Isla Mujeres

An island just thirty minutes off the shore of Cancun, Isla Mujeres is perfect for a little relaxation. There isn't the huge hotels and package tourism of Cancun, and the food, beaches and bars are definitely some of our favourites. There's also diving and the option of renting golf carts to get around!

Sunset from Playa Norte

Getting There

To get to Isla Mujeres catch a ferry from Gran Puerto, It's 300 pesos return trip. This is apparently cheaper than going from the hotel zone.

Where To Eat

The majority of the good restaurants seem to be on Miguel Hidalgo in the centre of town – we also went to Mango Cafe which although walkable, isn't a very pleasant walk and you'd be better off with your own transport.

• Lola Valentinos - Amazing Margeritas and food - slightly expensive
• Mango Cafe – great bacon and hot cakes, plus refillable coffee!
• Angelos - Awesome woodfired pizza
• Roosters - good for breakfast

Things to do

• Golf Carts - for about 200 for two hours to 1000 per day, we thought it would be a lot cheaper in Holbox which was untrue. If I was going again I would definitely hire on for a few hours.
• Playa Norte - Sunsets and Relaxing (though we found the sunsets at Holbox to be way better!)
• Diving - Underwater Museum, we didn't go but it looks awesome.
• Torturanga - a turtle farm, it's apparently to help the turtles but they didn't look very happy! Wouldn't recommend.

Where we stayed

We stayed at Hotel Casa Azul: ended up being about 103 USD – which was pretty expensive

Beware tax of 16%- which wasn’t entirely clear when booking through booking.com

The roof was clean and the only reviews that complained didn’t like the shower curtain door for the bathroom - overall we thought it was great.

Journal

We shared a taxi from our hostel with a Chilean couple we’d met at the hostel and done a few dives with. It would have been nice to do this more often as it would have saved us some money! We got the 12 o’clock boat to Playa and sat on the top deck while being serenaded for a Mexican band. While we were making the crossing a guy tried to sell us a fast shuttle for 450 pesos each – that didn’t even include the boat fare to Isla Mujeres, it was just to Cancun! He tried to tell us that the bus was going to be 177 pesos each just to Cancun central then we’d need to get a Taxi to the port which could easily be 10 dollars or so. He seemed pretty sure and as we were quite so sure that made him more convincing. That being said 900 pesos is crazy expensive. So, despite his insistence that we were getting a good deal “You won’t even need to wait”, we stuck to our guns.

Ultramar entertainment on the ferry to Isla Mujeres

On the way from Valladolid to Playa we’d been dropped off at the “Alternate” bus station which meant we needed to get a taxi to the ferry terminal – on the map however there was an ADO terminal right next to the ferry. We checked out the bus terminal when we got off the boat and for 140 pesos we were on the next bus to Cancun centro leaving in 10 minutes – glad we didn’t trust our shuttle salesman! The bus takes about an hour or so – most of which I slept for and Kate apparently looked out the window at all the resorts with fire coming out of them… So I assume that means she slept too.

At Cancun centro we hopped in a taxi – the price to Puerto Gran was $80 pesos. Unfortunately the taxi man had a laminated sheet with prices, and in life you can’t disagree with anything that is laminated! I think we might have got $70 pesos. Incidentally, on the way back we got it for 60. Though that guy didn’t have anything laminated. There are at least two ports in Cancun – one in the hotel zone and the other about 4 km north of the there – We went to this one and supposedly it’s cheaper. and also quicker – boats go every half an hour and are 300 pesos return – a lot more than to Isla Cozumel as there is no competition – just Ultramar. Kate was outraged at the price! I wasn’t because I still can’t divide by 13.

We caught the boat across and could see Isla Mujeres just across the water and further down the coast the monstrosity that is Cancun – though we landed here a few weeks earlier, we hadn’t actually been in to the main tourist area. It looked pretty horrific even from a distance! Again we were serenaded – this time by an older gentleman on his guitar. Getting in to the centre of Isla Mujeres we weren’t completely sure where our hotel was as it was so new it didn’t appear to be on any maps – possibly we’d been ripped off! We navigated our way to roughly where we thought it would be and there it was. A very thin corridor that went back to a thin staircase with a small table next to it -  that was the reception. The lady informed us that our room had somehow been taken, I assume it was a mix up but she said we could take a twin room which was actually bigger – we didn’t trust he entirely but we took a look at the room and were pleasantly surprised. It was actually two double beds! We could have it for our original price. Jackpot!

We dropped our stuff, Kate had a quick shower and then we headed out to look for some food as it was already 5 and we’d skipped lunch. We turned a few corners back to one of the streets we’d walked past that had a lot of restaurants and bars. Kate had found a place called Lola Valentinos online that looked really nice and apparently had great margaritas. We found it at the end of the street and the waiters didn’t heckle us too much which is often the case. The restaurant is really pretty with little fairy lights everywhere and a terracotta tiled roof. We both ordered margaritas and they were indeed spectacular – definitely my favourite drink of the trip so far! The food was also great – Kate got some pork sliders (they were an appetiser but it was more than enough), and I got the burger, which was also very nice. Definitely would go back, though it was slightly above the backpacker budget.

