|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
Live from Soliman Bay - 3/23/2012 11:13:43 PM
|
|
|
Mio Maya
Posts: 220
Joined: 4/2/2008
Status: offline
|
Hi all-
We'll we've now officially been here for a full 24 hours, and I am so thankful that we have a full week to go!! But as I wind down for the night and get ready for bed, I thought I'd give a nod to all those who have let us live vacariously through them the last few weeks by embarking on my own online journey.
Day 0: Arrival Day
Well, we arrived around noon on thursday on a few minutes early. I had heard horror stories the last few weeks about how busy the airport was, but thankfully didn't seem too far from normal in terms of the wait for immigration. I think it maybe took us 15-20 minutes to clear immigration. The off we went to collect our bags and meet up with my sister and her family, who arrived about 20 minutes before us on a different flight. I turn the corner from immigration and presto! A sea of humanity in baggage claim. Holy smokes batman!!! I have never seen so many people here ever. The line for customs was past the Duty Free store and then down all the way to the last baggage carosel. I've never seen it this bad before. And this was a thursday. I can't even imagine how bad it will be on friday and saturday....Thankfully, it moved fairly fast, though. All told, I'm guessing the customs line was about 30 minutes. Got the green light and voila! We are through:) Grabbed some cash from the ATM, swam past the timeshare sharks, and then moved out to the outside sea of humanity in search of USA Transfers. We loaded up all 14 of our bags and headed to Soliman Bay with a stop at Soriana for the necessities (limes, booze, eggs, snacks, etc) An hour later, we piled in the van and I cracked open the cold case of Sol and had my first cerveza of the trip. Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
The drive down 307 was uneventful with the exception of an overturned semi south of playa that had been apparently been there since 4:30 am, according to Diego (our USA driver). The southbound lanes were completely shut down, and southbound traffic was being diverted to the northbound lanes.
We passed by Akumal, waved, and then headed to Soliman Bay at last. Finally, we arrive at our oasis for the next 8 days; Margarita Villa on Soliman Bay. Wow. What a nice place. Everything you could possibly want and more. And it's on the norther side of the bay which makes for better snokeling apparently.
We unloaded all of the bags and groceries and then say "Hola" to Roje, the chef that we hired through the villa to prepare our welcome meal. Roje was kind enough to help us put away our groceries even! So with the smell of sauteeing onions and ojo (garlic), we go about unpacking and finally ngetting in our suits to jump in the pool because of being a tad on the hot side.
After a while, dinner is served, and what a dinner it was. So so yummy. Roje made us an incredible batch of chicken soup, some quesadillas, guac, shrimp and steak fajitas, rice, black beans and chocolate pie. And even better? Not only did Roje handle the clean up but he put away lots of leftovers for tomorrow!! We're off to a good start already!
_____________________________
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Live from Soliman Bay - 3/23/2012 11:20:02 PM
|
|
|
Mio Maya
Posts: 220
Joined: 4/2/2008
Status: offline
|
A few words about the villa; it's awesome. Hubby and I have the master bedroom on the seconf floor with the brick bovida ceiling. It's an immense room, and my dogs would love it with the amount of cool tile to lay on. The attached bathroom is also immense. Love all the counter space and the dual waterfall shower heads are a treat. Note to self: I should take pics of this bathroom should I ever get a hankering to tear up my old 50's bathroom at home. And the bed is an honest to goodness bed with mattress and box springs. That coupled with the egyptian cotton sheets, the air conditioning, and the fact that we're on vacation made me sleep like a baby!
_____________________________
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Live from Soliman Bay - 3/23/2012 11:25:01 PM
|
|
|
Mio Maya
Posts: 220
Joined: 4/2/2008
Status: offline
|
Ok, I was going to write more, but I am starting to get very sleepy. Stay tuned for details of the first full day, including an awesome Barracuda sighting and an underwhelming dinner at El Camello.
_____________________________
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Live from Soliman Bay - 3/24/2012 8:19:51 AM
|
|
|
Mio Maya
Posts: 220
Joined: 4/2/2008
Status: offline
|
Ok, after some much needed sleep, I am back. I'm typing this now while sitting outside next to the pool and watching a glorious sunrise, all while listening to the earnest morning conversations of tropical birds and watching a pelican's gentle overhead flight in search of breakfast. Does it get better than this? I don't think so.
