This was our 7th trip to Playa together. If you would have told me that back in 2003 on our first trip to the area that we would be going back to the same place every year I would have told you that you were nuts. However, we have been drawn into the area. We keep adding to our list things that we want to do and see there, so I guess we just have to keep going back .
Most of this trip will be traveling with 3 other couples. They are; my cousin Rhonda and her husband Kevin, ours friends John & Kari and Terry & Barb.
2/21 – Day 1
We met Kevin and Rhonda at the Minneapolis airport. We both had flights booked on Northwest airlines. Our flight was to get into Cancun at 1:40 PM and theirs at 2:30 PM. Ours flights basically got in on time. We decided to wait for them and share a van to Playa. Since we had some time to kill when we got through the airport we took a seat in the new meeting place just outside of terminal 3. A waitress brought us a menu right away. We weren’t hungry but I did order a Corona. It was 47 pesos and she simply went over to Coconuts to get it for me. When it was about time for Kevin and Rhonda to get there we walked over and found our van transfer guy. Soon Kevin and Rhonda showed up and he took us over to the van loading area. While we waited a few minutes for the van to get there Rhonda went over to Coconuts and got a margarita and a Pina Colada. I think she said it was $17 US for those two drinks….ouch. Before she was back, our van was there and we loaded up our luggage. Soon we were on our way. Our driver stopped at a 7-11 for us so we could get some beer and water for the trip down. This was a much better deal as it was about $6 US for a six pack of cold Sol.
We arrived at Kin-be suites in Playacar phase 2 about 5:15 PM. We are staying here the first two nights as Kevin’s brother is part owner in 3 units there and we got to use the one that they save for friends and family since no one else was using it these days. 
We kind of settled in and the headed for Bad Boys. As soon as got there we found Jan and Erik, friends from the Mankato area that we had met last year. They were sitting with Maureen. That was good, since I was delivering some watches for Barry/Popeye to her to help raise money for the Peanut Pet Shelter. Maureen is great, as is her husband Joe. We were fortunate to be able to run into them a few more times during the trip. The band was very good. We also got to hear a set that Erik and his friends played, that was great too. We had a very good time.
Erik and Julie on stage (they used to be in a band together)
After a while we walked up to Babes for supper. We were happy to find an open table. A little while later, Norman & Deb and friends showed up and sat in a table behind us. I was glad we got to visit with them a bit again this year. We had met them at the Fusion last year when we were both staying there. Then along came Nancy and Ed, that we had met last year at the Fusion too. Again, I was super glad that we ran into them as I knew this was their last night in Playa. We talked with them a bit and then our food showed up. I wish we could have chatted with them longer. We all had half orders and all the food was excellent. I had deep fried shrimp with rice and something, I can’t remember what it was called. The portions are a bit smaller this year, but we were still all satisfied.
Rhonda and DeeDee at Babes.
I guess I wasn’t into the picture taking yet so I didn’t get any food pics or pics of the friends we ran into this night. I’ll get better as the trip goes on. After supper at Babes we swung by Don Carmelo for ice cream. It’s on the east side of 10th, just a little bit north of Calle 8. This is our favorite ice cream place in Playa. There is a sweet little old lady that runs the place and makes excellent home made ice cream. A single scoop in a waffle cone cost $20 pesos. $30 pesos for a double scoop. My favorite this trip was the half coconut and half choclolate.
We then caught a cab back to the condo and crashed for the night.
2/22 – Day 2
DeeDee and I got up and went for a walk. We soon came up on this plant in front of someone’s yard. I think it’s an agava plant and dandy one at that.
Then we all got ready for the day and took a cab to La Cueva del Chango for breakfast. It’s on calle 38 on the north end of town.
We had the sweetest little waitress and very good service. Our fresh fruit juices and meals were all good. Rhonda and I had French toast, DeeDee had Nutella crepes and Kevin had a ham and cheese omelet.
We then walked down to the beach by Shangri la and continued north until we got to the Zubul reef club.
We spent most of the day hanging out here. We rented four plastic lounge chairs and had excellent service all day. We had many Sols, Miami vices, waters and pops. Our waiter had asked us early on if we would be interested in a whole fish for us for lunch. We said that sounded good and that we would let him know when we got hungry. When lunch time came we asked about the fish. He said that he had a red snapper, but wasn’t sure if it would feed all four of us. He brought it out and showed it to us.
We figured that it would work just fine for us so we had him make it up for us. He said that he could fry it or grill it. We chose to have it grilled. He said that would take a little longer as he had to cook it slower that way. We said: no problemo as we were in no hurry. We ordered some chips and guac while we waited. Soon our fish was delivered and it was excellent!!!!!!
