Let me start with the flight down... Kudos to Deedee for finding a flight the travel agent couldn't. Namely a nonstop from Vancouver to Cancun. For a switch, I had the window seat. Most of the flight, I was looking at clouds, but there was kind of a cool stretch over Colorado where I was looking down at an open pit mine. Couldn't see much going on, since we were 7 miles and change up, but it was still kind of neat to see:
Oh yeah... The beach here has taken a beating, and I'm assuming the tide was in, since there wasn't much beach to be had at all. So, pool it was. At least for now. After we were able to get into our room, we changed and headed up to La Quinta Avenida, or Fifth Avenue.
The flight was a little bumpy, in spots, with even the flight attendants getting caught unaware at one point. But even so, they remained totally professional and maintained their cool in spite of the 11 infants on board our plane. Honestly, the kids were all pretty well behaved.
At any rate, we landed at just a bit after 6pm local, and our instructions from Diane (my cousin, more or less... She's family, so I don't worry about how,) said to head out of the airport and turn right once outside. Well... I'm not going to pick on my wife, but we eventually get over in the direction we need to go in. Lesson learned... Set up transportation before we leave. So we end up in a collectivo, or multi-person taxi at a ridiculous cost, but this will land us at the doorstep of our hotel, rather than the bus station in Playa Del Carmen. So, fine. Except the driver can't read the address, since the interior lights don't work, and he's not familiar with that part of Playa. Hmmm.
The hotel we first stayed in was alright, clean, quiet, close to amenities downtown. It's called the Hotel Plaza Playa. Item number one on our list of things to do was feed ourselves. Here's where my experience in Tijuana came in handy. No, I don't have any pictures, but I'm not flashing an iPhone at night on a busy street, nor am I packing my big camera. Just good sense, there. We quickly found a little corner restaurant, and ordered 2x enchilada especiales. They were pretty good... Better than what passes for Mexican food up in our neck of the woods. Poor Deedee found the salsa a lot spicier than she expected, though. We also found a market where we got juice, water, and fruit. Good enough for one night. That was probably the highlight, however... The bed was so tiny, I was forced to sleep on the couch, which DID convert to a bed. And hard? Holy crap!!
The next day, we had breakfast. I had breakfast tacos... And I'm once again reminded that I've never seen hard tacos anywhere in Mexico. So I have to wonder where the taco companies come up with their hard taco shells... Next, hire a cab. It wasn't a long distance to the condo where we would be spending the rest of our trip, but plenty long with baggage. We get to Natz Ti Ha (Mayan for by the sea,) and the room isn't ready. Okay, fine, it's early. Can we leave our bags somewhere? Done. Down to the pool for the next 3 hours.
Foot traffic only, and basically your typical market street. Don't give too much heed to the hawkers, and do your own thing, and you'll have no problem. This is one of the few places that almost prefers pesos to US Dollars. Kind of nice. Following that, it was off to La Mega, which is a chain department store, somewhat like Walmart. We grabbed a few things, some essential, some not so much, and walked out 1800 pesos poorer. But that included enough booze to last quite a while.
I guess it's time to think about going to find some grub, again... At 8:30pm :) I'll leave you with the view from one of our balconies to think on....
