Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

Which taxi van is ours?

I knew when we came this would be a vacation of contrasts, but it’s turning out to be loaded with things that make you think “Huh, that’s not what I expected!” Not bad, just things that make us laugh. First let me explain myself. We are in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico . . . yeah I know, we’re here again.

The first week we are sorta roughing it by staying at a place only Joe and Heidi would think to stay. The second week is staying at a fancy place with 3 other couples who probably wouldn’t think to stay here.

So here’s the cheap place. Hotel All Riviera (We use LocoGringo.com for a lot of our Riviera Maya plans. Scott is fantastic). We picked it for a couple of reasons. Firstly it is on the beach, as in I can hear the waves at night. Secondly, it is popular with Mexicans and that’s why we’re in Mexico . . . to hang out with Mexicans.

Our room is exactly what we expected; cement block for a bedframe, freezing cold air conditioner, and a poolside room complete with a sliding glass door that took ten minutes to figure out how to lock. I bought two souvenir blankets to fold up and put under my side of the bed because the mattress is so hard.

We sat out on the beach and got a contact high from the local employees sitting around smoking pot before they started their day. Then we became friends with a Mexican couple who live in Texas. I illegally bought an anklet from a girl who later ran and hid from the police. We walked up the beach to Mamitas and had 50 people ask us if we wanted to have a massage, or go on a jet ski. We came back via the famous 5^th Ave only to have 50 more people ask us if we wanted to buy cigars or hold tiny little monkeys.

Later we went to dinner and stumbled across a massive crowd around a stage that had a Michael Jackson look-alike teaching a line dance. As we elbowed our way into the onlookers we could see the audience was mostly kids and teenagers dressed like monsters and strange creatures covered in fake blood.

After dinner we came across the race of all the monsters right down 5^th Ave. A bevy of witches laid in wait for the runners and chased them with wicked laughs (as wicked as cute teenage girls can laugh).

Zenzis beach bar had Mexican rap music playing, Bad Boys Bar had old American Rock’n Roll, and the Sports bar was packed with Canadians watching ice hockey and screaming in French. All pretty much at the same time.

We’ve only been here one day!