A couple of years ago we successfully bid for a week in a house in Merida at a charity auction. For some reason we never got round to using that week but, one summer afternoon, feeling rather gloomy, I rashly booked some flights to Mexico for the first two weeks in November!

Bidding for the house was not a random kindness for a cause – Ross has always wanted to dive the cenotes – deep limestone freshwater caverns and cave systems in the Yucatan – so here was the perfect birthday gift (for him)!

We decided to spend the first week on the coast on the Mayan Riviera to access the cenotes more easily. I booked a fancy boutique hotel to be our base, the Viceroy – as it turns out it is more White Lotus in its clientele than we had bargained for, with a huge group young Americans celebrating a birthday, fuelled by free-flowing booze,  disporting themselves and their perfect bodies for the best part of four days -rather ruining the intended exclusivity we had been looking for.

Although the hotel is  secluded, luxurious and has amazing service, swimming is not easy as it is rocky, and we are effectively marooned (no nearby beach bars) so any outing is an expensive taxi ride. But the most stupid thing of all – mea culpa – is that we are not that close to the cenotes, which are all near Tulum and a good hour plus away…so I spend most of the first week being cross with myself for a rookie booking error.

The Tulum ruins, and my two birthday visitors, a huge scorpion and a big male racoon – the exclusivity is confined to humans not fauna! As it turns out, despite its position on the sea-front, Tulum his the least impressive of the Mayan sites we visit, architecturally, and it is much later (13-15th centuries) towards the end of the civilisation, when the Spanish invaded

Ross has arranged the diving on alternate days, which we intersperse with other outings – a visit to historic Mayan site of Tulum, followed by what is meant to be a snorkelling trip in a lovely area, but turns out to be an all-inclusive visit to Xel-Ha an aquatic theme park where you can pet dolphins and sting rays (see photo) – my idea of hell on hearth (renamed Hell-ha by me) and we only stay for the free lunch and drinks…

 and expeditions to the Halloween celebrations in the town of Playa del Carmen, followed closely by celebrations of Mexico’s biggest holiday, Day of the Dead. Halloween is big here and the children parade with their responsible adults, dressed up to the nines. Tourists also get their faces painted, and the town is decked out in spooky paraphernalia. Even our cocktail waiter looks the part!

We visit the local cemetery to get a feel of the Day of the Dead celebrations – there is a BBQ in full swing, music playing, and effigies of skeletons and ghosts punctuate the spaces between the graves. These are also decorated with the ubiquitous orange flowers, and offerings of favourite food and drinks are left out. November 1 is the children’s day, while the following day is for the adults. Everywhere there are shrines and decorations honouring the departed – but it is more of a celebration than a mourning; we think of Louise in the cemetery and how much she would love her life to be remembered in this way – the colour orange one of her favourites,  the dressing up and the feasting.

As for the diving – well this is not something I had been looking forward to. Firstly I hate being cold so we have bought new 5 mm wetsuits and new hoods. Secondly, I hadn’t realised how DIY it would all be – kitting up by the truck in a car park is quite challenging! Luckily on our first day Victor, the guide, hefts my tank and reg down the steep steps to the dive platform to enter The Pit, one of the deepest and most recently discovered cenotes. Quite honestly I am deeply anxious as I jump in, buoyancy in the new wetsuit in fresh water is extremely challenging and I am weighted down like a drowning puppy.

Getting ready for The Pit; you can see how far down it is!

Once these challenges are overcome, we drop into the clear blue water,  through a halocline at 17m where ethe fresh water meets the salt, producing an oily viscosity, before descending down to 30 meters and then spiralling slowly upwards, admiring the stalactites. But it is dark and in my flummery I manage to drop my torch which luckily Ross finds. It is nevertheless eerily beautiful. Second pic is me and Victor descending, third is the light filtering through, then me admiring a stalactite and following Victor to get out!

The second dive is a shallow cave network, Dos Ochos (two eyes) and we follow a line through the caverns leading to a Barbie doll being eaten by a croc at the midpoint. It is a popular site, with snorkellers and other divers, but doesn’t feel crowded. And in fact Im looking rather cool by the end, even waving at the camera. Afterwards we are dropped off in Playa for a really good – and cheap –  fish lunch!

My birthday ‘treat’ is another deep dive site, Angelita, with a lovely dive leader Elisa; somehow I feel more relaxed with another woman! Here there is a sulphate layer at about 30 meters and we glide over the top, dodging petrified tree stumps, again admiring the stalactites and rock formations. I am not cold thank goodness.

The second dive is another shallower dive, Car Wash, very pretty and green with vegetation, turtles and fish. We navigate through another series of tunnels, following a line, passing some fake Mayan pottery nicely displayed for us!

Elisa drops us off at Tulum proper so we can see what we’ve been missing – the beach is gorgeous and swimming lovely, but we are told Tulum is now run by cartels and is not so nice any more. Perhaps our exclusive hotel has some advantages. Proof of cartels is evident in that our taxi driver from Playa is told he can’t pick us up so we have to negotiate a ride home…which is easier than we thought as we were envisaging having to catch a collectivo or shared taxi! But my birthday is slightly marred by all this uncertainly.

Birthday girl!

For our last day we are to go to Cozumel for some reef diving. It is a grey old day, and we once again kit up in a carpark before wading out to the Horus with a full complement of other divers plus Elisa. It is a good 40 minutes bumpy ride out to the reef, but once under the water, it is pretty with good viz, soft corals and masses of reef fish. On the second dive we see two huge turtles and a couple of nurse sharks. However, I don’t think I’d want to dive more than once in Cozumel as there seems to be little else other than drifting over this large reef.

Below – loading up on the rather unattractive Playa beach, on the boat and a selfie with Elisa

The ride back is really rough, the boat thudding on the waves and drenching us with spray! So we arrive back wet – nothing that a good mezcalita and a plate of ceviche can’t cure!

All in all a good week, though you can keep cenote diving as far as I’m concerned. A nice chance to unwind in-between the driving/diving and to get acquainted with Mexico. We are impressed with how lovely the people are and how little we are hassled or harassed in any way. And the food and cocktails are great! But we are keen to move on…next stop Chichen Itza!

A much more technical description of our diving can be found on Ross’s blog.

We dived with Koox diving, Tulum