Playa del Carmen: Goodbye Latin America!

Welcome to Playa del Carmen
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Departing Tulum for Playa del Carmen, we decided to try to revisit a jewellery store that we had visited the day before so that Rachel could buy a necklace she had liked. Unfortunately, being a Sunday morning, the jewellery store was shut. Nonetheless, we got in our minivan and started heading up to Playa del Carmen.

We began to realise that we were getting closer and closer to "Americanisation" (as opposed to "civilisation"), as more and more people started speaking English. A couple of Americans jumped in the minivan and at the top of their lungs, shouted to the driver (who was less than a metre away), "Can you take us down town?". This may seem somewhat normal, but was rather a culture shock to us as the time!

soft white sand, beautiful warm water, and of course ... corn chips, salsa dip and beer!

Mark drinking beer on the beach
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Once in Playa del Carmen, we wandered down to the hotel we had found on the internet and were pleasantly surprised. Although a slight splurge for us, we figured we deserved it after 6 1/2 months of budgeting! The hotel was really nice and tranquil, a few blocks back from the main street with pretty much the whole town and beach in walking distance. It even came with cute little towel-made animals on the bed every morning!

That afternoon we began what became our 4 day ritual for Playa del Carmen: wandering along the main streets, doing some window shopping! The main street, 5th Ave., is packed with bar/restaurants, tourist shops, travel agencies and touts. The touts are everywhere and always saying "hello my friend" or something similar - at one point I felt like turning around and saying "if I wanted something, I would ask you for it!" when one particular tout kept on insisting I wanted to come inside his shop and look.

Mark's three favorite things: Rachel, beer and beach!
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We then headed down to the beach for a quick look (the sun was now setting and it was getting a little cool), to discover it was totally packed out with tourists. After the peaceful, bare sand of Tulum, this was beginning to look like Times Square!

The next morning, we did some more wandering around, looking at shops and just generally exploring, as the weather was a bit overcast and drizzly and not that great for beaching. We found a nice taco joint (no comparison to Viva Los Tacos though!) but were disappointed to later find out that it was in the Lonely Planet! In the afternoon, after stopping off at the supermarket for some necessities (corn chips, salsa dip, beer), we headed back to the beach to enjoy a little of the sun that had popped out from behind the clouds.

More beach relaxation
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As much as it was filled with tourists and covered with "beach club" owned deck chairs, you still can't go past soft white sand, beautiful warm water, and of course our little beach snack pack of corn chips, salsa dip and beer! This was what we had come to Mexico for, relaxing on a beach drinking beer, and we were glad we did!

Our third day was much the same, but this time we wandered over to another beach nearby which was really just the same beach, but further along and in front of a famous beach club. Slightly less people there which was refreshing.

La Tacombi (Tacos made in a Combi!)
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On our final day in Mexico (and thus Latin America), we decided to get our shopping down. So after 3 days of window shopping, we went back and bought all the things that we had decided we wanted: corona t-shirts, tequila, etc. Unfortunately, Rachel was still yet to find a suitable replacement for the necklace that she had found in Tulum, so instead of getting to spend the afternoon on the beach with beers, we jumped back on a minivan and headed to Tulum.

When we got back to Tulum, the shop was shut, again. This was just too much, its shut on Wednesdays too? What kind of odd hours does this place keep? Amid much disappointment, we even discovered that since we were too late for lunch, our taco man was shut! :( Things were not looking up.

Since we were back in Tulum we decided to visit Mark's work friend's boyfriend's sister, who ran a restaurant in Tulum but had been on holidays the previous week when we were staying there. Unfortunately it wasn't quite dinner time so we couldn't sample her Mexican-fusion fares which looked quite delightful, but it did mean she wasn't too busy to chat! She was very excited to see us and gave us little gifts to bring back for her brother and his girlfriend (Mark's work friend if you're already confused), as well as a little gift for each of us. She was sad to hear that our jewelery store was shut and promised that if we emailed her the details of the necklace, she would buy it for us and post it to us! As we left the restaurant to head back to Playa del Carmen, Rachel dug straight into her gift, a soft peanut candy that had the texture of nougat. Yum!

The bus stop for the little mini-van back to Playa del Carmen was situated right in front of our little jewelery store, and just as our mini-van pulled up and we were about to get in, we saw the owner of the store wander over and open it up! What perfect timing! We immediately ran over and tried to pretend to be disinterested in Rachel's necklace so we could negotiate a better price! After a quick visit to the ATM to get more cash (you always get better prices for cash) we walked away happy as Rachel had finally got her Mexican necklace. We jumped on our mini-van back to Playa del Carmen where our bags were waiting for us to go to the airport and fly off to meet Mark's parents in Los Angeles!

Goodbye Latin America!