LIVEdigitally

Mexico Vacaciones - Monday - Playa Del Carmen

Monday, January 29th, 2007.
Got up a little on the earlier side this morning (9am) to a beautiful, sunny day. Had a quick breakfast, then bee-lined for the beach. It turns out even not-so-great minds think alike, but we found four chairs together and lazed in the sun all morning. The ocean water was cool at first, but felt nice quickly, and was strikingly clear. The scene at the beach featured a variety of guests, from beer-swilling French Canadians (and I emphasize the swilling - as in, brought their own oversized mugs to drink from, and it was barely even 10am) to topless tattooed Italians. Yes, I meant the females.

After several hours in the sun, we headed to the pool to take care of some more serious matters. It was time for a nap. And after the nap, cervesa and Scrabble. I spelled “snorter” for a bingo - no challenges.

We showered up after the game, then boarded a shuttle bus to take us to Playa del Carmen, the nearby town. we had planned on taking a taxi in, but apparently the cab driver was also on naptime, so the bus became our ~~only~~ best option.

Playa del Carmen wasn’t really anything like what I’d expected. I had pictured a rundown town, with a few souvenir stands, a few taquerias, a Starbucks, some Americanized Mexican restaurants, cheap hotels, and a lot of bars (with many stools. Many many stools. Don’t know why, but I pictured stools in bars. Go figure). I was mostly right about the Starbucks (both of them). It was a little rundown in parts, but was fairly modern, with huge souvenir shops, farmacias, cigar stores, tour guides, designer clothing stores (Diesel), and restaurants.

We ate a one which met our most important criteria - other people were eating there already. The food was fine, though fairly nondescript in its Mexican-ish menu. Our original plan was to return to the town in the next few days, but it didn’t seem like there was much of a ‘local experience’ to check out (although we clearly weren’t exposed to it from our short jaunt). That said, it was at the very least a productive outing, as we booked a daytrip for tomorrow to the ruins at Tulum. More importantly, I picked up a few cigars. The muy bueno ones. Our bus picked us up right on time, and we decided to forego the night’s show to get an early night in preparation for our rise, scheduled early the next day.