Cancún – Isla Mujeres

We´ve spent the last couple of weeks on the east coast of Mexico. After a 14 hour bus journey to get there we decided to make the most of it.

Cancún is an American´s haven. They can speak only in English, pay in U.S. dollars, eat burgers and the resorts make sure that they don´t have to do anything themselves. They can just wake up and lie by the pool or beach while waiters do everything for them, which most of them do. Which is great, if you didn´t come to Mexico to see Mexico.

Cancún was created on an uninhabited sand spit (a kind of beach) in the 70s. the 12km spit has very pricey resort, a/c´d malls and a continuous white sand beach. The hub of the town is on the mainland and called "Downtown". We stayed in Downtown.

The beach is beautiful although very spoilt by the large hotels so we stayed for a few days then headed out to Isla Mujeres (Jade says a Cancún is "big pair of balls" comparitively).

Isla Mujeres has white sand beaches, warm shallow water and palms trees throughout. It´s not spoilt by development and still has lots of character with it´s colourful Caribbean style houses and relaxed atmosphere. We spent our time snorkelling and relaxing by the beach. We were also invited by some Israelis to go our looking for whale sharks by speed boat. We looked around for about two hours until one of the girls felt really ill and we started heading to the nearest island, then the captain spotted one right next to us. They are massive (biggest sharks and largest living fish in the sea) and are covered in white spots. We could dive in and swim next to it until it swam lower, a really amazing experience! We saw 3 more and some dolphins and then it was time to come home.

It´s a shame that we have to go back now as we´ve missed some stuff but we´ve seen some amazing sights and have got some great memories (Last lines filled with cheese…)

You can see the rest of my photos here http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackhynes/