The collection of life-sized human casts resemble an underwater Pompeii
Ah, Cancun. The sun. The beaches. The shopping. The tequila shots. The drunken college kids on spring break. The massive underwater sculpture park?
Even some of those familiar with the attractions Cancun offers above sea level are surprised at what they can find underneath it: a museum. The Museo Subacuatico de Arte, to be specific.
Make yourself at home. Shirts and shoes are strictly optional.
Spot Cool Stuff has not seen the movie How Stella Got Her Groove Back. But we’ve seen where Stella got her groove back — at My Time ‘N’ Place, a wonderful little cottage bed and breakfast-y type of place on the northern coast of Jamaica.
My Time ‘N’ Place owes its existence to the movie industry. And to its gregarious and entrepreneurial owner, Tony.
Arranging a trip to the Caribbean online? There are lots of general travel websites—Travelocity, Expedia and Funjet Vacations among them—that cover the Caribbean along with the rest of the planet. But many of the best deals, and much of the most useful planning information, are found on websites that specialize in the Caribbean. Here are our countdown review of the five best:
Somehow, kids make it look easy the first time they hop on a SurfStream simulated wave.
For such a sun-drenched, humidity-soaked, tourist-filled region, the Caribbean has surprisingly few really great water parks. Perhaps the best of them, and certainly the largest, is at the all-inclusive Beaches Resort in the Turks & Caicos. It’s there that Pirates Island beacons the young — and the young at heart.
Want to visit the Caribbean, all expenses paid? Lynx—a brand of men’s grooming products known as Axe outside of Ireland, the UK and Australia—is giving away seven trips to a party on “Chaos Island.”
To win, participants race to solve clues that are part of a sort of online scavenger hunt. Six different races will be unlocked between August 12th and September 1st 2012. The winner of each race gets a free trip for themselves and a friend. The seventh trip goes to a lucky someone who doesn’t win, but successfully completes, at least one of the six races.
The video below sets it all up in dramatic fashion:
The vast majority of Isla Holbox—an island north of Cancun off of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula—is an untouched nature preserve. Only the eastern most tip of the island is permanently inhabited. That’s where you’ll find the few square blocks of sandy streets that make up Holbox town. Most residents get around by walking barefoot. (The island has no rocks). Those few who drive pilot golf carts, not cars.
Leaving Holbox town you can walk along the beach, past a few tiny shops, fishing boats and a ramshackle beach hut that doubles as a “slow food” restaurant. Eventually you’ll reach the last place on the beach, a cluster of buildings with white stucco walls and thatched roofs. This is where you’ll find the best accommodations on the island: Las Nubes de Holbox Hotel
Most vacationers flying into Cancun International Airport head directly to the glamorous shopping, high-rise beach resorts, bustling nightlife and traffic-filled streets found in Cancun’s Zona Hotelera. But there’s a nearby destination that includes none of that — but so much more.
On Isla Holbox, an island north of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the shopping consists of a few shacks peddling jewelry, sandals, beer and the like. The island’s handful of hotels are small and don’t rise much higher than palm trees. The nightlife revolves around quiet beach bars where barefoot patrons are as likely to sit on swings or hammocks as they are on seats. As for the traffic, the island has no cars. However, we’ve been told that on occasion two of the island’s golf cart taxis meet up at an intersection.
Now, now, NOW!
Our captain is yelling while gesturing to us to hurry overboard. Overcome by his sense of urgency, we jump flippers first off our boat into warm Caribbean waters. There’s a second of disorientation. Then the water bubbles created by our fall dissipate and the view out of our snorkel mask clears. And what a view it is: the wide open mouth of the world’s largest fish heading directly towards us.
We are swimming with whale sharks off the coast of Isla Holbox, Mexico. Our trip was all arranged using Pay With Points, available through American Express Travel. Our challenge from American Express: to turn 150,000 Membership Rewards Points into a trip for two with WOW factor.
Being underwater, staring directly into the enormous mouth of a whale shark an arm’s length away—that’s a memory-making travel experience with no shortage of WOW.
