Sylvie's Travels Home

December 17 to 24, 2022

Pogo, Shaun and I had driven to Montreal in a snowstorm the night before and stayed at the Dorval Sheraton to catch our early flight to Cancun. After spending an hour in the plane waiting to be de-iced, we arrived about the same time as Michel and Edward who were joining us from Toronto. It took us a while to find each others as the wifi was horrible in the airport and our messages or calls were not going through and we had no idea we were at different terminals. Our rental car company had arranged for a minivan to pick us all up. The drive to our Airbnb in Puerto Morelos took about 30 minutes. It was incredible to see how much more built up Cancun and its surroundings were compared from the last time we were there, 20 years ago.

Meanwhile Max and Hernan had picked up the rental car in Playa del Carmen and met us at the house. The house, which I had rented only 2 weeks prior since our original pick had been rented to someone else, ended up being at a better location in town. It was not right on the beach but close enough and certainly not as luxurious as the first one but was very comfortable. The only problem was that the two days that it rained, we had a big leak in our bathroom.

We had a great week together! We discovered Puerto Morelos and loved the small town vibe. It was quiet and never a problem to find a table for dinner. We actually went to Cafe Locale every morning since we loved the food and the waiter so much.

We spent an afternoon on Isla Mujeres. We had rented a 6 passengers golf cart and drove around the island. We stopped at a beach club for lunch and swimming, went to Punta Sur, drove around the whole island, did more swimming and took the ferry back arounnd 6:30pm.

We also spent an afternoon at Xenses, an outdoor amusement park with sense-themed activities & optical illusions. We had never experienced anything like it. The small town street giving you the impression you were climbing it when you were actually going down, was mindboggling!

We swam in really cool cenotes, which are natural pit or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater. We took some stairs down, swam through a few caverns and ended up in a open water opening surrounded by cliffs. So incredible! They are over 6000 cenotes all over the Yucatan peninsula.

Shaun went deep sea fishing (his birthday present) and came back with barracuda and trigger fish. Pogo and him made us an amazing dinner of ceviches and fish tacos. Talking about yummy dinners, Hernan made us a great dinner as well with steak and shrimp brochettes, guacamole and jalapeno poppers for appetizers, accompanied by homemade margaritas.

Pogo found a place to play pickleball in Playa del Carmen so he went 3 times and he also started running again. We did a little shopping, walking around town and on the beach and enjoyed the pool on the rooftop.