It was very windy that day. Kevin and I snorkeled out to the reef. I wasn’t worried about boats today as the harbor was closed down due to the wind. The snorkeling was a bust as far as I was concerned. The water was so churned up from the waves you couldn’t see much. I only saw a few small dark colored fish. I also swallowed a lot of water as my snorkel kept filling up when the waves went over it. Oh well, at least I got some exercise.
After that Kevin and I helped push a boat out that had broke free and was beached.
We saw this Portuguese man-o-war on the beach
We then hung out at the bar for a bit as we had gotten enough sun for the day
Our bill for the day, including all the drinks, lunch and beach chairs was 950 pesos, or about $95 US.
We then walked back to 5th so Kevin could make a phone call. We then caught a cab back to the condo.
We cleaned up a bit then headed into town to look for Terry and Barb as they were getting in today. We swung by the hotel that they were staying at for the night. They were checked in, but were out. We ended up running into them by the beer bucket. They had just eaten so Kevin & Rhonda and DeeDee & I went to HC de Monterrey for supper. We went to the one on Constituyentes across from Mega. We all had the archerra nacional and it was excellent. The service was unreal. I couldn’t believe how fast we got our drinks and then our meals. It was actually too fast, as sometimes it’s nice to relax.
We then walked down Constituyentes to Ah Cacao and had coconut ice cream and brownies. It was good.
We then met Terry and Barb and Pinche Gringos on the corner of calle 26 and 1st avenue. We hung out there for a couple hours. The music started over an hour late that night. I’m not sure what was up there, but it didn’t matter we still had a good time.
We then wandered down 5th. The guys were hungry so we had some pizza at a place called Via Pizza that is just across from the Yellow Submarine just north of calle 10. It was excellent; the crust was very nice and crisp. I had pepperoni and the other guys had the ham and pineapple. We will definitely stop here again. There is no name on the place, but the kid working there told me the name. A slice here is $25 pesos.
That was about it for the day……
2/23 - Day 3
DeeDee and I went for a morning walk. We discovered a couple trails in the jungle that connect Playacar phase 2 with phase 1. This could come in handy if we ever rent a villa in Phase 2. After our walk we cleaned up and went to the Alhambra for breakfast on the beach. We had very good service and a good breakfast. I guess I forgot to take pics.
We then walked up to Wal-mart to get some supplies for the week. We caught a cab back to Kin-be suites. We were able to catch one of those small station wagon taxis, so we asked him if he would wait for us to get our luggage from the condo and take us to Fisherman’s village. He said yes, but I bet that he wished he hadn’t as his poor suspension in that car was bottoming out on the topes. He finally figured out if he took them at an angle it went better.
The check in at Fisherman’s went fine, but we didn’t get the room we requested. I was not surprised. It didn’t matter though as the room we got was as nice as the one we had last year, just a tad smaller. So now we had 3 of the 4 couples together at Fisherman’s. The 4th gets in later in the day.
Later in the afternoon we went to Bad Boys. When we got there Don and Deb already had a table and were waiting for more peeps to arrive. Don and Deb are friends of ours from Winnipeg that we have coem to know as they are in Playa the same time we are every year. They usually stay at the Playa Mya for two weeks. This was their first day in Playa. We joined them and soon were joined by many, many other people that including, Zelda/Lori, our favorite stalker from Winnipeg, that we met last year. We also saw Jan and Erik again, Maureen and others. I also got to meet Andy who runs the Peanut pet shelter. Soon our friends John and Kari showed up and our group was complete.
I didn’t take many pics at Bad Boys, but here is one of John and Kari:
When it got late our group of eight headed out looking for a place for supper. We didn’t get far when we ran into La Tarraya. We have been there a couple times before, but missed it last year so it seemed like a great place to try again. We had a really good meal on the beach here. The service was pretty good, except that our waiter added 50 pesos to everyone’s bill and tried to tell us that it wasn’t a tip. I’m not sure what was up there. When questioned about it he removed the 50 pesos. We tipped him good anyway as his service was good.
My La Tarraya (veracruz) style grouper
John and Kari with their meals
Kevin and Rhonda with their meals
Barb and Terry with their meals
After After La Tarraya we made our usual stop at Don Carmelo’s for Ice cream. Then swung by the Beer bucket for while and then back to Fisherman’s to end the night.
2/24 - Day 4
Not a lot to report for this day. We basically spent a great day at Fisherman’s.
in the kiddy pool cooling off in the afternoon.
Fisherman’s puts on a free welcome party for everyone on Sunday nights so we ate supper there. After that we headed into town. We went to the Beer bucket. We needed to find Barb a dentist as she had broke a tooth and it was causing some problems. I had tried to call Susie but couldn’t figure out how to make my cell phone or the pay phone dial a local call. We found Maureen at the bucket and asked her about a dentist. She asked a guy that I think was named Jimmy that was there. He recommended Dr. Jorge Armenta on 30th near el Fogon. It was Sunday night though, so she would have to wait until tomorrow.
some pics of the studio room we had at Fisherman’s this year
and a couple of the resort
John got a spiderman mask for his 5 year old son. I guess he just loves it.
