Playa del Carmen Feb / March 2010

Posted on April 2, 2010 by cazador75

DeeDee and I made our annual trip to Playa del Carmen Mexico again this February. We are probably back to only going once a year for now, unless we get a deal that is just too good to pass up or some friends twist our arms into going more……

Day 1

I won’t bore you with the travel details as they were pretty much the same as they were on other trips.

For the first three nights we stayed at what I would call a small economy hotel called Hotel Fiesta Banana. It was on 5th avenue and calle 32. Our room had a king size bed, a dorm size fridge, A/C, a ceiling fan, a very small safe, a small balcony that looked over calle 32 and a bathroom that included a shower. The room was very small….. barely enough room to walk around the bed. It was very clean though and worked just fine for us for 3 nights. The gal at the front desk was always helpful and friendly. The room included a continental breakfast that included, juice, coffee, yogurt and toast.

As soon as we got settled we headed down to see the new and improved beach…WOW!!!! We walked down 5th until we got to Constituentes, then we cut down to the beach. Once on the beach we walked south to the Playa Maya. We wanted to see if Don and Deb were there. We found Don on his laptop. He went up and got Deb and they joined us for drinks and shrimp tacos. It was good to be back in Playa. We made plans to meet them at Manne’s for drinks later and then we would decide on a place for dinner.

DeeDee and I then walked to a bank near the bus station so I could get some pesos out of the ATM. I only had about $40 worth left over from the last trip to get us started.

Later we met Don and Deb at Manne’s as planned. We also met Sara and Jeremy there. They are a nice couple that live on Martha’s Vineyard. We decide to try a restaurant that was new to us called Kalaka. It was a good choice as we all enjoyed our meals. I had some kind of fettuccine pasta with mushroom sauce on it. DeeDee had a chicken Caesars salad. The prices there were kind of middle of the road. We were kind of tired since it was a travel day so I think we called it a night after that.

Day 2

We got up and went for a walk. We ended up at a place called “The Garden of Eating”. This ended up being my new favorite breakfast place. A gal named Karen, that is from Toronto owns the place. I had the breakfast burrito and a mixed fruit drink. I think DeeDee had scrambled eggs with cheese. The food was good and cheap too.

After breakfast we walked over to Mega to get some supplies like water, beer and snacks. We then took a cab back to the hotel.

We cleaned up and headed to the beach. We ended up finding David and Tammy on the beach in front of the condo building that they were staying at. David and Tammy are from Michigan and we had hung out with them before. We were glad that we were going to get the chance to spend some more time with them again this year. With them was Anna Lynn , who was sharing the condo with them for a week. Anna Lynn is a Jersey girl that we had met her a few times before. Also there were Sara and Jeremy that we had met the night before. We ended up hanging with them for a few hours there. While there, we got to meet Chris and Josh from Indiana when they stopped by. We then headed back to the hotel as we figured that John and Kari should be getting there soon. Sure enough, they had just arrived a few minutes earlier. Since it was Thursday, we all cleaned up and headed out to Bad Boys. Bad Boys is a beach bar / club that has live music on Thursdays and Saturdays and we love it. We drank, danced and had a good time. After that we went to Pumarulo for pizza and margaritas. Both were excellent. I think we were suppose to meet up with some of the others at the Dirty Martini bar, but after the margaritas and pizza we had had enough for the night so walked back to the hotel. I think we heard later that most of the group never made it to the Dirty Martini bar anyway.

John, Kari, DeeDee and me by the flag at Bad Boys

John and Kari dancing at Bad Boys

me and DeeDee at Pumarulo

Day 3

We met David and Tammy at La Cueva del Chango for breakfast. Jimmy called me to see if we could meet as he needed to pick up a rear tail light from us that we had muled down. Jimmy walked down and joined us for breakfast. Jimmy had some trouble getting what he wanted for breakfast. It was no big deal for him and he took it all in stride. I guess it was the waitress’s first day there. Jimmy even tipped her quite well (it might have had something to do with the fact that she was a cutie).

The six of us were planning on heading to Tulum for the day. However, Tammy got a phone call that her Mom was in the hospital and they were doing some tests so they stayed back to make sure they could be reached by phone. So John, Kari, DeeDee and I walked down to catch a colectivo headed south. We ended up negotiating a price with a taxi driver for the day. The morning was beautiful…. however, as soon as we got to Tulum it startted clouding up. John and Kari had never been to the ruins so we went there with them. DeeDee and I had been there back in 2003. Ruins are pretty boring the second time around….. After that we were thirsty so stopped by a little shop outside of the ruins and got 3 Coronas for $3 and a couple pina coladas for the girls. We then found our driver and he took us to Anna y Jose’s beach club. The girls had a couple of very good Miami Vice’s, but the beer was served in a can and the food was average at best. We wandered down the beach some and hit a couple of beach bars, but by now the weather was windy, cloudy and not very warm. It wasn’t a bad day, but the weather sure put a damper on it. We walked back and had our driver take us back to Playa.

