Riviera Maya, Wedding, Home!

I’m writing the last bit of this blog from home!

On Monday May 6 Abram and I took a four-hour bus ride from Merida to Cancun, picked up a rental car, met our daughters who had flown in from Zurich and New York, and headed south along the Caribbean coast to the Aventuras Akumal beach. The 75-mile coastline was named “Riviera Maya” in 1999 by a tourism marketing person who declared that the old descriptor - the Cancun-Tulum Corridor - wasn’t sexy enough.

Akumal is 65 miles south of Cancun. It’s a series of five beaches across the road from Akumal Puebla, located between Playa del Carmen 20 miles to the north and Tulum 10 miles south. We came here half a dozen times on family vacations between 1995 and 2007; it’s always been a low-key spot, which suits us. We hadn’t been here for 17 years and were worried it might have been over-developed like Playa and Tulum. But we were thrilled - “our” beach is almost unchanged. A high point of the trip! Full happiness!! In fact, Akumal has gotten better. A beach bar and turtle camp. A few more amenities - an ATM, a wider selection of taquerias and produce markets in town, a cute little eco-park for kids and a cenote right off the main drag in town. More schools, a big community park and basketball court. No need to go into Tulum at all.

“Our” backyard on “our” beach. ❤️

Sarah kayaking out to sea:

Akumal means Place of Turtles, and from May through November eggs are laid in nests all along the beach. Turtle Camp houses volunteers who take nighttime shifts monitoring the nests and install markers to warn people to stay away from them. The endangered turtles are one of the main reasons the Aventuras Akumal beach remains undeveloped.

Marking a new nest:

Only red lights are allowed on the beach at night so as not to confuse the newly-hatched turtles, because they run towards the light of the moon shining on the water after they leave the nest.

There’s quite a variety of flora and fauna on the Riviera Maya. It’s jungle right up to the beginning of the sand. A few pics, including a dead puffer fish on the beach (and an image from the Internet of a live one) and a shot of the sargassum seaweed that has proliferated over the past 13 years:

There are the remains of Mayan pyramids nearby in Tulum and Coba - we’ve visited them both in past visits so I didn’t go again; Abram took his sister and niece to the ones in Tulum. Sad to say that the easy and simple entrance from the old days has been “improved” to a hellacious experience of long walks in the blazing sun with insistent vendors and unclear concept of where to buy tickets grrr. (Not my photos)

Tulum:

Coba:

After three relaxing days in Akumal we drove up the road to a fancy resort just north of Playa for our niece Lily’s wedding - a very fun and festive way to wrap up this travel adventure, with family and friends celebrating Lily and Tucker!

Richmans fancied up:

Wedding Weekend included Mothers Day - so wonderful!

Phoebe had to get back to work and flew home May 12, but Sarah had more vacation time so we went back to Aventuras Akumal for another three days. Here are a few more pics of the beach, the town, and a cenote right at the edge of town (cenote pics by Sarah and Abram):

On May 15 we dropped Sarah at the bus station in Playa for her trip to Isla Holbox and went up to Aeropuerto Internacional de Cancún for our nonstop flight to SFO - 13 months and 3 days after we departed.

Now we begin unpacking, seeing friends, eating all our favorite foods, enjoying Petaluma and Northern California. And guess what? There will be one more blog… a month-by-month recap of Abram and Val’s Excellent Adventure… look for that in a couple of weeks.

It’s good to travel and it’s good to come home!