We also had some churros this night. They are kind of like mini donuts.
2/25 – Day 5
DeeDee and I went for our morning walk then came back and had breakfast in our room. Today is the day that I booked a van and driver through Playa.info for us to tour some places that will be new to most of our group. I had a whole list of places to go depending on how things went, but in my mind I figured that we would visit a couple cenotes, lunch on the beach and then snorkel at Paamul on the way back. That is exactly how it worked out. Our van and driver arrived right on time at 9:00 AM. The driver’s name was Jesus. He said that he lived in Tulum. He was a great and very safe driver. I enjoyed visiting with him while in transit.
The van we booked through Playa.info
Our first stop was Wal-mart for supplies. We picked up some beer, ice, water and snacks for the day. After Wal-mart we headed south on 307 until we got to cenote Cristalino. Cristalino is about a 100 yards past the entrance for the Barcelo and is on the west side of the highway. Our driver parked the van and we got out and paid the $40 pesos per person price to get in. There was a bathroom where we parked, functional yes, fancy no. We took a short 2 to 3 minute walk down to the cenote. I thought it was beautiful. We swam, snorkeled and jumped off the cliff into the crystal clear cool water. There were only a couple other people there. Cristalino is a fairly small cenote, but well worth a visit for sure.
Cenote Cristalino
Our group at cenote Cristalino
DeeDee, Barb and Rhonda in cenote Cristalino
Myself, Terry and John jumping in
We then got back in the van and went down the road to Jardin del Eden cenote. It’s the next one to the south and the entrance is only a 100 yards at most from the entrance to Cristalino. This one is a little ways back and the driver took us all the way back to the cenote. Again the cost was $40 pesos per person. Jarden del Eden is quite a bit larger than Cristalino and has better facilities like nice bathrooms with running water and tables and chairs to sit on. They didn’t allow any alcohol there so we left our coolers in the van. I think that most of our group liked Jarden del Eden best out of the two, but I liked Cristalino best. I liked the smaller feel of it, or maybe I liked it more since it was really the first cenote of this type that I had visited.
Jardin del Eden cenote
DeeDee and I in front of Jardin del Eden cenote
Barb and Terry snorkeling in Jardin del Eden cenote
John and I jumping in
After a while we decided it was time for lunch so we loaded up and went to Xpu ha beach and the HVR beach club. It’s a private club. Our driver asked them if we could have lunch there. They were not very busy and seemed very happy to have us. The food wasn’t cheap, but not too expensive either and it was quite good
Our group at HVR
Lunch on the grill
DeeDee with excellent chicken tacos
My cheeseburger was a little on the well done side, but nothing some extra mayo and ketchup couldn’t cure.
After lunch we asked them if we could use the beach chairs and they said sure. So we hung out there for while getting in our afternoon cat naps.
Xpu ha beach
Ronda enjoying one of the hammocks at HVR on Xpu ha
We finally decided to move on. Our next stop was Paamul. While DeeDee and I looked for Susie, a friend that we have met several times while in Playa, the others found a comfy spot on the beach. We did find Susie and chatted with her for a bit confirming that the dentist that we were recommended was the one to go to. After finding Susie we wlaked over to the volleyball area to see her SO Rick. He was kind of busy so we basically just said hi and moved down to the beach. The guys went snorkeling there. It was pretty windy, but I would say that the snorkeling was pretty good. We saw a lot of fish and some really nice plant life. I’d like to try it again when it’s calmer. I can’t believe that I forgot to take any pics when I was there.
Here are a couple pics of Paamul bay that DeeDee took when she was there in January so you can see what it looks like.
After Paamul we dropped Barb and Terry off at the dentist (Dr. Jorge Armenta on 30th by el Fogon). For $10 US he ground down Barb’s broken tooth. She was very happy and it only took about 10 minutes after a 5 minute wait. What a deal.
For supper we went to Buenos Aries, it’s on calle 6 between 5th and 10th. It was all pretty good. I had top sirloin and DeeDee had a chicken kabob. My steak was done perfectly the way I like it. One kind of weird thing was that they came with a half of a baked potato. As cheap as potatoes are I would think that you would get a whole one. Anyway, with a beer our bill was 320 pesos, or about $32 US.
