Back to Reality

The morning started out pretty easy but became a frantic dash as the day wore on. While packing up in the morning we received on a knock on the door from Pero, the condo owner who was staying upstairs at the Sand Castle. He informed us he was also leaving that day and, when he found out we were driving to the airport, asked for a ride. Not much of a problem but it created another thing to pay attention to. We figured out a meeting place and had about 3 hours get our last bit out of Playa.

On to town, first stop Java Joe's for some coffee. I was really craving the spicy hot chocolate of Ah Cacao but willing to try a different coffee shop. The coffee was pretty good, the bagel sandwiches were also nice.

Upon leaving the coffee shop the rest of the day's activities were a rather stressful blur of forgetfulness. It took a full search of Playa's side streets to find where we parked the car. After finding the car, we couldn't find Pero to drive him to the airport. I knew deciding to drive him to the airport was good intentioned but a bad idea. Finally, on getting close to the airport, we couldn't find where to dropoff the rental car. Visions of my credit card being charged for Fernando's personal car being lost or stolen stormed through my head. A couple phone calls later we solved the rental car problem and headed in to the airport.

The whole swine flu thing brought Mexico to a mass exodus of travelers. Really long lines and the stress of waiting in line weren't helping. But in the end we all made our flights and got to our destinations. Sitting back home now, I think there's a Mayan hot chocolate waiting for me somewhere back in Playa del Carmen that I'd like to return to.

A Fun Day Around Town

April 28th, our last full day in Mexico. The previous day we were thinking about what to do: drive to some other Mayan ruins, visit a different beach, or see what Sergio is up to... Overall we decided that we hadn't spent enough time in Playa del Carmen and decided to have a fun day in town.

Morning was a bit hectic. With Beth's conference canceled, she needed to cancel her hotel in Cancun and book a flight back home. A number of phone calls, phone cards, and headaches later we got her on a flight out for the following day. Save one lucky girl from the perils of swine flu (not!).

We hit town and for some reason our first stop wasn't coffee. We hit up Karma Bagels for a little snack and beverage while we better worked out the day's activities.

Now amped and ready for the day, we did a little shopping in the tourist area. Haggled a bit on some cowboy style hats, which we ended up getting at a good price. The vendor wanted to trade me for my Garage Racing baseball hat which I just couldn't give up. The majority of our shopping pesos were spent at one of the tequila stores on super smooth El Conquistador tequila, mezcal, and gift bottles for people back home, and basically more tequila than US Customs probably allows.

For the first time in our stay we actually visited the beach at Playa del Carmen. It's a really nice beach that runs a long way (for those "enjoy nice walks on the beach" moments). The beach restaurants serve an arm and a leg for a beer though, so was our experience at least at the Blue Parrot. 'nuff of that joint, we journeyed off the beach to Bar Ranito for better drinks, better atmosphere, and better prices.

Did a bit more exploring around town where I tried some pickup lines on a local outside a clothing shop. Apparently my espanol is weak, she didn't even respond. At least I didn't get slapped.

Had a good dinner at the La Cueva del Chango, or "cave of the monkey". This was probably the best dinner we'd had, really good food. Excepting the dinner we cooked ourselves, of course! Having read through our guide books we were determined to have a gastronomical highpoint for dessert at a difference restaurant. On to Yaxche for crepes. And no ordinary crepes either: "Mezcal Flambee Crepe". Prepared in front of us, the waiter proceeded to carmelize sugar, flame up some mezcal, add in Kahlua, bananas, mangos, top it off with some Baileys and cream. Crepes brought to a new high.

Puerto Moreles: Mondo Excellente

Woke up Monday morning to the Mayan god of rain saying hello. Chac's storm ended shortly mid-morning as we hit Ah Cacoa for beverage. Ah Cacoa has the best hot chocolate-- Mayan spiced version with a good kick. The beverage was further heightened with the addition of a shot of espresso. Meanwhile the lady enjoyed a hot vanilla concoction which did not involve caffeine. Not sure how Beth made it through the day.

