Trip to Playa del Carmen Mexico, June 13-18, 2004

Our Room

Room 352 at the Gran Porto Real Resort and Spa. This is an oceanview junior suite. The room was on the street side of the building at the end near the ocean, so it did have an ocean view if you looked to the side. They are busy building a new sister resort across the street, so there was more view of the construction than of the ocean. We had no problems with noise, thankfully.

Towel Designs Left in Our Room

On two of the days that we stayed there, the maid left us some beautiful sculptures on the bed made from spare towels and fresh hibiscus flowers. On Wednesday we had the two swans in a big heart. And, on Thursday we had the peacock and peahen.

Porto Real Resort

This is the resort that we stayed at. We chose the all-inclusive plan, which meant that all of our food and drinks were included. The resort has two pools, three restaurants, and many bars. The resort is located near the north end of town on a large avenue. The pool area of the resort faces roughly south and has a very nice view down the coastline of the town.

Mayan Ruins at Tulum

We took a day tour on Tuesday that went to Tulum for a couple hours in the morning and then on to Xel Ha in the afternoon. The Tulum tour included a few minutes of guided tour giving us the history of the site, and then we were free to wander around and take pictures. Mostly we withered in the sun and headed back to the air-conditioned bus as soon as we were done wealking around. A Tulum Ruins Website

Xel Ha Park

The afternoon at Xel Ha was much better. We arrived and sat down to a very tasty buffet lunch. Then we changed, lathered up in SPF 35 biodegradable sunscreen, and walked to the tram that took us to the top of the tubing river. We put in in the middle of a narrow mangrove river and floated close to a mile back to the center of the park. It was very nice and cool except for the sunburn (must have washed off the sunscreen!) Xel Ha Website

Sunrise on June 17th

I got up a little after sunrise on Thursday and took some pictures around the resort. These are the sunrise shots taken from our balcony and the beach at the end of the street.

Porto Real at Night

As usual for me, I went around with my camera in the evening and took some pictures of the resort, pool, and coastline of the town. A lot of these are repetitive where I'd taken many shots of the same picture trying to get the camera settings right.