So where was I? Day one. That's right.
Start off the day with lots of coffee. My sister makes an awesome breakfast of fresh fruit, scrambled eggs with manchego cheese and potatoes. Do the dishes and then head off to the front entry way to Soliman Bay (by hotel Jashita) to wait for the rental car pick up (after a few years, we've now learned to call the rental car office if they are late; because chances are they haven't left to pick us up. This year was no exception. After 10 minutes waiting, we call the office to get the rental car shuttle moving. A short time later, we are picked up and head to Tulum to get the rental cars. Sis and I each reserved an intermediate and after a short wait, get our rental cars. Note to those reserving through American Rental Car: make sure you print out the confirming email stating your 5% locogringo discount, as the guy at the rental car office was not going to give it to us until we showed the email. We get the rental cars and the first stop is Pemex. Note #2: Bring pesos with you because inevitably, the rental car is going to be on empty. We stop at pemex on the way back and fill up with 170 pesos, which filled it up to about a half tank.
Now it's back to the villa and time to baptize the snorkel gear. Having not snorkeled Soliman Bay before, I have no idea of what to expect. We opt to not take the kayaks out to the reef and instead swim out there with our fins so we can check out the "mini reefs" on the way. Well, we never made it out the the main reef because I was getting sick of swimming. But what we saw along the way was truly amazing. In comparison to Half Moon Bay and Akumal, I can tell you that what is here is much much healthier. There may not be as much "stuff" here as Half Moon Bay, but what is here is so much more healthy. I saw an enormous thing of Cat's Paw SPS coral that was beautiful. In all our years of snorkeling Akumal and Half Moon Bay, I've not seen coral this healthy here. I also found an enormous (and unoccupied) conch shell. Hubby found a lion fish, and I found a bangaii cardinal fish, which I've not seen before here. I can only imagine how good the reef is based on what we saw yesterday. Heading back to the villa. I stop and check out the little section of rocks right out front of the villa and just past the turtle grass (so maybe 20 yeards from sore?). Hubby pops his head up and yells to me to get my attention. Barracuda!!!! I look over to where he's pointing, and sure enough; the absolute largest barracuda I've ever seen is just hovering there. This guy had to be 4-5 feet long and easily 6-8 inches round; and just yards from the shore. Unbelievable. Wow. And I'm genereally not freaked out by barracuda like some people are, but this guy demanded respect.
After a good snorkel, came out and had leftovers from Roje's fabulous dinner the night before. Chicken quesadillas, guac, shrimp tacos and freshly made margaritas. Si. Life is good today. We clean up after lunch and do a load of dishes (gotta love having a villa with a dishwasher!!!!!!!!!!!!) and head back out to lie in the hammock (joined of course by the little local dog....she has a collar and is very well cared for based on her lack of waistine). After some time, it's time to head in and get cleaned up for dinner.
Have I told you how much I like our bathroom? It's just spectacular. It makes taking a shower a treat. I need to get photos of it for sure. After getting cleaned up and dressed up in denim cutoffs and a tshirt and flip flops, we head to Tulum for dinner. We opted for Tulum since we wanted ice cream. We also wanted seafood, so we headed to El Camello. We were there last year and thought it was just ok. The prices were great, but I thought the seafood at Cueva del Pescador was far better. But we opted to give it another chance this year. We ordered the ceviche appetizer and dinners for everyone. The bill, including drinks, came to $880 pesos for the seven of us. Again, great prices, but I was totally underwhelmed by the food. The ceviche was just ok. Chamico's ceviche is far better, in my opinion. And I would venture to say that Cueva's ceviche is also better.
After dinner, we drove back through town and stopped at that ice cream joint by Don Cafeto's and then headed back to the villa. My question for anyone in the know is this: what is the deal with all the policia in tulum? Everywhere you turn, there are check points. It's crazy. So what gives? There seems to be more policia than Pemex stations there:)
Back at the villa, we wind down sharing a bottle of wine by the pool listening to the palm fronds sway in the wind (not breeze; wind...as it is very windy tonight). Lots of stars out tonight and it's amazing the stars you can see from Soliman Bay as there is not as much ambiant light as there is at Half Moon Bay.
