Akumal

Akumal is a wonderful town just north of Tulum, Mexico. It is a beautiful area with great restaurants, dive shops, bars, and shops. We had heard wonderful things about it and knew that it was famous for sea turtles.


We took the collectivo from Tulum to Akumal for about 20 pesos per person. The new rule now is that any child over 4 pays the full fare, but they are entitled to a seat. Kids under 4 can sit in your lap at no cost. The collectivos are white vans with an orange or blue stripe on the side. There are also some that have a black stripe and those ones are fine too, they just go further south then Tulum to Carrillo Puerto from Playa del Carmen. The ones with the orange or blue stripe just go to Tulum centro and Playa del Carmen (and anywhere on 307 in between). These vans are very nice and run very frequently. All you have to do to catch one is stand on the side of 307(the main road) and they will pick you up.

After getting out of the collectivo we walked a short 5 minutes into the town. It was very cute and I could see that it split into many areas and I cannot wait to go back and explore the town more. But for now, we were focused on beach time. We walked the pathway to the beach and came upon the opening to the bay. It was beautiful.



The beach at Akumal bay was amazing. With the boats anchored around the bay and people able to walk 30 feet with the water at legs, it was perfect for kids. They were able to jump and play and swim around in as much safety as one could provide. The sand in the bay was perfect- once you got past the rocky part in the beginning.
And you could stand their and watch these large sand colored fish swim around and every now and then there would be these silver "flying fish" That is what Ruben called them. But the skim along the top of the water for like 15-20 feet.

There were so many people with their snorkel masks and it did not take long to figure out why. There are also a lot of sea turtles. We did not get to see these as we do not have snorkel equipment. Something we need to change because there is just way to much cool stuff to see in the water and such clean water to see through.



There were some really nice looking beach restaurants and beach clubs. We are on a budget so we did not get anything at any place this time. This time was a picnic trip. Once thing I noticed and I loved was that the recycle containers were far before the garbage can. They were broken down into categories (organic & paper, plastic bottles, glass) And that pretty much covers almost everything consumed by people hanging on a beach in the Mayan Rivera. This made the garbage can able to be small. I really loved that.

I cannot wait to go back to Akumal when we can walk around the whole area more.

The colors as you approach the water are beautiful.