Playa Trip - take 2

My first big vacation this year! It was hard to wait for it after my trips to Australia, Uganda, Ireland, and Bosnia in the last few years, and nothing planned for this one. I knew I had to use up some ten vacation days this year or I would loose the at the end of the year. And with mom coming to visit, I decided to take this beach trip with her. To make the planning less stressful on me, we are gong to the same place we did two years ago - Playa del Carmen.

Mayan Land: Day 4

Why did the best weather come last day?
So that we have to come back!

It was raining the first thing in the morning, so we decided to get dressed and have coffee at the café and not carry it in the rain. But, when we walked outside, the rain stopped and the clouds completely cleared up around 9 already. Yay! Beach time! The water was calm for the first time we were there. Too bad it was our last day. I even thought that if the weather was bad today we could go to the aviary we saw on the way back from downtown last night. But, we wouldn’t miss the time at the beach today.

The check out time was noon, but they let us stay until 1PM. Since we didn’t have to leave for the airport until 2.30, we stored our bags in the car (good thing about having our own vehicle) and went back to the beach for another hour. Had our coffee there and some pina-colada! We’ve had so many different drinks on this trip. : ) But they probably water down some of those drinks, because we didn’t see any alcohol effects.

After quick lunch, we were on the road. Stopped at one store downtown on the way, and found our way onto the main highway. The driving here is…a bit different. People don’t give turn signals, shift several lanes without any signaling, and drive some 20 km/h above the speed limit. Just before the exit ramp for the airport, it seems that the speed changed from 80 to 40 km/h, and the police lights came on behind me. I didn’t get a chance to stop before the circular ramp, and I didn’t think it was safe to stop on the ramp, so I tried to signal them I’ll stop at the top. But they then turned on the siren and started saying something on the megaphone. In Spanish. I stopped half way up. A friendly fella came to me, shook my hand, and ask for the license. I had no idea why I was stopped until he informed me. 88 on the radar. Oops! I said I was just following the flow of traffic, which I was. He said he’ll have to take my license to the police station 5 minutes away, and the ticket will be $150! Um, He said he’ll have to take my license to the police station 5 minutes away, and the ticket will be $150! Um, yaiks! I started pleading to let me go, we have a plane to catch…and I thought of just asking how much to just let me go. I heard of people doing it in some country, including Bosnia, but I didn’t do the research to find out if that’s common in Mexico. Well, he then just asked me: “I’ll be a nice guy, so how much would you give me to let you go?” Um, I don’t know, I was never asked that before, I said a bit confused. I offered $20, he scoffed, pointed to his buddy in the car, and wanted 20 each. I said, come on, you could have had a full car of your friends in the there. So, I just gave him a 20, he rolled it in his hand, and let us go. Ok, so now I know: If you do get caught speeding, test the waters first, and then offer some money. Better than paying 7 times more.

Finding the rent-a-car place took us several times circling around. They checked the car, and almost wanted to make me responsible for a little pebble chip on the windshield. But they didn’t. Checked-out, took the shuttle, got the boarding passes, and onto the gate just in time for boarding. No time to spare; well I guess we did spare a little with that cop.

Bye-bye the Caribbean’s . We’ve had a great time, relaxing and restful. You could have gave us more sunny days, but then again, I had enough sunburn. I think I could should do this every winter!

Mayan Land: Day 3

Rain.

That’s how the day started. We couldn’t even have coffee on the balcony. It was all wet. After breakfast we started planning activities other than beach that we could do. A long walk down the beach sounded good.

It was actually really busy at the beach. All the people it seemed had the same idea about that stroll. It was a bit chilly, and long sleeves felt good. It took us about 20-30 minutes to get to the end of Playcar, see Playa del Carmen in the distance, and then we turned back. It started to drizzle, and the rest of the day didn’t sound too good.

But, just as we got to our hotel beach around noon, the sun came out. The lounge chairs filled up in no time, and people were in the water. It turned out to be a great day! The water was warm enough, and after passing the area where the waves crash, one could swim without being tossed around. The sun was very strong. Because we didn’t want to check in any bags, I couldn’t bring my 75 SPF sun lotion spray and face cream with SPF because the bottles do not fit in the little ziplock bag. I only had SPF 30, which I thought was enough. But, I got sunburned. Pretty bad. Now I really look like a silly tourist. : )

We had brunch and the inevitable coffee right there on the beach. And some cocktails. I enjoyed the nice weather so much, that I didn’t even want to go to the lunch. It was our last full day, and with the best weather, so I didn’t want to waste any of it. We stayed until 4.30, when the clouds rolled in again, and then got ready to go downtown.