Drove north to Puerto Moreles after the beverage injection. I was starting to get more used to the driving in Mexico, a rather elite skill which I'm sure will only get me in trouble back in the states. Moreles was a short drive to the quaint little town. If I were to revisit the area I'd without question put home base in this area. A couple restaurants, cafe, nice beach, and small town were pretty nice amongst the other areas we'd been. Moreles seemed to strike the correct balance between the large touristy area of Playa and desolate nature of Paamul.

We hit the beach and changed in appropriate attire. Our skills at haggling reached a new high as we negotiated for a beach umbrella and snorkeling in the reef off of Moreles. Yup, snorkelling! We were assured that our captain, Raul, would be along shortly so we relaxed along the beach with a beverage. A mexican hour later Raul showed up to take us out on the water after fitting us up with fins and snorkel. Having not snorkeled before it was quite the salty experience. Lots of sea life, and that wasn't even the other tourists that were with us. We got about 90 minutes in the water and came out like prunes after the experience. Somehow we seemed to forget towels which probably didn't help the cold body temperature. Anyway, back to solid land of sandy beach to warm up.

Having done our share of exercise for the day we were off to reload on carbs. The tour books we had mentioned a restaurant that, upon in-depth inspection, was out of business. So it appeared. A later tour of the town showed it moved up the street. Doh! In the meanwhile we hit a taqueria that had ok heuvos rancheros and pescados tacos. Sanitary conditions were superb for an outskirt taqueria-- meaning it had a cup full of water to wash your hands with after using the banos. I don't recall if the toilet actually had a toilet seat, but I'm sure Beth can comment to that. This was about the time that news of swine flu was actually reaching us. I was of the opinion swine/wine, so it didn't really bug me in the scheme of things. I was more in shock that had I booked the vacation later we probably could of traveled dirt cheap. :)

After lunch we drove back to Playa for some grocery shopping and crashed pretty early in the evening. The evening brought on a home cooked meal of pescado and carne tacos with mole sauce and many good veggies. Beth is convert to the goodness of mole sauce after that dinner. Chilled at our place while watcing the Daily Show which reinforced our mocking of swine flu paranoia.

Mayan Ruins, Cenotes, and Sergio

Sunday, April 26th. We (both!) got an early start this morning for a drive out to the Mayan ruins at Coba. We considered Tuumul, but decided we wanted something less touristy. I would of really liked to see Chichen Itza, but the drive was too far. Coba it was. To make things even more interesting, Beth drove. Mexico didn't know what it had coming.

The drive out to Coba was pretty nice. South along the riviera, then inland along a two lane highway passing many small villages along the way. We also passed a number of cenote parks, but more on that later...

Coba is a pretty big Mayan site. In fact, they rent bicycles if you don't want to walk the distance from site to site. Bicycles?! We had to get in on this, Huffy wars commence! The ruins were amazing, we saw Mayan ballcourts, climbed the pyramid Nohuch Mul (139 feet tall!), and eavesdropped on guided tours. If only the guided tours were in english, we would of actually understood them.

The drive back home found us stopping for a bite at a taqueria for a lunch of tortas and tacos. It was here that we decided the weather was warm enough to warrant a refreshing swim in one of the local cenotes. The guide book we had mentioned a cenote park that was featured in National Geographic. It was kind of spendy at $25 apiece; travelling on a budget we decided to go off the beaten path and try one of the other cenote parks we passed on the way in to Coba. And it was only $8 each, what a deal!

The lack of any other tourists at the park should of been a clue that we were stumbling upon a hidden gem. After taking our money, we were appointed a guide, Sergio, that knew less english than I knew spanish. That's pretty rare. Still, Sergio was a competent guide. Bathing suits in our hands, he led us to...not a cenote. First stop was the re-creation of a mayan hut. Supposedly. Inside the hut were many tools used by the ancient mayans. Sergio proceeded to point at tools and say the spanish word for each one. And by tools I mean a rusty wrench, pick axe, sewing machine... these were definitely ancient mayan tools. A rusty wrench?! Beth, with her mucho excellente spanish, asked how old the tools were. "Muchos muchos ano". Thanks Sergio.