Here’s the other’s with their meals:
After supper DD & I and John & Kari went to Don Carmelo’s for ice cream. Still love that place. We then swung by the Tequila barrel. We found Don & Deb with David & Tammy. David and Tammy are from Michigan and we have met them a few times before. They are alot of fun. It was David and Tammy’s first day in town. We joined them and had a good time visiting with them for a while. It was Don and Deb’s 24th anniversary and they had went to Negra Sol for a what sounded like a great dinner.
Wow, was that ever a full and great day!!!!!!!!!!!
2/26 – Day 6
Not much happened this day. I guess after the busy day that we had yesterday; we needed a day to do pretty much nothing but relax. I went out and saved or group 8 chairs on the beach. I hate doing this and haven’t had to in the past at Fisherman’s, but this year they are way short on beach chairs. If I remember right DeeDee and I went for our usual morning walk. Most years I run some mornings, but this year I was content to just take peaceful walks with my sweetie while trying to scope out the villas for potential rentals.
We basically spent the day on the beach. The weather was great. We had lunch and dinner at Fisherman’s this day. We did their Italian al a carte meal. We have done this a couple other times and it has always been excellent, this time was no exception. I had the fillet mignon. It came with shrimp pasta, which I though was a little weird, but it was very good. My steak was done perfectly medium rare. Seems like as long as I order it medium it usually works out for me. DeeDee had some kind of chicken. I’m sure it had a fancy name, but I can’t remember what it was.
DeeDee and I with our main course
K&J with their main courses (they had the same thing we had)
Terry and Barb went into town. They stopped by the Beer bucket as we were suppose to meet Jason (the owner of Fantasea dive) and talk about our dive that we had scheduled for the next day. We (the guys) are going to do a discovery dive. None of us had ever tried diving before. Jason didn’t show up. No big deal, I’ll call him on his cell phone in the morning to make sure we are still set and find out where we are suppose to meet him.
2/27 – Day 7
I called Jason…. He didn’t have us down for the dive. He said that we should come down to his shop and that he would have one of his other guys take us out. I had met Jason briefly last year and was hoping that he would take us out like he had said in his email. I also wanted to go with Jason as one of the guys in our group was really nervous about it and I felt that he would feel better with someone that I kind of knew. Oh well, we walk down to his shop that is located right in front of La Tarraya. I have walked by it several times and never noticed it.
Here’s Fantasea dive’s shack
When we got there Jason told us that he would have Miguel train us and take us out. He had some other people going out first. He gave us the option of going through the training right away and then coming back at 12:30 to do the dives or come back at 11:00 and do the training, then the dives right after that. We all agreed to come back at 11:00 so that we would have the training fresh in our minds for the dives.
We walked back to Fisherman’s and spent some time with the girls.
Terry and John took out a couple kayaks for a bit.
When it was time, we walked back into town for our dives. We met Miguel and went through the dive training. Miguel was an excellent instructor. He explained everything very well and made sure that we understood it. He was very patient with us rookies. He offered to take pics and video clips of us with his camera for $45 US. He said we would get a DVD and a CD that we could make copies of. Sounded like a good deal to us. We agreed for him to do that and are really glad we did.
We did 2 dives. The first one was 23 minutes and I think it was about 35 feet deep. The second dive was for 30 minutes and it was 45 feet deep. It was a very good experience and we are all glad that we did it.
In training
John’s good to go
In the boat ready to start
He had us go down hand over hand on a rope so that we could equalize as we went
Me and Terry
Terry and John
A couple fish pics
Me with a conch shell (I think they planted that thing there so us newbies would have something to find)
After the dive we were hungry so we went to Via Pizza for a few slices of some very good pizza. Stopped in a little store for some beer and we were all set for our walk back to Fisherman’s.
After cleaning up for the evening we met in the lobby and headed for Manne’s Beirgarten. Whoo hoo tonight is the Ribs and Suds 2 peep meet night. We had a really good time last year at this and tonight was again great!!!!!! We got to see many people that we had met before and met many new ones.
Terry, myself and John with some German beer to start the night off
DeeDee, Barb and Kari with their very good strawberry margaritas
DeeDee and Kari @ Manne’s
DeeDee and Susie (one of the owners)
Us boys with our first round of Manne’s special brew (it’s a home made tequila that he gets from a local guy)
Me and Don
Deb running the tequila shot machine, she’s really good at it (sorry it’s a little out of focus)
I’m not sure which round this is, but it’s me and John with Fernanda in the middle.
Barb and Terry with a round
The nights still not over, after Manne’s we went to el Pirata to watch the Fire dancers next door.
Can you believe the guys were hungry again? So we hit Via pizza on the way back to Fisherman’s. It was definitely another great day in Playa!!!!!!!!
2/28 – Day 8
DeeDee and I walked into Playa to pick up the dive CD and DVD. We checked our email and a few things on the internet. I just love these little internet shops. This time we went to the one on calle 4 right next to Hotel Cielo. We were on for something like 15 to 20 minutes and it cost $5 pesos.
