Hachquet's: Hola from Playa Del Carmen

Hola,

Mexico was great - and appeared safe in the tourist areas. We spent 8+ days in Playa del Carmen - whew - lotza fun.

Playa del Carmen is a tourist area that is much more relaxed than Cancun. Playa is about 40 miles South of Cancun. (ASK Connie if you need any travel tips - she has searched everything about the area.) The town is spread along the beach - with the main street lined with bricks and closed to car traffic. There are 20+ blocks of walkway with restaurants and shops - just a fun place to go. And there are plenty of activities within a short bus ride.

Highlights:

4 favorite activities:
The beach - can't beat it.
Scuba diving - saw several large turtles!
Climbing the ruins at Coba Mayan Ruins.
Hidden Worlds was fun - zip lines and cenotes. A little spendy. (Save $10 buying tickets on line!)

3 favorite Restaurants:
Yaxche Mayan Cuisine- mmmmm
La Cueva del Chango
Babes Noodle Bar (Cervesa is 30 pesos, water 32 pesos - gotta save $$ when you can)

$1 US = 14.5 pesos

3 disappointments:
Too windy a few days.
Had to come home.
Connie was pretty sick for a few days - bummer!

Another Favorite activity - we met so many people from all over the world!! France, Germany, the States, and Mexico and more. We enjoyed getting to know so many people. The hotel we stayed at had a really fun feature - a continental breakfast which was served. Everybody showed up at 8am - and got to know each other over coffee, juice and rolls - talking about the planned activities for the day and sharing tips about the area.

Language faux pas:
I went to an Internet cafe one evening to catch up on the news. I was at a desk that was outside, right of 5th street - the street for only foot traffic - chatting with one of the vendors at an adjacent store. The vendor had limited English - and I had limited Spanish - but we were chatting.

Another tourist wanted to play a practical joke on his wife. She was very pale - which is hard to do on the Mexican Riviera. The husband wanted the vendor to ask the wife "Where is your tan?". This is apparently a family joke for the fair skinned wife. The wife was a few shops away with a friend and her parents. So the vendor walks up to her and asks "where is your tan?" - everyone breaks out laughing - including the wife.

So they family works their way down the street. About 5 minutes later, the vendor is asking how good my Spanish is - I said so-so. He wanted to know what it meant to say "where is your tan?" He had no idea what he was saying and why everyone was laughing. He finally understood the joke once I explained what was going on. (I think he was originally offended that everyone was laughing at him because he didn't really understand it was a practical joke.)

Sooo - the next evening I was walking past the store - same vendor outside. He didn't recognize me at first. I leaned over and said "where is your tan?" - he laughed.

The other fun language story was trying to figure out when the time was going to change. The time had already changed to Day Light Savings at home, but not in Mexico yet. We had been advised by fellow tourists that it may be the day we were traveling home. We had to ask a lot of people over several days before we found out it would be next weekend. One of the themes in Mexico is that no one really cares what time it is - let alone tomorrow. We fit in well with the concept - except we wanted to catch our flight home.

Connie had asked a shop vendor if the time was changing tomorrow. He replied "Oh no - it's going to be nice - no rain - no wind."

Oh well.

Here are a few favorite photos:

Climbing the temple at Coba: