Cancun Day 4 (Tuesday)

We finally awoke before 7AM and departed shortly after 8AM. The destination for this day: Akumal. Our friend, Angie, recommended Akumal, and it is easy to see the charm. The town is small, easy-going, easy to navigate, and has wonderful opportunities for swimming, snorkeling, and diving. We arrived shortly after 10AM and went strait for Yal Ku Lagoon. Yal Ku requires an entrance fee, but is a nice starting spot for those with children to see hundreds of fish in relative ease. Because of equipment failures and time to change clothes, we didn’t enter the water until just after 11AM. Visibility was poor immediately inside the water of the lagoon, but visibility improved once we spread out a little bit. We saw a number of habitats including sandy bottoms, rocky bottoms, and plants along the shore, though the area contains no hard coral. We did see soft coral and hundreds of fish, mostly local shore and reef-dwellers but no pelagic fish. The area is famous for sea turtles, but we did not see any inside the lagoon, even though we spent nearly two hours in the water. We enjoyed it but we were tired.

At the recommendation of Angie and the local guide, we ate lunch La Vida Buena, which caters mostly to tourists. The restaurant mostly sells a wonderful view of the ocean and a chance to relax for an hour. Although a bit pricy, the food was mostly unspectacular. The Lime Soup was too salty and tasted like Minestrone, and the fish fillet plates were also too salty and contained too much flavoring.

On the way back we stopped at the Aktun Chen park for a swim in the Cenote. The park offers three different activities: walking and running a line in the canopy, walking in a cave, and swimming in the Cenote. The kids chose the latter, and despite my initial reservations I was pleasantly surprised by the experience. The water was clean and cool, and the four caverns were spacious albeit shallow in some areas. I enjoyed it more than I expected, and Aya really enjoyed it more than swimming in the ocean. Aya is still too scared to put on her mask and snorkel, so she swims along with us. I believe she preferred the Aktun Chen Cenote swim because there was more too see above the water and fewer waves. Michiko got out first, then Reon shortly afterwards when he started shivering. Even though I was cold too, I kept swimming with Aya another 15 minutes. Aya didn’t want to leave.

We drove strait back to the hotel and ate dinner at the hotel restaurant Mitachi. Although it has a Japanese-sounding name and serves some Japanese dishes, it is really an American grill. As with lunch, the restaurant was over-priced and unspectacular, but also offered a nice view of the ocean. The sushi appetizer was fine. Michiko’s Ceviche was bland and insufficient. My vegetable tempura was completely wrong (probably the batter and oil were incorrect). However, the kids meals were well-portioned and sufficient for Reon who normally eats off the adult menu. In addition Reon’s grilled chicken plate contained a lot of vegetables—a rare treat for a kid’s menu, and even more rare in Mexico.

Photos are here.

This entry was posted on 2009-08-19 (Wednesday) at 12:45 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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