If Akumal is not on your trip itinerary, it should be, period. If it isn’t, you may be in 1 of 2 categories of tourists: 1) Never heard of it or 2) About to.
Once again, Mapchicks maps was or local tour agent. After Desayuna at the Festival, we taxi’d to the ADO bus station on 5th & Juarez, bought tickets to Akumal for $3.50 apiece and made the bus with maybe 4 minutes to spare. It actually left 3 minutes early by my watch, at 10:17 a.m. Tip: Beach bags are great for the hotel you’re staying at, but to move about, bring a backpack. It can serve as a handy carry-on as well.
During the 45-minute ride south on Highway 307, this small Greyhound-style tour bus stopped at several bus stops to pick up and drop off passengers, much like the collectivos do. We got dropped off on the highway at the footbridge and crossed safely.
Looking south on 307:
No mistaking where we were at;
We walk the .5 km or so from the highway to a gift shop/convenience store near the beach and look about for a bit. Pricey but OK stuff, and here you can get snacks and beverages if you didn’t bring any with you. We look about a bit but decline to purchase anything and head to the Beach instead.
For months leading up to our trip, I had been checking the world famous Lol Ha Beach Cam online almost every day. Mounted on a roof support outside the Lol Ha Restaurant, the camera takes a picture every 10 seconds and posts it to the Internet. I even added it to my iGoogle start page so it would automatically load up a pic each day as I started up Firefox. It’s unreal how much motivation these pictures can provide for a Frozentundra-locked couple eager to make their first trip together to the tropics.
Need your own motivation? Try it yourself!
http://www.locogringo.com/Upload/netcam.jpg
The cam:
Some perspective:
We met a couple from Colorado standing on the beach in the camera’s view shot area. They had just carved a message in the sand and stood there posing for a minute or so. Struck up a conversation with them and they explained that they had just come from the local email station (see Mapchick) and exchanged emails with their daughter who was on the ‘net waiting to do a screen capture of them on the beach cam. This must happen a lot because we saw numerous people doing this while we were there. We had not arranged with anyone back home to do this so we’ll have to settle for this proof instead:
That’s our heart in the sand ?
Next we step up into the Lol Ha Snack Bar, north of the webcam on the beach. We sit at a table facing the ocean – wow what a great view!
Another great view:
The bar area:
