by Gerard and Cindy Braud

The city of Tulum stands sentinel on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean’s bluest blue and the greenest green seas. As a single image, the Mayan ruins found there represent the wonders of this ancient place that feels like a second home to us.

In 1981, getting there involved risks. First, Russian sailors lowered wooden rowboats into the sea to motor us to the fishing village of Playa del Carmen on Mexico’s Yucatan coast. Then, hot, dusty tour buses traveled at breakneck speeds along a two-lane limestone highway, bringing tourists to the only attraction around. Along the way, the resort of Acumal embodied the splendor of Mexican opulence, with a palm-lined beach that encapsulated every postcard image of paradise.

Twenty-five years later, Tulum is the only place that remains unchanged along the Mexican Caribbean. From Playa del Carmen to Tulum, modern highways are lined with nearly 50 high-end, all-inclusive resorts, popular with Europe’s premier vacationers. Most arrive 35 miles to the north at Cancun’s ever-expanding airport. Cancun, Playa del Carmen and the island of Cozumel represent a unique tourist triangle—each attracting a unique set of vacationers.

Cancun

Cancun was the first to blossom in the late ’70s, with American-style high-rise hotels. Back then, Cozumel was the rustic, premier scuba diving mecca of the Caribbean and Playa del Carmen was an insignificant fishing village that was barely a dot on the map.

Our one-year anniversary brought us to Cancun in 1982. The coarse beach sands and aquamarine sea let us savor what we had only sampled the year before. Like most tourists then, we split our time between the beach and the markets. But even with all its natural beauty, we felt Cancun was too commercialized, too much of a tourist trap. It attracted loud Americans and Mexican scammers trying to sell you everything at inflated prices, leading to the inevitable bargaining for a lower price. While Cancun remains beautiful and popular with many folks from our area, we’ve sought out the roads and beaches less traveled, away from the high rises, straw markets and spring-break wannabes.

Cozumel

In contrast, Cozumel is like the shy sister, more beautiful to the eye and in spirit. Anchored by the town of San Miguel, locals still gather in the town square to dance on Sunday evenings, just as they did on our first trip in 1983. Shops and restaurants around the square still close for siesta. The people of Cozumel are polite and almost bashful, yet love a good laugh, poking fun at the Mexican-Gringo relationship that sustains this island. The sign at Ernesto’s Fajita Factory says, “You pay for your drinks and we charge you for your food.” A bronze plaque outside the original Carlos & Charley’s says, “The customer is always wrong.”

Before children, we traveled to Cozumel twice a year to scuba dive. Diving here is among the best in the world. Disappointingly, as writers and divers wove tales of incredible undersea caverns and walls covered with coral and sponges hundreds of feet deep, more people took the plunge. As the dive industry boomed, inexperienced divers kicked and mutilated these undersea gardens, destroying much of their luster.

Cozumel hotels seldom meet the expectations of the posh, but always suffice for the adventurous. The Intercontinental Hotel remains at the top of our list, with a private beach featuring snorkeling and diving right from the shore.

Following siesta, afternoons are best spent searching for the perfect margarita. A road circling the island is dotted with remote beaches, each with its own bar and restaurant. Hurricane Wilma ravaged many of our preferred stops, including our most favorite bar on the globe, Mezcalito’s.
Owned by a Gringo from Austin, the bar is a thatched beach hut with outhouses and no electricity or running water. But it does feature the most incredible beach burgers and margaritas known to man or woman. Ice is trucked in daily to keep the ’ritas cold. Traveling east from Mezcalito’s there is nothing but ocean until you bump into Africa.

Mingling with the locals and dining out are always favorite ways to spend the breezy evenings in Cozumel. We’ve found many outstanding restaurants on this spit of sand that feature incredible Mexican classics and great fresh seafood. Cozumel was home to the original Carlos & Charlie’s.
Few places on the planet partied as hard as this non-air-conditioned upstairs dive with wood-chip floors, tended by waiters in black leather aprons, who were a hit with all the women. On any given night the staff had as much fun as the patrons.

The nightly parties were so legendary that a conglomerate turned it into a franchise with Senior Frogs. Sadly, the original location was shuttered and a new, glitzy version was built as the anchor to an upscale cruise ship terminal just outside of town.

Comprised of the newly wed, over-fed and nearly dead, cruise ships have stolen a bit of Cozumel’s charm. Cancun-style shops and hucksters greet cruisers as they disembark. Once they reach their quota of t-shirts, silver jewelry and tequila, the drunken tourists usually depart by nightfall, handing the island back to the divers and locals.

Playa Del Carmen

The cruise ship invasion eventually led us to spend more time in Playa del Carmen. Playa’s beaches are still among the most beautiful we’ve ever seen. There are great places to eat and drink right on the beach, many owned by Europeans and Gringos who, like us, can’t get enough of this village. The nearby all-inclusive resorts offer complete beach privacy and so many amenities that you almost have no need to leave the grounds. But the allure of Playa’s charm makes it a great place for an evening stroll, an afternoon snack or casual shopping.

The all-inclusive resorts each tend to cater to a specific segment of the European population, especially the Germans, Italians and Spanish. We tried a half-dozen, but none we’ve tried compare to Iberostar. Iberostar Resorts consistently remain our first choice for all-inclusives, both in the Yucatan and other Caribbean destinations. Today there are two Iberostar Resorts in the Playa del Carmen area and one in Cozumel.

Non-stop meals, open bars, huge pools, classic Mexican architecture, constant recreational activities, private palm-lined beaches and top-notch services are part of this pay-one-price, eat-and-drink-all-you-want resort chain. In contrast to Cancun’s high rises, Iberostar delicately carves out pathways to the beach through the Yucatan jungle. Carefully protecting the environment, lodging is divided into many small two- and three-story buildings that never exceed the height of the trees. Appearing as thatch-roofed stucco bungalows on the outside, inside they are large, well- decorated upscale suites. Just a short taxi ride from Playa, Iberostar has become our most recommended resort on the mainland.

Despite significant damage during the 2005 hurricane season, the entire Yucatan is recovering quickly and is open for business. The Mexican people are quick to do whatever backbreaking work it takes to get up and running again. Although prices have been greatly “Americanized” from their once Mexican bargain prices, the Yucatan is still our number one addiction for escapism. Whether you like the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Cancun, the all-inclusive privacy of Playa del Carmen, or the quaintness of Cozumel, the Mexican Caribbean tops our list of great destinations.