some Tulum ruins pics

DeeDee and Kari at Anna y Jose’s

me and DeeDee on the beach near Tulum

The best part of the day for me was Util Pasta Factory for dinner. It was excellent!!!!! We found this, way out of the way, place last year and loved the food. It is a very small Italian place that only has four small tables and mostly does take out. The owner, Papa Charlie, was there and treated us like good friends. John and I had the meat and mushroom cannelloni. DeeDee had the three cheese ravioli and Kari had the chicken and cheese cannelloni. We also had dessert and were stuffed…. I think this was the best meal of the trip for me

Me and DeeDee with Papa Charlie at Util Pasta Factory

We walked around some after dinner. We ran into Vanessa and Dave from Ohio near the Beer Bucket and talked with them a bit. I think we had just one beer after dinner as we were too full to drink.

Day 4 (Saturday)

We got up and went to the Garden of Eating again for breakfast. We wanted to take John and Kari there since DeeDee and I liked it so much. Breakfast was again good and reasonable. After breakfast we went to Mega so John and Kari could get some supplies for the week. We then walked back to the hotel to pack up and check out. We got a taxi van and moved the four of us with all of our stuff to Fisherman’s Village for the week. Fisherman’s was very organized this year. Check in was a breeze this time. They told us that our rooms weren’t ready and to check back later. No problem, we got beach towels and headed to the beach. We spent some time there enjoying the day. When it was time we went up to see if the rooms were ready. Sure enough, they were and much to our surprise, we even got the room we requested. John and Kari got the adjoining room right next to us. Sometimes things do work out perfectly

After we got settled in our rooms we took in some more beach time and then back to the room to clean up for the evening. Tonight was another Bad Boys night. I made up margaritas “to go” for our walk into town. This was new this year and worked out great. Once in town we stopped at a Pizza Pazza for a snack. This is another thing that we found worked out great, was to eat a little something before drinking and dancing at Bad Boys.

DeeDee and Kari at Bad Boys

the four of us at Bad Boys

Don and Deb at Bad Boys

Erik and Andy jammin at Bad Boys

After Bad Boys I think we went to El Fogon for dinner. I had the archerra national, it was good, but a little more done than I like it.

Day 5 (Sunday)

I think today was a veg on the beach at Fisherman’s day. We did walk to the south down to the last AI resort. We could easily do that his year now that the beach has been restored. I’d guess the walk there and back took close to an hour.

We walked into town around 6:00 PM and went to the Luna Blue. They were having an auction for the Peanut Pet Shelter and we wanted to help out. I ended up getting DeeDee an anklet and Kari bought a Tulum print that Barry had painted. We got to meet Chewy there. Chewy is a really cute little pet shelter dog that our friends Jan and Erik took back home to Minnesota.

DeeDee with Chewy

After the auction we walked up to La Bamba Jarocha on 30th for supper. This was recommended to us from some friends. I’d say that it was OK, not great. I guess I expected it to be cheaper and better. We did have excellent service though from a gal that spoke zero English.

That’s all I remember from that day…

Day 6 (Monday)

Today we walked into town and took the 8:00 AM ferry over to Cozumel. Once there, the four of us met our friends Barb and Terry. We rented a taxi van and driver for the day. We had him take us to the east side of the island so we could do some beach bar hopping. It was a very fun day. We started on the north end at a place called Senior Iguana’s and made stops on the way south at; Playa Morena, Coconuts, Chen Rio, Playa Bointa, Bob Marleys and Playa Planacar. We had a great seafood lunch platter at Chen Rio. We had a round of tequila shots at Playa Bonita, other than that it was just beer and margaritas at the other spots. After that we went into San Miguel and had a light dinner at a place called La Mission. We all had a mixed sampler type plate and it was very good. We did find 4 geocaches along the way. We took the 7:00 PM ferry back to Playa. We were tired after a long day, so once in Playa we got some ice cream and headed back to Fisherman’s for our earliest night in of the trip.

DeeDee on the naked beach at Senior Iguana’s

This guy was helping Barb and us find a geocache at senior Iguana’s

at Playa Morena

John with Spiderman (Terry found Spidey washed up on the beach there)

DeeDee at Coconuts

Barb and Terry at Coconuts

DeeDee, Barb and Kari at Coconuts

our seafood platter that we had for lunch at Chen Rio

DeeDee and me at Bob Marley’s

The rest of the trip…….. Since it has taken me so long to get around to finishing this I am having a hard time remembering what we did when. I usually take some notes everyday to help me with this kind of stuff……. but not this time. Anyway, here is a summary of some of the other things we did.

