Isla Mujeres 2019

June 4 to12 2019

The First Trip of My Retirement!!

I’ve traveled for my job since 1992, not an insane amount but six times a year on average. I have had the luck of going to the Bahamas, Tokyo and Bolivia for international travel. I also went to Hawaii three time for work, that is not a bad gig. I could usually schedule my travel so I would go to Las Vegas in November and Orlando in February. Luckily my wife is understanding because I would accidentally book my Orlando trip over Valentine’s Day occasionally.

I’ve always liked to travel. Running away from things maybe? Traveling for work helped me learn to navigate airports and learn what to do when things go wrong; flight delays, ect. It also allowed me to amass frequent flier miles on Delta and points at Marriott hotels before retirement.

I retired on June 3^rd and I was on a plane to Mexico on June 4^th. It has been six years since I went to Isla Mujeres. We had many great vacations there but the last one was not very good.

I wasn’t awful but it was a bunch of small issues that added up. Like, we fell for the scam where one of the vendors on Hildago saw our wrist bands from Aluxes and did the “I work at the front desk, don’t you remember me? Come into my shop.” and you don’t want to appear to be stupid or a racist so you go into his shop to look around.

The diving was the worst we ever experienced there. The owner of the dive shop that we had been using for years, who was usually a lot of fun spend most of his time complaining about the divers.

I realize that no one has control of the weather but it rained almost once a day and when we left the skies opened up, doused us as we boarded the ferry and it didn’t stop. It turned out that a tropical storm moved in over Isla and Cancun. It seemed to be a fitting end to our below par vacation.

Since I am retired and I have plenty of time to travel so I thought I would start retirement by going to Isla and seeing if has improved.

My first clue that Isla has changed since my last trip, and maybe not for the better, was the ferry ride over. I used to love the twenty minute ferry ride. I would take one of the many open seats on top and enjoy the blue water and warm breeze.

This time I got one of the remaining seats on the ferry. When we arrived in Isla, the terminal was completely full. It appeared that not everyone would fit on the ferry for the return trip and some would have to wait for the next ferry to get back to Cancun.

Years ago a couple that we were diving with stayed at Cabanas Maria del Mar and liked it. I checked the reviews on Trip Advisor and they were mostly good so I opted to stay there.

The negative reviews were mostly about the included breakfast and I couldn’t agree more. The breakfast was at Buho’s. I would barely call it breakfast, it was coffee, orange juice and toast. I am into intermittent fasting so the minimalist breakfast worked for me.

Service at Buho’s was usually terrible. I tried to have lunch there once and I gave up and left because I couldn’t get a waiter to take my order. It was also hard to flag down a waiter at breakfast, even though there were no more than six people in the restaurant.

The main reason you stay at Cabanas Maria del Mar is because it is steps from North Beach and it is one of the cheaper places to stay on North Beach. My room was large and the furniture was a little dated but not as dated as the TV.

It appeared to be a nineteen inch CRT TV. It had probably been a decade since I have seen a CRT TV much less one that small. Regardless, you don’t go on vacation to watch TV, especially Spanish language TV when you don’t speak much Spanish.

The dive shop I used was next to my hotel. It was called Sea Hawk Divers. The original owners were in the process of handing off the business to their daughter and her husband. All of them were very nice people.

Part of the reason I came to Isla is because the summer is turtle mating season so you will see many large sea turtles when you are diving.

My favorite dive was South Point. The reason this dive is so good is because of the current. The current that splits and goes around both sides of Isla and joins at the south end.

Where the currents join together it gets intense. When looking up from the ocean floor it looks like water in a washing machine.

The boat dropped us up current and once we submerged it was like we were on a ride at an amusement park. The current whipped us along the seafloor, pausing only occasionally before picking back up again. The video doesn’t look as dramatic as it feels.

The nice thing about this dive is once the amusement park ride is over the current dumps you in the turtle mating area where large sea turtles are cruising around looking for a mate so we saw a dozen huge turtles. I thought that was good but one of the women on the dive told me that they had seen forty the previous day.

My other favorite dive we did was the C58 wreck. We entered the wreck through an opening at the stern. A lot of the hull had been removed so it was light as we swam through the interior of the ship. We exited at the bow and there was a wall of fish hanging out on the wreck.

We also did Musa. This is an underwater museum that has concrete castings of everything from people to a full sized VW.

Besides diving there many other things to do on Isla.

One of the best options was hanging out on North Beach. You can lay out on the sand or in a lounge chair under an umberlla. Then go wading in the warm North Beach water.

For me, all that has changed. Life is funny, if you know how much better something used to be it is hard to enjoy it as it is now.

I spent a fair amount of time on North Beach wading in the water and walking on the beach but there were people everywhere, on the beach and in the water. There were so many people in the water that there was an oil slick on the water from all of the non-reef safe suntan lotion leaching off peoples bodies.