We then walked back to Fisherman’s and had an excellent breakfast. Today we basically planned to just hang out here for a relax day. I wasn’t very happy to find out that there weren’t any beach chairs left for us to use. I thought someone else was going to save them, but I guess that didn’t happen. Barb and John found some broken ones that they had stacked up behind one of the building and drug them down to the beach. They kind of worked along with some regular chairs that they said we could use. The saving chair thing drives me nuts. There were three chairs by us that were not used until after 3:00 PM. Well, except for a couple of other gals did use them for a while since no one else was. When the gal who had saved them did finally show up, we realized that she had been using a couple chairs all day on the terrace over the bar. This person had saved 2 sets of chairs!!!!!!!! Oh well, tomorrow we have another day trip planned so it won’t matter anymore.
I even played some pool volleyball with the guys. I’m not usually into that, but since everyone else was doing it I figured why not. It actually was kind of fun.
They had a sub bartender today since it was the regular guy’s day off. The regular guy was OK, but the sub was great. He made excellent drinks and was fun to visit with.
We had supper at Fisherman’s this day too. Not too many people eat here so it’s pretty quiet and they have a limited menu. The staff there really does a good job and seems to want us to enjoy our meals.
DeeDee and I had the grouper. It came with some thin pasta and shrimp. It looked just like what I had earlier in the week with my fillet, but tonight it was quite a bit spicier. The grouper was excellent. I liked the wine we had this night better than the Italian night, but most of the others liked it better before. Those of us that didn’t go with the grouper had the stuffed chicken breast, which they said was also very good. The meal also included the salad bar and soup as well as dessert. I think I had some kind of cheese cake. DeeDee had some kind of cake and hot chocolate.
Some pics from dinner:
DeeDee and Rhonda with our waiter Felipe
2/29 – Day 9
We had breakfast at Fisherman’s. We went to the colectivo stand to catch a ride to Akumal. Today our group started out as 10 of us. Since we had a group of 10 they loaded up a van for just our group. I have not seen them do this before. The driver said that for $30 pesos ($3 US) per person he would drive into Akumal rather than the usual colectivo drop off on the highway ($20 pesos). Since we had some fairly heavy coolers we eagerly agreed.
The two new people in our group today are Susie and Matt. Terry and I know Matt from work and they are staying at an AI resort in Playacar. Soon we were in Akumal. This time there was a sign up saying something about the chairs being property of some hotel and for hotel customers only. I walked up to the guy watching the chairs in the chair cage and asked if we could rent some. He said sure and that they were $40 pesos per person. So we rented 10 chairs and were set for the day. We barely got settled and I looked down the beach and walking our way were David and Tammy. Whoo hoo, more friends!!!! They rented a couple chairs and joined us.
A photo of Akumal bay that I took on a previuos trip (I forgot to take any pics of the bay on this trip)
The guys all got our snorkel gear and headed out into the bay.
It was kind of rough out by the reef, but not too bad closer in. On that first trip out, we did see a couple turtles and Terry saw an eagle ray, but it wasn’t what I remembered it like. Oh yeah, we saw some fish too. I brought along a digi pac plasctic bag thing that I had bought for my camera to take underwater pictures. I was a bit nervous about using it, but it worked out great. The only problem that I had was that I couldn’t see my display on the back of the camera underwater. I tried to just point and shoot on my first trip out. That didn’t work very well. I then figured out that if I looked through the viewfinder I could see almost half of what I was taking a picture of. There is a part of the camera bag that extends out around the camera lens and that blocks quite a bit of what I can see. Anyway, my second trip out resulted in much better pics.
After an hour or so we all headed back to shore. I was telling DeeDee about the outing and glanced over to her right and there sits our favorite stalker Zelda. This is too funny. Along with her is John. We had met John last year in Playa the same night we met Zelda. Our little group is now 14 people.
We had a few cervesas and enjoyed the day even though it really wasn’t the best weather day. After a while Terry & Barb and DeeDee & I headed up to Lucy’s for lunch. Soon Matt and Susie joined us. We had some excellent shrimp tacos and homemade ice cream cones. The tacos were $25 pesos each and the ice cream was $35 pesos. The shrimp on the tacos are huge so I would say that they are worth it.
Lucy’s
Shrimp tacos
Kevin and Rhonda had lunch at Lo Ha and said it was good. John & Kari and David & Tammy went to Lucy’s. David also picked up some beer at one of the grocery stores there. He found it way cheaper than the $22 US for a bucket of 5 at Lo Ha.
