Beach Paradise (Xpu-Ha Beach Club)

Member Name: zoe_page_1

Product:	Xpu-Ha Beach Club
Date:	19/08/08 (122 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gorgeous deserted beach, clear, clear water

Disadvantages: Mosquitoes

So, I'm in MEXICO, on the Mayan Riviera (Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Cozumel)...

The 3 of us go to Xpu-Ha after finding it in a guidebook. It is pronounced sh-poo-ha but despite the dodgy name it is supposed to be an idyllic paradise.

We set off about 9.30am to walk to the bus station on 5th Avenue in Playa del Carmen, from where it is a 30 minute / 13 Peso trip. The bus is on time and the driver kindly tells us when we to get off since we would have no idea, but what the books said about you being dropped at the side of the road is unfortunately true. We wait for the bus to leave and then gingerly cross the busy dual carriageway to a swish hotel on the other side, the Xpu-Ha palace. We ask the men on the gates how to get to the beach but they don't let us onto their fancy-ass grounds, and tell us the public beach is a 15 min walk away. At that very moment a taxi shows up, dropping off some guests, and after some non-existent haggling we talk him into taking us to the Beach Club we had in mind. He doesn't quite know where it is but agrees to find it for 50 pesos. We hop in and he starts driving the wrong way (back to Playa) to turn round and then whizzes us up the road for about 5 minutes until we see it. Then he has to turn round again to drop us off, but he does take us all the way up the dirt path, once we each pay the lady at the gate our 25 peso / £1.25 entrance fee.

It is 10.45am and there is no one there except for a few barmen setting up. We walk through the restaurant onto the beach and it is the most amazing place, even better than Cozumel. The sea is 4 shades of blue, the sand is golden and silky, and the sun is blazing. We spin around on the beach until we get giddy and then strip off and dive into the water. It is bliss. We stay in for ages and eventually other people start to arrive, but all day there are no more than 25 of us on this stretch of beach. There are some cute local babies playing with buckets and spades. It's just like my childhood, except I had Blackpool and the Irish sea whereas they have the Mayan Riviera and the Caribbean.

We spend the day dipping in and out of the water, dozing on sunbeds, sitting under the thatched parasol things, swinging in the hammocks. I go to sit on these fancy beach chairs, next to double sun loungers, but quickly get sent back to my commoners plastic lounger as apparently the fancy ones are for rent. When we have lunch we see the price for them on the menu - 100 pesos per day. This explains why the initial entrance fee was so low, but we don't mind the basic loungers, and there are toilets and a bar and a shower which we nicely don't get charged extra for. We stay all day soaking up the sun and don't set off back until gone 5pm, at which point we settle our bill and get a refund on the initial entrance fee since we lunched there (or rather the girls do since they did.. I had bread I brought with me and a diet coke, which doesn't meet their minimum-spend-for-refund).

We walk back along the dusty road and literally get swarmed by mosquitoes despite being drenched in Deet. We are slapping each others' backs as we walk, and not in a Well Done, Jolly Good Show kinda way. At the main road we try to flag down busses and colectivos with little success, until just as we're about to risk the walk of death along the road to the proper bus stop, a colectivo stops. It is 15 pesos to get back and twice as quick as this morning's bus trip even if my back does still straight to the leather seats. Back in Playa we need sustenance so stop at Ciao Gelato for ice creams before coming home to shower off the buckets of sand we are still caked it. It has been an amazing, chilled day, and the weather was perfect, a real bonus considering the rain showers we had off and on all week.

Summary: A gorgeous beach near the tourist traps but beautifully tourist-free