Since our dinner reservation wasn’t until 9.30, we thought we had enough time to just walk to the town, which is some 30 min away by foot. But, after 5 minutes of walking, a mini bus stopped in front of another hotel, it was going to the downtown, so we got on. It wasn’t until I started talking with some passengers that we found out it was only for the guests of Riu hotels. Oops! We always have to cause trouble. : ) The bus was going every 15-30 minutes. Well, we got off at the next station, close to downtown, but then quickly got back on thinking there could be an even closer stop. But the bus then went back the other way, to the other Riu hotel. So we did the full circle. : )

We finally got to Playa del Carmen around 6 and started walking. And walking. And some more walking. We didn’t get all the way to the end of the main street, but since we both had tired, blistery feed, we decided to turn back. I had a feeling mom was no longer enjoying any of the sites and shopping because she was so tired. I guess all that sun got to us. We were hoping that Riu bus would still be working where we got there at 8.30, because we really didn’t want to walk another half an hour. But it wasn’t. I didn’t want mom to walk any more. I didn’t want to walk any more. So, I stopped the first taxi, which got us to the hotel in couple of minutes.

We still had 45 minutes until our dinner, but we knew if we got to our room it would be hard to make us go out again. Plus, there was no need to dress up because there was no way we would willingly put on the heels. Knowing how little food was served at the Italian restaurant the night before, we first got something to eat at the buffet, and then got us some desert and drinks at the courtyard. By the time we got to dinner, we were no longer hungry, or really interested in the atmosphere. And there wasn’t much of it there. I felt bad that we were leaving so much food uneaten, but it really wasn’t that great. We had good laughs anyway.

As we walked to our room, we made a short stop at the pool, just to cool our feet and soak in a bit more of that night scene that they have going here. We dragged our tired feet to bed, realizing we felt so tired as if we were working out the whole day, but it was all from the sun, sea, and walking.

Mayan Land: Day 2

Another adventurous day!

Mom woke up earlier and brought us some coffee to enjoy on the balcony. We put on first of the six outfits of the day, and made it to breakfast a full hour before the restaurant closes. Migas and mimosas were some of the yummy stuff on our table. The sun cleared most of the clouds, and we changed again for the beach. It. Was. Packed. Everyone wanted to soak in some of that sun after days of rain. It was actually warm to lay in the swimsuit. But, it didn’t last too long, and by 1 the clouds took over. We got us some margaritas and went for a stroll down the beach. (I think I’d like to go back to that sentence throughout the year and remember the moment)

Then it was time for lunch, and yet another change. It was obvious the beach was not the best idea for the afternoon, so we took our time with coffee and martinis in the courtyard, people watching. There are many groups here, and I am surprised to see relatively few Americans; many seem to be from the French speaking parts of Canada, many Italians, south America of course, and quite a few eastern Europeans.

Into our fourth outfit we went, and drove to the town. It’s about 30 min walk to there, so an hour both ways, but then plus all the walk there, so I think the car drive was a better option for us. Plus, it started raining after an hour and we had some liquor bottles with us to carry. I choose to pay for monitored parking than to park on the street. That rental place guy scared me enough about being responsible for all the damages. It was 20 pesos per hour.

I got all confused about money and exchange rates. The average rate we’ve seen was 12.5 pesos for $1, and when I withdrew 500 pesos from the ATM machine it listed $20 at the bottom. That $ sign threw me off. For some reason I thought that is how much US$ was my transaction. It didn’t sound right, it meant I got 25 pesos for 1$, but I thought maybe that’s what they mean by you get the best rate when using the debit card to get the local currency. But, really, what was I thinking! Twice as much as the regular rate. My brain was on vacation too, it seems. : ) I couldn’t get my math correct after that, so I then thought the swim suit we bought was half as many US$ then it was. The rain cut our walk short, and we started looking to get some gas. Another thing I forgot to research was that gas stations are not self service. I felt so stupid-foreigner-like when I pulled in and couldn’t figure out where the latch to open the gas tank was, couldn’t figure out how many litter I need to get ½ of tank, and how many $’s I need to exchange to pay for that. I waved in a no-thank you to several service-man swarming my car, set there for a few minutes trying to start my brain again and then drove off. After exchanging more money I got back to that same station only to realize I couldn’t find last 50 pesos I thought I still had and was 9 pesos short for that gas. Urgh! He let me walk off without paying.