After lunch, we went back to the beach to rest for a bit. Then back to the bay for some more snorkeling. This time the snorkeling was much better. We saw lots and lots of turtles. I have no idea where they came from, but I must have seen 10 or 12 different turtles. The most that I could see at one time was four of them. I also saw an eagle ray this time and took a lot of turtle and ray pictures.
This one had some fish attached to it. The gal in the bay patrol kayak said they are shark suckers.
Eagle ray
Parrot fish
It was a great day to say the least. We headed out to the highway around 4:00 pm or so and caught a colectivo back to Playa. There were a few people a head of us so we had to wait about 10 or 15 minutes before we caught one. The 10 of us that were left were all able to get on one colectivo. Tammy got to sit in a camp chair in the center front. Good thing we didn’t hit anything on the way back.
After getting cleaned up we met in the lobby and headed into town. Our first stop was the Beer bucket. Then we headed to La Pesca. I was eager to go there as last year this was my favorite place when we went there twice.
It was even better than I had remembered. Our waiter was excellent. DeeDee had a coupon for a free margarita. He said that meant everyone got a free margarita and that was just fine with us. I had the Imperial shrimp. That is grilled shrimp with bacon. It was the best meal I had in Playa this trip. DeeDee had the garlic shrimp and it was also fantastic. All of the meals were awesome. With a beer each for the guys and a tip it cost the six of us $900 pesos ($90 US or $30 a couple). Quite reasonable for what we got.
After La Pesca we went to Ah Cacao for dessert. This time DeeDee and I had a piece of chocolate cake and some coconut ice cream. I liked the cake even better than the brownie.
We then wandered down 5th and back to Fisherman’s.
3/01 – Day 10
DeeDee and I got up and walked into Playa to a little French bakery that is on calle 8 between 10th and 15th. DeeDee’s sister Missy and her husband Mike found it when they were there a couple days before us two years ago. It’s not a cheap place, but the éclairs are fantastic.
Our breakfast (72 pesos, about $7 US)
The Bakery
After breakfast we walked back to Fisherman’s to pack up and check out. All that went well. We said our good-byes to our friends and took a cab to the Luna Blue. The Luna Blue will be our new home for the last three nights of our trip.
When our taxi pulled up, we saw Lori and John just leaving. I jumped out and got their attention as they were walking away. They had just left a note for us. Lori’s SO Bram, was coming in today and they all wanted to have supper with us at el Asador de Monolo that night. We agreed to meet them there at 7:00 PM.
Since it was early, our room wasn’t ready. We figured on that, so were prepared and already had our beachwear on. We left our luggage there, got our beach chair passes and towels from Genaro and headed down to Mamitas.
We had been to Mamitas before two years ago and thought it was pretty nice. This time we found it really unorganized. Since it was almost 11:00 AM we expected it to already be pretty full. We didn’t see any empty chairs out so we asked someone working there where we could sit. We asked three different workers and they all just pointed at a stack of chairs in the back and then pointed to the crowd of people that were already there. So I grabbed a couple chairs and found a spot near a palapa. This seemed weird as two years ago they kept people pretty well spaced out. It all worked out fine, but it’s not really our favorite spot.
at Mamitas beach club
Later in the afternoon we walked back up to the Luna Blue. We met Tony and Cheri (the owners) again and were now able to check in. We booked a superior room. That basically mean you get a fridge and a water cooler with the room for $10 US more a night. We were given room number 35. It was a second floor room that overlooked the garden area. We were quite happy with the room and really liked the balcony. I couldn’t believe how quiet and peaceful it was sitting on the balcony.
room # 35 at the Luna Blue
the balcony on our room
view from the balcony
We cleaned up a bit and headed back out. We found Anna Lynne (Shammy) at the bar so we stopped and visited with her a bit. She is from New Jersey and we have met her a few times before in Playa.
Shammy and DeeDee at the Luna Blue bar
We then headed out to find a bite to eat. We stopped at a place called Mr. Kiwi that is on 10th halfway between calle 8 and 10. Jan had told us about this little place so we just had to try it. I was not disappointed. I had a torta called the Cubana. Basically, it was a sub sandwich that had several kinds of meat on it with vegetables and cheese. It’s all cooked on the grill/griddle right there, even the bun is toasted/browned for you. I thought it was very good, but way too big for the snack I was looking for. When we got there the place was full of locals so it has to be a good spot. My torta was one of the more expensive ones on the menu and it cost $42 pesos (about $4 US).
Mr Kiwi
My torta at Mr Kiwi
After our late lunch we went to Bad Boys to enjoy some music and see who was there. Right away we found Don and Deb and joined them at their table. Before you knew it there were about six tables lined up with ours and full of people, most of who we knew at least somewhat.
