Introduction

This site chronicles Ann and Ross' trip to the Mayan Riviera March 22-29, 2002. Here you will find about half of the 500+ photos that we took using our new Olympus C700 10x zoom digital camera, arranged into daily albums. We've also included our journal entries, and some travel notes about the area. Finally, be sure to use our Tour Guide and read more about our adventures in the Mayan Riviera.

Quintana Roo

The Mayan Riviera is located in Quintana Roo, the Mexican state which occupies the eastern part of the Yucatan peninsula, and boasts the only Mexican coastline on the Caribbean Sea. The state stretches from Cancun (pop. 500,000) in the north to the capital of Chetumal in the south, on the border with Belize. Quintana Roo is growing quickly, with almost 1 million of Mexico's 100 million inhabitants generating a whopping 32% of Mexico's GDP. Most residents south of Cancun descend from the original Mayans, speak Mayan as a first language, not Spanish, and are quite a bit shorter in stature than northern Mexicans.

Mayan Riviera

While Cancun is very famous, the Mayan Riviera to the south is not as well known. The Mayan Riviera stretches 100km from Puerto Morelos, the first major town about 30km south of Cancun, to the ruins at Tulum. The area boasts hundreds of resorts, including some of the world's largest, totalling about 80,000 rooms, equal in number to Cancun. The Riviera is also known for excellent SCUBA diving and snorkeling, its Mayan ruins such as those found at Tulum, the limestone topography which produces numerous cenotes (underground river sinkholes), and its eco-parks at Xcaret, Xel-Ha and Tres Rios.

The 'Riviera Maya' is shown as the yellow area in the map to the right, and is connected by a multi-lane highway, Mexico 307. Major cenotes are denoted by a 'C' symbol, although minor cenotes can be found in many places including the resort at which we stayed.

Several of the area's attractions are written about in our Tour Guide.

Playa del Carmen and Caracol Village

Near the centre of the Riviera is its largest city, Playa del Carmen (pop. ~75,000), which is just south of Caracol Village, the all-inclusive resort at which we stayed. Playa del Carmen is the location of the passenger ferry to the famous island of Cozumel, and includes a sizable tourist hotel and pedestrian-only shopping zone. More information on the city is available here.