Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Blogg entries will become more scarce after this, as I start my diving project tommorw, but before we get to that I have more to tell you about Venezuala. I have the fishy wonders of Santa Fe to relate, followed by my impressions of Caracus and my sad farewell to the rest of my tour group before I hopped on the plane to Mexico!!

Santa Fe was another lovely little beach town, with not a lot to show for it appart form a few restaurants and hotels lining a very beautiful bay. The one day we spent there was spent snorkelling, along some of the local reefs. It was amazing, I saw loads of fish AND I knew what most of them were, which was prety cool!! I took my fish book along for the ride and looked the fish up afterwards to show my friends and to confirm my findings. During the day everyone kept popping their heads up out of the water and going "Amy come over here!! What is that one", "Amy, I saw a big yellow one, what is it", "Amy look at this, I think its another...", etc. was fun to be in the know!! We stopped at five different locations during the day. The first was just for dolphine spotting and we saw the largest pod of dolphines we have seen so far and it was super close as well. The second spot was for swimming over a small reef and for fish watching. The third and the fourth were small bays, with reefs along the edges - here, some of us continued to snorkel and fish spot and some relaxed in the sand. The fith and last location was a ship wreck and it was huge - it was really amazing and so close to the surface, I sooo wished I had had my underwater camera then (I bought one today, 5 days too late for that one)!! Some of us dove down for a coser look (I knew my snorkelling lessons would come in handy one day!!) It was majorly cool, coral had started growing on the wreckage and it was home to loads more fish and the structure and appearance of the sucken ship was both erry and awesome at the same time, it felt like something from a film.

Caracus was the next and also the final destination of our tour. And we did mainly erands in the day and a half we were there, rather than sight seeing. Caracus doesn`t have a brilliant reputation, so we spent most of the time in shopping malls (apparently an important part of the culture) and in internet cafes (an inportant part of my sanity whilst travelling). On our last evening we went out to a salsa club, but it was nothing like at home and not in a good way. It was very couply (so I danced only with our tour guide and not with any locals) and there also wasn`t even any impressive salsa to watch (as there always is at home), as most people slow danced the whole time.

Leaving Caracus was hard, whilst I didn`t like the city overly much, I was leaving the people rather than the place. I met some really good people on that trip and a few tears were shed before I got on the plane. The tears were short lived however, when I got bumped up to business class!! Apparently something to do with weight distribution (as if I cared about the reason!!) it was soooo cool!!!

As previously stated I am now in Mexico, in Playa del Carmen. And it is the most touristy place I have been in this trip so far! I thought some of the places we stayed at in Brazil were tourity, but on the main street in Playa del Carmen I have spotted 2 Starbucks, 2 Hargenda`s Ice Cream, 2 Burger King, 2 Subways Sandwich Shops and 1 MacDonalds!! It is a little excessive!!

Yesterday and today I have seen a lot of the city, but only really form inside the shopping malls. I have been on a spending frenzy, trying to get everything I need for diving before I start tommorow. It has been crazy. I finished at about 8pm this evening and finally I feel a little more relaxed!! I wasn`t compleatly sure I was going to find everything in time!! But all is set now and I start diving tommorow - I am so excited I have wanted to do this for so long!!!

Wish me luck!!
xxxx