DeeDee getting a necklace at Bad Boys
Our group at Bad Boys
After Bad Boys we headed up 5th and headed toward the Luna Blue to get ready for supper. We were walking by Kixten and I heard someone yell “Cazador”. I looked over and it was John, Lori and Bram. We stopped and visited with them for a bit, then headed to the Luna Blue to clean up for supper.
We got to meet Barry (Popeye) and Phyllis at the Luna Blue. I was glad that we ran into them as Barry painted a watercolor that DeeDee gave me for Christmas. We didn’t get to chat long though as we had to keep moving so that we could make our dinner date.
We then went to el Asdor de Manolo for supper. It is on 10th, just south of calle 26 so we didn’t have far to go. It is an Argentina grill type place. DeeDee and I had been there last year with Mike and Becky and liked it. We had a sampler dinner for two just like we did last year. It came with a salad, some empanadas and several types of meat. Our waiter seemed a bit confused here, but basically it all worked out. They had kind of a two man band here that played and sang while we ate. They were really good. It wasn’t the mariachi type and they didn’t even ask for tips.
Bram and Lori (Zelda)
John
us at el Asador de Manolo
After supper DeeDee and I needed a walk so we headed down 10th and stopped at Don Carmelo for ice cream again. We were then too full to drink so we headed north again and crashed for the night. We did wave at David and Tammy though as we walked by the Beer bucket.
3/02 – Day 11
Today is a Tulum day for us. We got up and walked down to the colectivo stand. We got the last two seats in a van as soon as we got there. We sat up front. Fortunately this van had an actual center seat and seat belt. The driver we had was quite friendly and a very cautious driver. We did make about 10 stops on the way down so the trip took about 53 minutes. He said $25 pesos per person. I thought we paid $30 pesos per person to Tulum last year. I gave him 30 pesos pp. We were to meet our friend Rob at Don Cafeto and then he would take us to Xamach Dos, the place that he and his wife Shanda were staying. We got out at the colectivo stop in town Tulum and I pull out my mapchick map to see where Don cafeto is. I just get started looking and DeeDee says “hey, it’s right there across the street”. Perfect. So we went over there and got a table for breakfast. The food and service was excellent. They even brought me syrup for my pancakes without me asking.
We finished breakfast and waited maybe ten minutes and then saw Rob go by in a red Jeep. We walked out to the road and waited for him to come by again. He stopped and picked us up. I couldn’t believe that his Jeep was a rental. It was in pretty tough shape. All the tires including the spare were almost bald. The glove box was broke and laying on the floor. There were several rips in the padding and fabric. The windshield wipers worked about as good as the ones in my Dad’s 1962 Willis. Rob had to rip the locking gas cap off when he needed gas since the key didn’t work. It took Rob several minutes to get the key out of the ignition each time. It really was a POS.
We stopped at San Fransciso for some tequila and snacks. Then we stopped at Copals Cabanas to get Rob’s friends Tex and Joy. They followed us down to Xamach Dos in there brand new rental jeep. Xamach Dos is 32KM south of Tulum.
DeeDee in the “jeep like thing”
On the road south
A bridge we went across
It sprinkeled a little bit and with the dust on the road the window was really hard to see through. The wipers were worthless. Good thing DeeDee had some water she was drinking.
Here’s Rob wiping off the windshield with his bandanna and some drinking water.
We are there
The cabana that Rob and Shanda had for four nights
Margo, the caretaker with lunch before it was cooked (permit fish)
Some pictures of the day
It was a great day. I was very glad that we got to spend a day with Rob and Shanda and their friends in this awesome place. Margo was an excellent caretaker. She and her staff made a fantastic lunch. She also makes maybe the best Margarita I have ever had. It might have had something to do with the atmosphere, but they sure tasted good. So were the Pina Coladas and cold Sols.
I did a little snorkeling and found a couple conch shells. The first one I found still had the live conch in it so I left that one. I brought back a couple that were empty. Well, at least I thought they were empty. One of them had a hermit crab living in it.
At the end of the day, we rode back to Tulum with Tex and Joy. The Jeep they had rode way better than the one Rob had. I couldn’t believe the difference.
In Tulum we ended up catching a cab to Playa. We negotiated a cheaper price after we were told the price and headed for the bus station. Funny how that works sometimes.
Back in Playa we stopped at el Jurado, but they were just closing up so we couldn’t eat there. It was only 7:50 PM, but it was Sunday night.
We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and went out to find supper. How about La Vagabunda? Nope, they were closed too. We ran into Don and Deb along with Mrs. B and her Mum on our way down 5th. We chatted with them a bit and then continued on. How about one of Ron’s famous burgers at the Beer Bucket? When we got there I could smell burgers. I went up stairs and asked Ron if he was still cooking burgers. He said that nope, he was done for the day and usually only cooks until 9 or 10. I looked at my watch and see that it’s only 8:50 PM. Oh well, it is Mexico. Now I’m hungry for a burger. We end up at Johnny Rockets. I have never been to a Johnny Rockets, but thought what the heck. My cousin had been there earlier in the week and said it was good. It actually was really good. DeeDee and I split a burger and fries and then a hot fudge sundae. With a lemonade I think the bill was around 200 pesos or $20 US.