Two days we walked into Wickey’s for lunch. Wickey’s still has excellent burgers. They did raise there prices 20 pesos on their burgers though. They are now 90, 100 and 110 pesos depending on which one you get. That includes french fries or BBQ chips. The frys we got this time were basically just the thin McDonalds type frys, nothing special. When we were there in December they were the nice thick steak frys. Both days when we were there, Mike Grabow was playing his guitar and singing. He does a great job with beach type music and I enjoyed listening to him here and at The Luna Blue a night or two.

Other eats….

We ate at the south Babes one night and it was again excellent. I think we have eaten at Babes at least 6 or 7 times over the past several years and have always had good food. With the way things are so inconsistent in Playa this says a lot for Babes.

I finally made it to El Jurado one night. DeeDee had ate at this place a couple years ago when she was in Playa with her sister Dawn. I thought the food was pretty good and the prices there are very cheap. I definitely plan to go back.

We tried Taco Tango again this year after having an excellent meal here last year. This time we were dissapointed…. It wasn’t bad, just not very good. The meats were mostly kind of tough and they also had the thin frys this time instead of the steak frys like before. Maybe that’s all they could get down there this year……

One afternoon on the way to Bad Boys, DeeDee and I tried Don Ceviche Mariscos and were very happy. We had some deep fried shrimp tacos and seafood chimichungas, both were excellent. They didn’t sell alcohol there though.

A couple nights we stopped for Pizza Pazza on the way to Bad boys. Both times the pizza was fresh hot and greasy. Perfect for a before night of drinking and dancing place to eat

We ate at the El Fogon on 30th and 6 bis twice on this trip. The first time, my arrcherra was OK, would have been better if it hadn’t been over cooked. The bean soup there is excellent. The second time I tried a couple new things and they were great. El fogon has great cheap food as far as I’m concerned. We had excellent service both times.

Manne’s Biergarten – What can I say about Manne’s? We had a peep meet / get together again this year at Manne’s. Don and Deb set it up and Manne and Susie (the owner’s) are awesome hosts. They set out an all you can eat rib buffet for us. Great food and they only charge us 120 pesos per person. They also bring out the gas tank of home brew tequila after supper for us to basically have as many shots as we want. A very good time was had again. This was the 4th time Don and Deb have done this and DeeDee and I are the only one’s other than Don and Deb to have made it to all 4. I think there were about 50 people there this year.

Tammy, Kari, DeeDee and Susie

me and John getting tequila shots ready

Don, Manne’s Susie, DeeDee and me

me, David, John and Kim

DeeDee and Kari

Tammy, Deb, DeeDee and Kari

Bad Boys… We made it to Bad Boys all 4 nights that they had the band playing when we were there. We have always had fun there. This time I think we figured out that we need to get there early and sit inside. Inside you can hear the band better and get a better feel for it. We danced and drank and had a great time. It does get pretty crowded though. I really enjoyed watching and listening to the Playa Dogs play again this year. This year the Playa Dogs consisted of Erik from Minnesota and Andy from the Peanut Pet Shelter. Their drummer wasn’t there so they used the one from the regular house band (The Nasty bastards). They also had a couple gals (Bob and Gemma) join then for a few songs. Let me tell you Erik just loves to play the guitar and it really shows.

Susie and DeeDee

Davide getting down

David and Tammy

Here are a couple youtube clips of them playing at Bad Boys. If you know what we are wearing and look close you can see DeeDee and me dancing in the Mony Mony clip a few times

Here’s one of Erik doing La Grange. We have seen him do La Grange, but this video is from a different night that we weren’t acttually there.

Final thoughts…… It was another great trip to Playa. Some highlites to me were:

Getting to spend time in Playa with my awesome wife DeeDee. Spending time with John and Kari. A fun beach bar hopping day trip on the back side of Cozumel and spending that day with friends Terry and Barb as well as John and Kari. Getting to spend more time this trip with David and Tammy as well as Donny and Randa. Getting to spend time again with Don and Deb. Getting to see Lori at least one afternoon and night. Bad Boys…. I miss that place as much as anything. Manne’s Rib night… loved it again. Others that I can think of that I either got to meet for the first time or meet and see again that helped to make the trip great: Rob, Susie, Anna Lynne, Jimmy, Rita and Slim, Chris and Josh, Sarah and Jeremy, Michael and Monica, Philip and Shannon, Vanessa and Dave, Linda and Rick, Erik and Jan, Boz and Kacey, Luis, Maurice, David and Susan, Steve, Vicky, Kim, Jami and I’m sure that I am missing several other names.

David, Donny and me at el Fogon