I then headed to bed to start the beginnings of this trip report. Right before falling asleep, we heard a noise by the window. It was obviously some critter based on the strange chirping kind of noise. Hubby went to investigate and started rolling up the blinds. Out pops a little lizard (an anole, I believe they are called) and very quickly disappeares behind one of the framed photos. Great. We have a room mate. Well, hopefully he can keep it down for the night.
And that, mi amigos, is how Day One went for us. Now to live Day Two!
_____________________________
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Live from Soliman Bay - 3/24/2012 8:42:13 PM
|
|
|
Luna Sea
Posts: 6
Joined: 12/15/2010
Status: offline
|
Wow, so glad to read your post. We are considering Soliman Bay for next time. The snorkeling sounds great. I was wondering if it is a sandy water entrance or more rocky. Is it also good for just swimming? I look forward to your continued posts. ENJOY!
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Live from Soliman Bay - 3/25/2012 7:24:09 PM
|
|
|
Mio Maya
Posts: 220
Joined: 4/2/2008
Status: offline
|
Hi all-
Ok, I gotta tell you...Soliman Bay is Da Bomb!!!
So Where was I? Oh yes; Day 2.
Started off Day 2 by having just a quick breakfast of yogurt, fruit, and cereal. We then headed off to Akumal to get some things from the Farmers Market. We got there around 10:00am-ish and by 11:00 the parking lot out front was completely filled. There were people all over the place. Pretty scary actually how congested Akumal has now gotten. And sad. Makes me very glad that we're staying on Soliman Bay this year.
Anywho, we ended up getting a whole giant bag of oranges for fresh squeezed oj, a bunch of limes, guavas, avacados, mangoes, 3 pineapples, and some tomatoes for a grand total of $491 pesos. Quite the deal, actually. And wow!! The guavas and the mangoes smelled absolutely amazing. I wish our produce was this good...
While in Akumal, a stop at Chomak was in order to get a few tshirts, as well as as stop at Loncheria for lunch and Lucy's for dessert. First order of business? Getting the chicken soup from Loncheria. I was so looking forward to lunch with Loncheria's soup!!! Well, it really ended up being a bit of a disappointment. It was really salty and didn't have the amazing taste that it had when we had it last year. It was also bland, and missing some of the spices. I was so sad. But Lucy's for dessert did not disappoint. Gotta love that coconut and nutella ice cream.
Had lunch at the villa, a few cocktails, and then went snorkeling. We spent the day alternating between the beach and the pool, and doing a decent job adding to the conch shell collection.
Dinner ended up being a mix of take out at the villa; a giant thing of ceviche from Chamico's and pizza from La Nave in Tulum. The ceviche was amazing as always. The pizza? Eh. It was ok. Nothing spectacular. Not certain why everyone raves about La Nave. It was definitely better than Leo's in Chemuyil, but there are still better restaurants here to eat at. I guess if you are really craving pizza, then definitely do it. But if you want yummy pizza, wait until you get home!!
Had dinner while watching the first Pirates of the Caribbean on DVD. Margarita Villa has lots of DVDs to choose from, and watching Pirates is always a good one while on vacation. Great music, and watching Johnny Depp is always a sure thing. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Johnny wasn't doing it for me tonight and I prompty fell asleep on the couch. Hubby woke me up and I managed to make it upstairs to our lovely bovida bedroom. I lifted up the blinds in the one window and said goodnight to Luigi our lizard room mate. Luigi chirped a few things back, and then off I went to dream land.
The big observation of the day: staying on Soliman Bay makes the trip seem to last longer. Our two days here have been so relaxing, it seems like a week already. It's truly amazing. Because the bay is so incredible, as is our villa, we don't feel the need to go to other beaches. We can snorkel, we can play in the water, we can walk the beach, we can play in our pool. Whatever we want, it's all here and more. And the water is the most incredible color here. I may not ever leave....
