Playa Delfines and the Cancun Sign - The Big Finish
Photo: Alfonzo Buscemi, CC BY 3.0 (cropped)
A stop on Cancun: Downtown and the Hotel Zone, a free self-guided tour.
You made it to the overlook above Playa Delfines, and to the giant, colorful CANCUN letters that nearly every visitor photographs. Below you stretches one of the Hotel Zone's biggest public beaches, wide open to the Caribbean, with long views north and south along the coast.
This is a good place to look back on what you have seen. Fifty-odd years ago this sandbar held a coconut plantation and some mangroves. Now a city of close to 900,000 people and more than 35,000 hotel rooms surrounds you, along with Maya ruins older than any of it.
The surf at Delfines is often strong and the red flag flies here more than at the bay beaches, so swim only when the flag says it is safe. Winter is usually the quietest season for sargassum seaweed, which tends to arrive from spring through early autumn. Find a spot on the sand and watch the waves roll in.
Getting here: Walk across the boulevard from El Rey and head a few minutes north to the El Mirador overlook and its parking area. R1 and R2 buses stop nearby for the ride back.
Did you know?: Hurricane Wilma's eye passed just west of Cancun on October 21, 2005, as a Category 4 storm with winds above 240 km/h, and much of the Hotel Zone had to be rebuilt.
Photo op: Stand a few steps back from the letters so you can frame the whole word with the turquoise sea and beach below.
More on Wikipedia: Hotel Zone · Sargassum · Caribbean Sea
Stops on this tour
- Parque de las Palapas - Where Locals Gather
- Mercado 28 - The Market With a Number
- Playa Langosta - The Calm Side of the Seven
- Playa Tortugas - The Island of Women Across the Bay
- Punta Cancun - Where the Seven Bends
- Playa Chac Mool - Named for a Stone Figure
- Nichupte Lagoon - The Other Water
- Museo Maya and San Miguelito - Ruins Among the Towers
- El Rey - The Maya Port and Its Iguanas
- Playa Delfines and the Cancun Sign - The Big Finish