InPuertoMorelos.com

We get questions all the time asking where a specific vacation rental is in Puerto Morelos. When we first came here in 2001, the town only consisted of two districts, the Port and La Colonia. Years later Villas Uno was added and later Villas Dos. In the last five years or so, many more neighbourhoods have sprung up. We created this map because we haven’t been able to find this information anywhere else, and we discovered that there were many more districts than what we thought there were.

Now we don’t claim to be cartographers, but this map will give you a very good idea of where things are in town. So the next time you plan to visit Puerto Morelos, you will have a better idea of where to stay.

With the growth of these new areas came the growth in vacation rentals that are available. If you book a place, it’s important to know where it is. A lot of places advertise their place as being “5 minutes from the beach” regardless of how far they are from it.

For example, we got an email in February (our highest of high seasons) from a woman who had rented a place in Bucaneros asking us to help her find new accommodations because she felt like she was too isolated. Bucaneros is a gated community on the highway almost 6 km (3.7 miles) from the town square. The district has no restaurants, no shops, no public transportation, and not an easy walk into town. You need either a car or a taxi to get anywhere. Now that may be a nice place to live, but may not be what you are looking for as a tourist.

To give you an idea of distances, we have created the following chart with distances from the main town square to all of the neighbourhoods on our map. We picked the closest point and the furthest point that you could possibly in these areas. For example, if you are staying on the beachside you could be steps from the main town square or you could be 1.2 km away. If you were staying in Villas La Playa the closest you are to the square, or the beach for that matter is 3.7 km or as much as 4.6 km away.

All the neighbourhoods are accessible by car and taxi. Most are accessible on foot or by bike, but we don’t recommend biking or walking on the busy Highway 307. Some areas are accessible by collectivo (city buses) which run a limited route around town.

So next time you are looking at a vacation rental in Puerto Morelos, make sure you ask which neighbourhood it is in and find out if that area meets your needs. We want everyone to have a wonderful stay in Puerto Morelos.

Today (June 8, 2020) we are officially moving from red light to orange light on the four stoplight system that has been put in place in our area for Covid-19. The new light means we can open up ever so slightly. The beautiful beach remains closed but restaurants and cafes are now allowed to open and seat up to 30% of their capacity. You can read a detailed description of what is allowed to open here.

Essential services like grocery stores can now be open up to 9:00 PM under the new rules, instead of the current 6:00 PM. This applies to food deliveries as well. A restaurant source tells us that they will be allowed to be open until 9:00 at night, but not serve alcohol after 5:00.

We still need to wear masks and only one person from each family can go to the grocery store.

After 12 weeks in self-quarantine, we are very excited that things are starting to loosen up. The first cafe to announce that they will be reopening is Lola y Moya. They have been open for delivery and takeout during the shutdown and will continue to do that, but will also now add 30% of their tables into the mix.

We chatted with Eduardo, owner of Al Chimichurri and they will be open beginning Tuesday at 30% capacity. Sunday they were cleaning, painting and freshening things up. We look forward to a nice big steak!

I just took a little bike ride around the port side. A few places like one of the T@cos.com locations has put their tables out on the street again. A couple of cafes like Le Cafe de Amancia and Local Coffee + Shop were open, but I saw no tables out. Mem Al Mare had its decorative bike out hanging again and was definitely prepping to reopen. Construction at The Fives is underway again and there is more traffic out on the streets.

I extended my bike ride to the Colonia. A lot of places had chairs and tables out and others were preparing. Micheladas del Semáforo had chairs and tables occupied in the early afternoon, they are running special hours, 11am-5pm to conform to the new rules. A few small stores were open too.

But not every owner is opening right away. We talked to a few, like Arturo at El Campanario (open for delivery and takeout – dining room to open June 16) and Karla at El Pirata and they are going to take a “wait and see” approach. Anthony over at La Sirena will be opening the airy rooftop area later in the week (Friday if all goes well). El Nicho is also open for delivery and take-out only right now.

Marco at I Wanna Pizza says they will continue to be open on a reduced schedule, Thursday to Sunday, for delivery and takeout only.