_____________________________
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Live from Soliman Bay - 3/25/2012 7:43:32 PM
|
|
|
Mio Maya
Posts: 220
Joined: 4/2/2008
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Luna Sea
Wow, so glad to read your post. We are considering Soliman Bay for next time. The snorkeling sounds great. I was wondering if it is a sandy water entrance or more rocky. Is it also good for just swimming? I look forward to your continued posts. ENJOY!
Luna, the bay here is very differnt from either Akumal Bay or Half Moon Bay. Along the entire bay the water entrance is covered in turtle grass, which extends to about 10-15 yards or so out, then it is nothing but sand. Each property (for the most part) has a path "cut" through the turtle grass that allows for easy access to the rest of the bay. The bay is pretty calm, and is shallow, and has only rock/reef formations sporadically located throughout the bay. The big reef is out pretty far and is what protects the bay, thereby keeping it mostly calm.
_____________________________
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Live from Soliman Bay - 3/25/2012 7:46:03 PM
|
|
|
Mio Maya
Posts: 220
Joined: 4/2/2008
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: fireball
Mio Mayo, Hola!! we are right down the beach. Don't rave to much about it here, I feel like it our secret spot. We have been here since Jan 30, and I agree the corals have never been better. Better get out to that reef today, it's has not been this calm for about a month.
Hi Fireball!! Where are you guys staying here? I can't even imagine staying as long as you have. I am SO incredibly jealous. This is like where heaven meets earth.
_____________________________
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Live from Soliman Bay - 3/26/2012 8:48:43 AM
|
|
|
Mio Maya
Posts: 220
Joined: 4/2/2008
Status: offline
|
Good Morning!
Hard to believe to believe that I'm writing about Day Three already. It's amazing how you plan for a trip so far in advance, and then it's here and going by faster than you want it to. Hubby and I had one of those moments when we were sitting in the hammocks on the beach...we looked around and said "we're in the picture":) The pictures referred to are the pics of the villa on Loco Gringo. There are lots of pics on the villa, and lots of pics of the pool and beach. But instead of looking at the pics online, we WERE the pic. I don't know if I'm making any sense at all, but it's one of the "how freakin' cool is this?" moments of the trip.
So with that said, here is Day 3. And let me tell you, lots of good stories to be told for years about this day!!!
Woke up and enjoyed the morning ritual of coffee, sun rise, and the symphony of the birds. Took an ambitious hike around the north side of the bay trying to figure out how to get to the old Oscar y Lalos location and the cenotes or estuaries where the birds are. After lots of maneuvering around ironshore and mangroves, I convinced the sister to turn around. Some things are just not worth it. This was one of them. On the way back, we came across a trail that looked like it was what we wanted. D'oh! Forehead slap on this one. Too bad we didn't see this earlier!!! We took the trail in about 100 feet or so and came across the cutest little white/black spotted puppy and his owner. His owner didn't speak much english, but clearly enough to tell us it we should not be there. Bummer. The cute little puppy gave us away, I do believe. We head back to the villa, hot and in need of either the pool or air conditioning.
After that little excursion, it was time for breakfast (bananas foster french toast, pineapple and fresh squeezed orange juice.) We needed to run in to Tulum to pick up some provisions at Chedraui, but opted to time it for lunch so we could take advantage of the super calm bay for some snorkeling.
My sis was doing a load of laundry (thumbs up on having a washer/dryer here!) while I was getting ready to head out to the bay. I was in mid sunscreen application when she let out the loudest of petrified screams I have ever heard in my life. WTH??? Apparently she was cleaning out the lint trap in the dryer and came across a very large and very much alive scorpion in said dryer. How does one get out a scorpion from a dryer? Gotta admit, that's a new one. Turn the dryer on and cook it? Would it kill it, or would it just make it mad? I don't think an angry scorpion would be a good thing. So when all else fails, keep the dryer door closed and deal with it later. At least, that's what I suggested as well as finding Paco, one of the villa's caretakers. Surely they have more experience with this sort of thing. Because a couple of midwesterners are apparently ill equipped to deal with this sort of thing. That's the benefit of living in Detroit and Chicago...we have frost. We don't have scorpions hanging out in our dryers!
