has been amazing though, stingrays, giant crabs, lion fish, scorpion fish, turtles and eels under every rock not to mention a multitude of little fish.  We’ve been stung by coral, “narced”, attacked by fish that clearly think they’re bigger than they are and fought against currents that were somewhat like being in a washing machine… Never a dull moment!  The highlight however would have to be sitting on the bottom while a 2.5m Bull Shark casually did a few swim bys not more than 10 foot away… AMAZING!  Next we surfaced to do some Rescue Diver drills completely unperturbed by the group of 3 Bull Sharks and 2 baby sharks that were now swimming about below us.  Who woulda thought we’d be so relaxed.

Setting up Dive Gear
Setting up Dive Gear

On top of that, the people we are training with are amazing!  The team is like a big family looking out for one another and our instructor Aitor is full of stories and little pearls of wisdom.  I feel like every conversation we have leaves me as a better Scuba Diver.

Well that’s all for now folks coz this little black ducks gotta go and study…

Actually Studying!
Actually Studying!

Hasta luego!!

Blog, Living in Playa Del Carmen

First Impressions Of Playa Del Carmen

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It’s Far From The UK!

Actually it isn’t really.  The 11 hour flight with Thomas Cook, even filled with screaming children, wasn’t that bad.  There was enough leg room, decent music playlists, a couple of free movies to watch and we smiled smugly at the people that had paid the extra for a meal which looked decidedly grim!  Even the hour transfer from Cancun Airport to Playa Del Carmen wasn’t that bad.  I’d highly recommend the ADO bus service.  Cheap, efficient and super comfy, which was confirmed by Phil who snoozed the whole way.  Only down side was the baggage guy literally hurling our luggage into the luggage hold of the bus while we stood praying to the gods that everything arrived in one piece… Breakables to be carried on-board!

It’s Commercial as Hell!

But it also isn’t…  The walk from bus station to hostel was straight down Quinta Avenida (5th Avenue).  It was completely commercial with McDonalds, Starbucks and everyone trying to sell you something every 5 steps.  Once in the hostel it was a very laid back, slightly run down and completely chilled.  A later scout around for dinner and supplies led us to a local Taco place… Result!  It was all open next to the street, filled with locals, only Spanish menu, only Spanish speaking staff and the food was being cooked on a grill in the middle of the room. We arbitrarily went for the large, soft tacos and we weren’t disappointed.  They tasted amazing and cost less than £3.00 each.  This gives me hope that there is still some good local life and culture to be found here for those willing to take the time to look.

People are Friendly

The Little Tea Pot, The lady behind the counter was really helpful.
The Little Tea Pot,
The lady behind the counter was really helpful.

Since telling people we’re coming to Mexico there has been no end to the warnings and war stories from friends and colleagues about being ripped off.  Seems to me on the whole, as long as you’re street smart, it’s safe and the people are warm, friendly and helpful.  Security Guards out the front of banks, shops etc.. all smile and say hola.  Even the guys trying to coax you into their stores have friendly and original ways of doing so which if nothing else it gives you a laugh.

The Beach is Amazeballs!!

Clear skies, blue seas and white sand that’s soft as flour.  I need say no more on this really.  God I’ve missed the beach.

First glimpse of the beach
First glimpse of the beach

The Fact We’re Here for 5 Months Hasn’t Sunk in Yet  

It really hasn’t.  I guess it will as we start to get stuck into SCUBA training, finding a more permanent place to live and doing the mundanities of life such as shopping for food.

Until Next Time

As the first full day draws to an end we hear the call of the cerveza shouting our names… Adiós Amigos!

Dos Cervezas
Dos Cervezas
Blog, Living in Playa Del Carmen, SCUBA, Taking a Sabbatical

The Count Down Begins!

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4 weeks and counting… the well paid and comfortable job comes to an end, I wave farewell to London and everyone I love that keeps me here and I move to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico for 5 months.  The beginning of a journey towards becoming a SCUBA Diving instructor, Spanish speaker and proficient underwater photographer.

I intend this blog to be the telling of that journey.  As well as keeping friends and family updated I hope it will help and inspire people that might be thinking of taking a sabbatical, career break or just thinking about making a change.

I’ll be learning how this blogging malarkey works along the way so must beg your patience.