Under the stoplight system, bars and nightclubs are not allowed to open until there is a green light. So we are not sure what this means for most of our beach bars as many of them are restaurants as well. And with the beach remaining closed, it looks like we will have to wait a while longer before we see these establishments open.

Alma Libre Bookstore will be opening this week. They have taken advantage of the Covid-lull to renovate, and they now have air conditioning! If you have read (and reread) all of your books while in quarantine, you have a great local place to restock.

The other big news in Puerto Morelos is that the remodelling of our town square has begun. This controversial project, which was set to begin last February, at the height of the tourist season, was delayed due to push-back from the community. Many residents like the square and feel that the funds would be better spent elsewhere in the town. As a protest and to show their love for the square, a local group occupied the park and staged entertainment every night to the delight of visitors and residents alike. This worked well until the Covid-19 lockdown forced them to leave.

Late last Thursday night, during a tropical storm, city officials moved in with heavy equipment and began to tear down the square in Puerto Morelos and replace it with a new, modernized one. State police were called in to keep protesters away from the site.

So we say a sad farewell to our town square and we will have to wait to see what the new one will be like.

Last Friday we were visited by Tropical Storm Cristobal. We were on the outer edges of the storm so we had some high winds and a lot of rain. No damage was done and our beach was left looking beautiful.

That’s all for now. We will try to keep you up to date with what’s happening in your favourite little beach town. Until then, subscribe to our newsletter and when you want to visit Puerto Morelos, make sure you stay with us at Casa de los Viajeros.

Since many of you are not here right now (and we can tell by the lack of people on the streets), we thought we would do a quick post to show you what Puerto Morelos is like during Covid-19 times.

Our beach is closed! (and has been for two months!)

We are currently in Phase 3 of the lockdown. This means that only essential services are open. This includes grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware stores etc. Everything closes at 6:00PM.

Unfortunately for us and all of Mexico, it was determined that brewing beer was not an essential service, so after some panic buying, the stores quickly ran out of suds. We never had a shortage of wine or liquor…or toilet paper for that matter.

Our neighbouring state of Yucatan went completely dry for a couple of months, only recently selling any kind of hooch again in most cities. (Valladolid and Progresso remain dry). Thankfully, June saw the breweries in Mexico crank up again and we are slowly getting our beer back here in PM.

There are also a handful of restaurants open for take-out and delivery. They are not allowed to be open past 6 pm, which makes for very quiet evenings. The days are pretty quiet too.

Everyone in town remains friendly, we are slowly getting better at recognizing old friends and neighbours behind their masks. The population remains in good spirits, though looking forward to an end to all this. Hugs and handshakes are off the table for now, which is very strange for us.

Officially, if you don’t have reason to be on the streets you must be home. When you are out of your house, even driving alone in your car, you are required to wear a mask. A mask and a shot of hand sanitizer is required before entering any grocery store.

The state and town do not have a firm opening date. We have been told that we will be able to do a slow reopening, including the beach in the second week of June, but there are few details.

There are many people waiting and wanting to go back to work. Tourism is the top employer in our state of Quintana Roo and with more than 100,000 hotel rooms in our state currently closed, this means a lot of people do not have jobs.

A lot of local folks are inventing their own jobs. Suddenly we have several delivery companies in town that will do your grocery shopping for you, even making runs to Cancun and Playa del Carmen. Many amateur chefs and bakers are selling food out of their homes, everything from tamales to doughnuts can be purchased and delivered. Many are sewing masks, some featuring Mexican designs and fabrics.

In the meantime, we here at Casa de los Viajeros are implementing new policies to make your next stay safer, more relaxing and worry-free. Visit our website to see more about this.

We look forward to seeing everyone soon. In the meantime subscribe to our website for updates. Stay safe and be well from all of us at InPuertoMorelos.com and Casa de los Viajeros.

Hasta pronto!!

Here are the cash exchange rates for May 29, 2020 at CI Banco on the highway in Puerto Morelos.

I post these rates on occasion so that you can compare them with what your bank or the ATM may offer. To see where the rates have been in the last couple of years, search “exchange rates” on our page at InPuertoMorelos.com

For comparison today, G Capital (by Aki) was offering a slightly better rate for the US dollar, 21.00, but much worse on the Canadian dollar (14.00), Euro (22.00) and GBP (23.80)