We were tired after that so we walked back to the Luna Blue and crashed.
3/02 – Day 12
Our last full day in Playa. We went for breakfast at La VagaBunda. I had the mixed fruit and sweet cream crepe. DeeDee just had a bagel. The crepe was good and the bagel was a bagel.
We got our beach chairs passes for Mamitas, but then decided to just head further north and hang out up past the Grand Coco Bay resort. It is quieter up there, but not near as quiet as it was a couple years ago. We spent the rest of the morning there.
We went back to the hotel for a bit and the headed out for lunch. Today we finally made it to Dr. Tacos, which is one of my favorite places. We had some shrimp tacos and I had a Leon. It was excellent as always.
We then stopped by Don Carmelo for one last ice cream cone.
Then we walked to Fisherman’s beach club in Playacar. We showed them our membership card and they were happy to let us use a couple chairs. We relaxed there for a couple hours and then walked around Playacar some. Today I read about 200 pages in my book that I had started on day one. We have been so busy on this trip that I have hardly taken the time to read.
We then walked back to the hotel and relaxed on the balcony. We cleaned up and went down to the hotel bar. We found several friends there that included; David and Tammy, MJ and Mark and Shammy. I had a couple Sols there and DeeDee had a Sarita (Sara be careful) It’s a drink named after a friend of the owners. It is a margarita made from pomegranate tequila. It was too tart for my taste, but DeeDee really liked it.
MJ and Mark
David and Tammy
Me and Shammy
DeeDee and I then went to el Jurado so I could have a hurrache. Unfortunatly it was closed. Guess, I’ll have to wait until the next trip for a hurrache. We decided to go next door then to el Fogon. I really like el Fogon too and we hadn’t been there this trip yet so it worked out just fine. We had a waitress that didn’t speak any English at all, but it didn’t matter. She was excellent and our food was great. I had a couple tacos pastor and some chicken thing. DeeDee just had some cheese quesadillas.
We then went to La VagaBunda for dessert. DeeDee wanted some key lime pie and she thought they had it there. She ordered the Limon pie and yep, it was what we call key lime. It was very good as was the strawberry ice cream I had.
After that we wandered down 5th. We had made plans with MJ, Mark, David and Tammy to try to meet up at the Fusion later. We ran into David, Tammy and Shammy. They said that it was pretty windy at the Fusion and that no one else was there yet. We decided to stop a Burbon street. While we were there MJ and Mark joined us. A little while later along came JimmyMN. I knew he was in town, but we hadn’t run into him yet. He joined us too. We had a fun night drinking and visiting with everyone. Donna and big Dave also stopped by for a few minutes.
3/02 – Day 13
Leaving day. We walked down to The Alhambra for breakfast. We had a very good breakfast here on our second morning so we thought we would do this again for our last day. It was nice to be on the beach, but we got a different waiter and the service wasn’t near as good. The food was OK though.
We checked out emails, checked our flight and our pickup with DeeDee’s sister. We were set to go. We did a little shopping for things like T-shirts for the kids.
Then back to the Luna Blue to pack and clean up. When it was time, we went down and checked out. Michael (Banzoomba) and Monica (Rubio) had just got there. We were glad to get to see them even though it was just for a few minutes. We caught a cab to the airport. The rest was pretty much uneventful, which is a good thing for a flight home.
Final thoughts.
One thing I noticed was that Playa del Carrmen is still really growing. I know it’s been growing every year, but I really noticed that it was more crowded this year than before.
I thought that for the most part we had better service at the restaurants this year. I think they are trying to please the fast-paced Americans more. We still had a couple times that things got mixed up a bit, but it all worked out in the end.
I’m very glad that I did the discovery scuba dive. I don’t know if I’ll ever get certified, but at least I now know what diving is like.
I’m glad we were able to experience a couple cenotes, by swimming, snorkeling and jumping in them.
Akumal was also busier that it has been in past visits, but I also still love that place.
I’m glad we got to vacation with the friends and family this time. DeeDee and I have a great time down there by ourselves, but it’s fun to experience it with others too.
I am also glad that we got to see and spend time with so many friends that we have made in Playa.
I still love Playa………..
Filed under: 2008, Playa del carmen, Vacations / travel
Whoo! Love the blog. Very neat turtle picture. Can’t wait to read more adventures! Becky
Now THAT is a vacation album!! Very fun read and done beautifully. Jeff