So with said dryer door closed and the scorpion not going anywhere (we hope), we head back out to go snorkeling. We decide to go farther out today so opt to take the kayaks. Hubby, me and the nephiew are snorkeling, while brother in law stays mostly dry manning the kayak. We skorkel for a bit and our snorkeling excursion turns into an conch shell hunting excursion. There are so many beautiful empty shells out there. Some, while empty, still had inhabitants like damsel fishes, wrasses, and the occasional basslett. Those we left. Only the truly unoccupied ones made it up to the kayak.
While we were focused on conch shells, my sister and my other nephiew stayed closer to shore, and had an encounter with the same big a$$ barracuda that we saw the day before. And yes, she acknowledged that we were not exagerating about the size of this mammoth fish. She did say that unlike our encounter with it, said barracuda was following them. Me? I think she's just paranoid after her scorpion enounter.
So while we were all out in the water, mom goes in search of Paco to tend to the scorpion in the dryer. Paco clearly does not believe her, being a crazy gringa and all. Yeah. Well he believes her shortly after he sees it and pullis it out of the dryer with plyers. Glad I wasn't there to witness it. Mom did say the thing was prolly a good 5 or 6 inches long. Thankfully though, he is gone.
So it's now time to dry off and head into Tulum for grocerry shopping and lunch. Only problem is that brother in law can't find the keys to his rental car. After tearing apart the villa, he goes out to discover that the keys are locked in the car form his excursion out that morning. He gets on the phone with the rental car place to see about having them come out to open the car up. We change plans slightly and just have the 4 of us (me, hubby, my sis and my mom) take our rental car in and we'll bring back lunch, while brother in law stays behind with the kids to deal with his car.
So off we go to Chedraui. It was our first trip to that particular store. Not as good as Soriana in Playa, I think. But still pretty good. We load up the car and head in to Tulum pueblo to get lunch "para llavar" (to go). We wanted to check out "Los Pepes" because we had heard good things about it. It's one of the typical hole in the wall kinda places, located off the main drag at Osiris and Polar Norte. All I have to say is Wow!!!! The menu is mostly seafood, and it blows El Camello out of the water. It's marginally more $ ($11 pesos for garlic fish as opposed to $9 pesos at El Camello) but is exponentially better. Their home made salsa was so good, the fish was much less greasy and more flavorful and their shrimp cocktails and ceviche was a lot better. Hubby had the garlic shrimp, and they were super yummy as well. And take out was no problem. We sat and waited for it while it was being cooked, and the smells were amazing. All told, our bill for lunch for the 7 of us was $715 pesos. So if you're looking for a place to try, please try this place. Amazingly good food, incredibly clean and super nice people who were grateful for the business. We'll definitely be back this trip for sure.
We brought the food and groceries back and discovered that brother in law and the kids were busy with the rental car. Who knew that my nephiew was a budding B&E artist? With some "help" from the security dude at the front entrance way, my nephiew managed to break into the rental car with a coat hanger and a machete. Took them about 45 minutes or so, but they had the car open before the rental car company could get someone over there. So based on the fact that my nephiew could break into the car, I'm thinking it may just be better to have the car unlocked at all times. That way you can never lock your keys in the car, right?
We took the food from Los Pepes out to the table by the pool and devoured the food in record time. With the awesome food, the wonderful setting and a yummy batch of fresh margaritas, I don't think I've ever had a better meal in my life. We cleaned up (have I told you how much I love having a dishwasher in the villa????) and then spent some time poolside.
The rest of the days was spent being lazy bums at the villa, enjoying the bay, the pool, the hammocks, and the view. The neighborhood pooch (Annie) came over and visited us for a while, conveniently timed around dinner time...Speaking of dinner, sis made dinner at the villa (chicken enchiladas) so we didn't need to go out and we had leftover Lucy's in the freezer which took care of dessert. We cleaned up, did yet another load of dishes (LOVE this dishwasher!!!) and then called it a night. I headed up to bed, listened to Luigi our lizzard room mate talk to his friends, and then headed off to sleep being thankful for yet another wonderful day in paradise...except for the scorpion of couse.
_____________________________
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Live from Soliman Bay - 3/26/2012 12:01:31 PM
|
|
|
Kwing
Posts: 7749
Joined: 12/23/2005
From: Ohio
Status: offline
|
Sounds like you found your slice of heaven
|
|
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Printable Version