We made one other stop to get some alcohol, maneuvering the one-way streets, and got to our room just with just enough time left to change for dinner. We had the reservation at the Italian restaurant in the sister-hotel, so we put on our best dress, pearls, and heals, and again drove over there. The food was quite different than the buffets we’ve had so far, plates much bigger and portions much smaller. They’ve put a lot of effort in the presentation, and since there were only dozen of tables occupied the service was good, too. We had four-course dinner with wine and desert. It was a good night to eat inside, with all the drizzle outside. Glad we had the car.

Back to our place for the last dress change of the day and the Las Vegas show!

A. Good. Day.

Mayan Land: Day 1

Oh what a change! Today is Jan 14th, and I was playing in the Caribbean Sea! Oh, yeah!

Our flight arrived in Cancun last night just after 9, but then getting the rental car took way longer than what I would have anticipated. By the time we were on the road, it was close to 11.

Mom and I were still not over the recent experience with her luggage, so we packed just our carry-ons, not wanting to have to check any bags. Well, when we boarded in Austin, after nicely following their directions to board with our own section, by the time we got on the plane there was no more space in the overhead compartments for our two bags. We had to leave them at the front, where they tagged them and checked them to the final destination. We just then realized how much we were still uncomfortable with that fact about the flying, and we did not have faith in the airline to transport our bags on time. I kept telling myself I need to stop worrying because there is nothing I can do about it, and for reals, did I truly want to allow this to affect me so much. The bags would get here on time, or not, regardless of me worrying about it. They arrived with us.

When planning for this trip, renting the car made all the sense. It was about the same cost as the shuttle from the airport to the hotel for the two us. It would give us an opportunity to explore the area, especially if the weather is too cold for the beach. It seemed like the right choice. But, first, waiting that long to get the car, then being scared about not purchasing their insurance, and then actually trying to figure out the road signs - I started to have doubts about this decision. For example, I wasn't clear if crossed E meant do-not-enter or no parking. It didn't even cross my mind to check some facts about driving in Mexico before departing on this trip. At one point on the road I had almost a freak-out realization that on this trip I am the only leader and coordinator, and I didn’t quite feel prepared for it.

It took me couple of tries before we figured out the way out of the airport. After that, it was pretty much straight for about 45 minutes. The main road has many speed bumps, and few of them caught me by surprise. And they were very bumpy. The last couple of kilometers were tricky to figure out in the dark, but we finally made it to hotel just after midnight. We got our bracelets, just dropped off the bags in our ocean view room, and came down for dinner. Even this was in the middle of the night, and it's all inclusive, it still surprises me how many drunken people there are at these resorts.

After some six hours of sleep, I woke up at my usual work-day hour, but today I was in Playa! I was actually cold all night, because I put the fan on high and cracked up the temp setting thinking it will eventually heat up. Turns out, there is no heater, only AC, so it was blowing almost cold air the entire night. I brought my summer PJs, and there was only one thin blanked on the bed. We got extra blankets later. The good news was that the lukewarm shower water from last night was hot this morning, so I warmed up quickly.

This all-you-can-eat-and-drink deal is very demanding. : ) We went barely a couple of hours without eating or drinking something. And because we HAD to use all of our three-outfits-a-day, we had to leave the beach in the middle of the day and change for lunch. The sky completely cleared up after that, and I even got sunburned after just one hour of late afternoon sun. I know, it can be though. : )

And we had to cause some trouble. Mom almost got the lifeguard to jump in the water, because one big wave knocked her down as she was walking out to the beach. She scratched her hip, and had a little wardrobe trouble, but was ok. For breakfast and lunch we came just 5 minutes before closing, so we were grabbing the food right in front of the staff who were clearing the buffet. Mom wanted to take a picture by this root-like old tree trunk, and set on it thinking it’s an actual tree. But it was just a tree trunk the placed as a decoration. It then tilted and fell on its side, almost bringing mom down with it. We went for a walk just before dinner, and in the spare of the moment decided to try out eating at the sister-hotel Viva Wyndham Aztec. They told us as the reception that we cannot eat at the buffet at the other hotel, only in the themed restaurant for which we need to sing up in advance. But we went to the buffet restaurant there anyway. Nobody was checking the bracelets. We just wanted to try it out. : ) We stopped at another resort and joined in on some of their entertainment activities. The night ended with a 70s themed entertainment show.

When the beach cleared up just after 4 PM, I thought how these winter beach vacation days are ending too quickly. But the afternoon and evening were so eventful, that my opinion completely changed. It’s almost hard to believe we’ve been here less than 24 hours.