Isla has a Turtle farm. They gather sea turtle eggs that were laid on one of Isla’s beaches and rebury them at the turtle farm. Once the turtles hatch they are moved to tanks inside the farm. When they are old enough they are released. It is very cool to see all of the turtles in one location.

Garrifon de Castilla is a laid back beach with snorkeling, swimming, beach chairs and a restaurant. It was a great place to hang out for a couple of hours.

Punta Sur is a sculpture park, and Mayan ruins on the south end of the island. The Mayan ruins that are there have deteriorated to a pile of rubble. The metal sculptures were in need of repair and some had been knocked over. They also had a large sculpture of a lizard and a Mayan goddess of fertility.

It sounds like Punta Sur might not be worth seeing but it is. My favorite part is the trail that runs on the outside of the island with beautiful ocean views.

There is a Malecon that runs along the windward side of the island. That side of the island is absolutely beautiful. The water is too many shades of turquoise to count. The sky was deep blue with puffs of white clouds.

The trail starts on the south end at a small cobblestone road that runs from Ave Juarez to the Malecon.

I had breakfast at Buho’s on days where they paid enough attention to wait on me. On diving days that I wanted something other than Buhos, I had yogurt and Zacarías (think Mexican Frosted Flakes) that I bought at the OXXO.

My best breakfast was at North Garden. It is in a very nice two-story open-air restaurant across the street from my hotel. It seemed to always be busy so I thought that was a good sign. My breakfast was good but it cost a little more than I was used to paying in Mexico however is was cheap by US standards.

My favorite lunch was at the Tiny Gecko. I stumbled upon the restaurant by chance. I was walking through the north end of Isla and I saw a placard outside a restaurant. As I got a little closer I saw the sign said “Free Sex” and as I got even closer I could read the entire sign which said “Free charro beans no matter what sex you are” with Free and Sex written in large font and the rest in small font.

I originally stopped in just for a beer and I saw people sitting on tables on the Malecon which was on the back side of the restaurant.

The kitchen was set up on a gas powered cooktop on the Malecon. I ordered chicken tinga tacos because they were recommended. They were literally the best tacos I have ever had. I am very disappointed that I never made it back to the Tiny Gecko for tacos.

On my trip to Punta Sur I stopped at The Joint for lunch. The food was good and for some reason they had a band playing at two in the afternoon. The owner had a hairless chihuahua that wandered over to my table to see if I would feed him.

There was a pizza by the slice shop just outside the hotel door. It took me several days to giver it a try. The pizza was very good and the guy working there, Ziggy, had a lot of stories so he was fun to talk to. I had lunch here several days.

Tarzan’s is on North Beach just down from my hotel. I had a beer and nachos there. The service was excellent and the food was good too.

For dinner I had pizza at Rooster’s, shrimp tacos at Fish and Gin, pizza at Rholandies, pasta at Sardinian Smile and tacos at Picus.

When traveling solo I can spend hours at a coffee shop blogging and answering email. I spent several mornings at Rooster’s bakery. To clear up any confusion, there is a Rooster’s restaurant and a Rooster’s bakery. The bakery was near my hotel. It had seating on the sweltering street and they also had a courtyard on the backside of the restaurant. There were trees for shade and fans to stay cool.

Miscellaneous information about Isla

I considered renting a golf cart when I went to Puta Sur. I am glad I didn’t it was just as easy to take a taxi and it was cheaper. Plus there wasn’t any hassle signing a rental contract and dropping the cart off.

When I saw a sign for an ice bar I realized that Isla was not the sleepy little island I was used to.

I get sick of Mexican beers a couple of days into my trip so I was happy to find Stella Artois for $1 US per bottle at a beer store in the North Beach area.

My Thoughts About My Trip to Isla.

It is obvious that people still love Isla. The island is crowded with people and it is not even high season. I came here for the first time in 2006 and it was a sleepy little island that wasn’t crowded and had good food and diving.

I had been to Isla almost every year from 2006 until 2013 either solo or with my wife. It was on the cusp of change in 2013. There were hotels that were being build or just completed and it had gotten busier every year.

Our trip in 2013 was our worst for the reasons mentioned at the beginning for this story. We took this as an omen that we should go elsewhere for a while.

If I never would have experienced Isla in 2006 I would think it was perfectly happy with Isla as it is now. But having laid on lounge chair with just a scattering of people in the water and on the beach back then, compared to barely being able to find a place to lay my towel now, makes me feel disappointed that the island has changed so much.

When I am on a solo dive trip Isla is now the opposite of what I would like. During the day the beach is crowded with day trippers from Cancun but at night they all leave and the restaurants and bars are quiet. This is my personal choice but I would prefer to blend in with the crowds when I go out for dinner when I am solo.

I can see a scenario where we would go back to Isla and stay mid island or south but I doubt that I would ever stay on the north end again.