Kate with two very tasty Margaritas at Lola Valentinos

As we were eating at the restaurant we could see the sun slowly coming down towards Playa Norte – the beach at the top of the island. Isla Mujeres is famous for it’s sunsets so we wandered up to the beach to see if it was going to be a spectacular one. We sat at the beach while was quite busy, but not too much so, and watched the sun go down. It was very pretty – though not spectacular on this occasion. We stopped off at a bar on the way back which had a very nice terrace. I ordered a couple of beers and Kate went for a vodka, lime and soda. My beer was great – though I’m not quite sure they know what a pint is. Kate got smirnoff vodka in her drink – and so, it was average! The bar was very nice and didn’t show any sports, which means there weren’t any excited Americans “Whooping”. We headed back to our hotel to catch up on some blogging – we had Wifi in the room!!

Day 1

We only had one day on Isla Mujeres, that said there wasn’t really anything we wanted to do there. Just have a look around. There was the underwater museum that I would have liked to see, though that required diving and I was all dived out for now. We had a bit of a lie-in and a rest as we hadn’t had one for a while! For brunch we decided to walk towards the otherside of the island – the southern end – to a place called Mango Cafe, which apparently did nice hotcakes!

We set out walking down the very nice streets and as it was shady it was very pleasant. If it had stayed like that for the whole walk the 3km would have been a delight. Unfortunately, the houses stopped and we were soon walking along a very thin pavement that skirted the airport on the island – no shade, and lots of lizards moving around in the bushes. It’s very popular to rent golf buggies and go round the island on those though they were far too expensive for our liking, around 700+ pesos for the day, the prices of Cancun had clearly spread across the channel. We were hoping for the walk down the island to be along the beach – though the road is separated by houses that all must have their little piece of heaven – for us we got hell!

We reached Mango Cafe after about 40 minutes, thought it felt like longer in the sun. There’s not air-con, but there are plenty of fans to cool the weary traveller. Kate ordered a bottomless coffee (I’m not sure if I was allowed but I had a few sips too), I ordered a mango juice. The coffee is laced with cinnamon, it was nice, but I couldn’t drink too much – that’s probably why they allow it to be bottomless! The mango juice, was nice, but a bit small. For food Kate got the breakfast Quesadilla, and I got the hotcakes with egg, bacon and maple syrup. Yum! The food was really good, as was the WiFi which meant we could double check if there was anything else we wanted to do on the island. We found Torturanja which is a turtle sanctuary and it had a few good reviews – though also a few bad ones. It was only 30 pesos so we thought we should give it a try. It was another 3km to the sancturary so we decided to get a taxi.

We knew it was about 60 pesos from town to the sancturary, and we were half way. So of course we thought 30 pesos would make sense. The first taxi drive we asked offered us 60 pesos, no way! muy caro! no lejos! I think we were saying “very expensive”, “not far”. He wasn’t budging. Then another taxi came round the corner and the first taxi driver hailed him himself. This has actually happened with us a couple of times and I’m not entirely sure what is happening. I think some taxi drivers just refuse to take the cheaper fares and ask the other drivers if they would take it – often someone says yes pretty quickly. We got 40 pesos from the next taxi driver which we were happy with.

We got to Torturanja and it was already pretty crowded, mostly with what looked like tour groups which is never a good sign. The sanctuary is just one room with 6 pools full of turtles. They have a bit of information about them but not much. They all seem pretty crowded and reasonably depressed about being in such a small space. There are a couple of albino turtles which were interesting. Though overall I was a little confused why these turtles couldn’t just be released. They looked fine. Perhaps there is some sort of breeding program, if that’s the case it seems like quite a cruel one!

They also have a dolphin outside, again, some of the reviews complained that it looked pretty unhappy, I have to agree. There is a little board explaining how the dolphin was injured and saved. Though I’m not sure it’s fate was much better. It looked very sad. We went out to catch a taxi back to the town centre and it took us a while to find one. We found more luck waiting outside on the road, however it still took 10 minutes, and as we were standing out in the sun we didn’t have much leverage with the fare. We got 70 pesos back to the centre which ended up being a good deal as we asked him to drop us at Playa Norte which is the very far edge of town. From there we sat on the beach. I read and Kate sunbathed and had a swim. It was quite busy, not too busy, but one of the busiest places we’d been so far. After about an hour we made our way back to the hotel to shower before heading out for dinner.

For dinner we went to Angelo’s Pizzeria – which was on the same street as the restaurant and bar from the night before. It had wood fired pizzas which looked very appealing. As it was pretty expensive we decided to share a pizza which was more than adequate. Again, I would recommend it. Afterwards we went back to the hotel to pack as we were hoping to be up early to have breakfast before leaving for Isla Holbox the next day.

Day 2

The next morning we got up early so we could grab breakfast at Roosters. Kate had the yogurt and fruit, I had the breakfast sandwich which were both very good. The coffee was also good though I’ve now started to have black coffee/an Americano as the milk is always UHT - even if they say it's fresh. We checked out of Casa Azul around 10:30 to go and catch the 11 o'clock ferry back to Cancun and to make the 12 o'clock bus to Holbox.