Ok, so how about that refreshing swim? Not yet. Next stop: the zoo. The park had quite a farm of animals: rooster, chicken, peacock, monkey, boar. Yes, those were singular. This ain't no Noah's Ark; here they only had one of each animal. Sergio would point to each animal and say it in spanish. That was about the extent of it.

Quite a bit of walking later, we were on to the cenotes. Stairs led us down a big hole in the ground to a cool underworld of, ready for this? About three feet of murky, standing water with bats flying around. What a pleasant place to swim! Sergio seemed surprised we lost our excitement for a swim. Not sure why that would be. We then saw another couple cenotes after this one, all in similar condition. One without water that had dried up. On our way out we got a very unnecessary tour of the horse stable. The $8 was very well spent for the, uh, astonishment of the whole experience. We quickly drove back to Playa.

Paamul: Mexican trailer parks rock

First morning on vacation, woke up early and made a nice cooked breakfast with oats, mango, and milk. mmmm.... Once the rest of the Mayan Riviera was up and moving, we drove south 15 minutes to Paamul for some sun on an empty beach.

Paamul is pretty small. A cool looking trailer park, restaurant, and a beautiful beach. Not sure what else one would need..? Sitting on the beach near the restaurant I enjoyed a cerveza while Beth worked on a mondo strong margarita. The drinks and made it pretty easy to distract us while we were getting pretty good sun. Oh yeah, I'm from the pacific northwest. I seemed to forget that.

Drove back to "Playa" as it's called in the afternoon. Lunch at a taqueria; the restauranter said the dog tacos were pretty good so I couldn't pass him up on that. Somewhere along the way Beth missed her sunglasses, so after lunch we made our way to Walmart. Yes, Walmart. While I can't really compare to US Walmarts, the Mexican one seemed pretty well stocked. Actually, I think the Playa Walmart was even better equipped: a parking lot attendant was there to put cardboard on windshields of cars in the parking lot to protect from the sun. Ok, I'm not sure if he was a full time employee...but that's something you don't see to often.

Back home to crash for awhile. Then off to get some dinner; we decided to walk to town. First stop: Cafe Sasta for caffeine. And whatdya know, but they had blueberry muffins. Before the trip, when I didn't think we'd see blueberry anything in Mexico, I said I'd do a tequila shot if we found blueberries while on vacation. So after being hopped up on caffeine we went out for some tequila. Beth wasn't familiar with the various types of tequila so we had to get a blanco, reposado, and anejo. Fair enough. Now we were doing pretty good.

So yeah, about that dinner. Walked over to a grocery store to pickup some goods: tortillas, peppers, chicken, tomato, beans, avocado, salsa. Maybe it's my misplaced tex-mex taste buds, but the home cooked food was better than most of the restaurant food we had all vacation. Then again, it could be due to the taquerias serving dog.

Mexico Arrival

Beth & myself left from Seattle to Cancun on the morning of April 24th. Arrived to find our rental car waiting for us. The rental car hand off was slightly odd. The rental agency was not at the airport, so Fernando picked us up in the car itself. It could very well of been Fernando's personal car. Any thoughts of problems were put aside as Fernando handed us the keys to the car along with a Corona each. Let's see that type service from Avis. Welcome to Mexico!

It was about an hour drive from the airport to Playa del Carmen where we'd be staying. First stop though was the local grocery store for some basic staples. Cerveza, breakfast food, fruits, snacks. After numerous speed bumps we found the Sand Castle. Took way to much time to get into our place since the directions led us to the correct house but gave no clue as to how to actually get in.

Somehow entering the place sapped mondo energy. A culmination of the day's journey was catching up with us, it was getting late and starting to get dark out. Determination to not just crash on our first night in Mexico somehow kept us going. Oh yeah, lack of food in the stomach was another major factor; the mangos we got at the store weren't going to do justice.

Drove into town and decided to hit John Gray's. The reviews in the books I'd read made it sound really good. And, well, it wasn't bad. Overpriced and more of a metropolitan atmosphere than we expected. I would of been satisfied with a taqueria and cerveza. Made up for the dinner with a Mayan hot chocolate at Ah Cacoa for dessert.