Playa del Carmen is a bustling tourist town, it's long main street lined with souvenir shops and restaurants, shop-owners and tour guides calling out as you pass and Frieda Kahlo imagery everywhere. I liked it a lot.
A block from the main street is the beach and at one end is a restaurant called Senor Frogs which has cheap cocktails and hammocks in the shade so Robina and I spent a fair bit of time moving between the hammocks and the ocean.
Food in Mexico is excellent, sometimes we'd find a cheap local place and we'd get lunch and a drink each for $5. The expensive restaurants were also relatively cheap, one of our favourites was the Frieda Kahlo restaurant. It was pretty fancy, closhes were lifted with a flourish and a puff of smoke and we had the tastiest guacamole ever - it had strawberries and pork crackling! We got entrees, mains, dessert and cocktails all for about $80 AUD! Bargain!
A short bus ride from Playa is Xcaret which is a water park/entertainment venue. It has rivers of turquoise blue that you float down, passing through caves and coming out alongside restaurants where you glide past as people dine.
There's a rocky beach where you could snorkel, it was super crowded but there were lots of fish and in the deeper water large sting rays gliding past underwater sculptures.
There was a butterfly house and a bird house, in the bird house was this crazy bird that looked like a small dinosaur and kept chasing people - it was terrifying. I made Robina wait until there was a family walking past and when it was busy terrorising their small children we made a run for it!
There was entertainment during the day including the traditional Dance of the Flying Men where some guys climb to the top of a pole, tie a rope to their feet and then swing round and round the pole unravelling the rope until finally they reach the ground. They then follow that up by climbing on top of a small windmill thing and go round and round in circles, I got dizzy just watching.
In the evening was the main show, on the walk to the arena a series of stages above the winding path had freaky dudes dressed as warrior animals watching over the crowd.
The show started with two teams playing the ancient Mayan Ball Game. A rubber ball, a bit smaller than a soccer ball, is hit with the hips and bounced through concrete hoops. This was followed by another game that was similar to hurling but with a ball that was on fire! They started at dusk, the red glowing fireball carried on sticks like hockey sticks and thrown across the court to each other before being tossed into the fire pits at each end.
The rest of the show was dancing from different areas and a musical history, showing the mayans working the land, then the Spanish arriving and conquering the Mayas, then ended with everyone holding hands and being happy about being christians. The Mexicans went crazy for it, all cheering and giving a standing ovation.
From Playa del Carmen we went further south to Tulum where we stayed at an 'eco-lodge' and discovered 'eco-lodge' was code for no air-con! In the night woke we up sweating balls and ended up sleeping on the beach beds down on the beach. This was great because there was a thunderstorm lighting up the horizon and a big meteor shower, I've never seen so many shooting stars!
In Siam Ra'an national park we did a river and lagoon tour and the river was the most amazing crystal clear, vivid blue-green water, we put on our life jackets upside down with our legs through the armholes like big nappies so we could float down the river with the jackets acting like floating seats. That was a bit weird but worked pretty well.
After floating down the river we jumped back into the boat and toured the lagoon where we saw crocodiles and manatees. The manatees are shy creatures, appearing as nothing more than a white shadow in the water occasionally poking a nose out with a snort before disappearing again.
We moved accommodation to the tube hotel which had rooms created out of large concrete tubes, they were cute and had little round doors like hobbit holes and most importantly air-con!
In my next adventures... Whale Sharks!!!!
A block from the main street is the beach and at one end is a restaurant called Senor Frogs which has cheap cocktails and hammocks in the shade so Robina and I spent a fair bit of time moving between the hammocks and the ocean.
Food in Mexico is excellent, sometimes we'd find a cheap local place and we'd get lunch and a drink each for $5. The expensive restaurants were also relatively cheap, one of our favourites was the Frieda Kahlo restaurant. It was pretty fancy, closhes were lifted with a flourish and a puff of smoke and we had the tastiest guacamole ever - it had strawberries and pork crackling! We got entrees, mains, dessert and cocktails all for about $80 AUD! Bargain!
There's a rocky beach where you could snorkel, it was super crowded but there were lots of fish and in the deeper water large sting rays gliding past underwater sculptures.
There was a butterfly house and a bird house, in the bird house was this crazy bird that looked like a small dinosaur and kept chasing people - it was terrifying. I made Robina wait until there was a family walking past and when it was busy terrorising their small children we made a run for it!
In the evening was the main show, on the walk to the arena a series of stages above the winding path had freaky dudes dressed as warrior animals watching over the crowd.
The show started with two teams playing the ancient Mayan Ball Game. A rubber ball, a bit smaller than a soccer ball, is hit with the hips and bounced through concrete hoops. This was followed by another game that was similar to hurling but with a ball that was on fire! They started at dusk, the red glowing fireball carried on sticks like hockey sticks and thrown across the court to each other before being tossed into the fire pits at each end.
The rest of the show was dancing from different areas and a musical history, showing the mayans working the land, then the Spanish arriving and conquering the Mayas, then ended with everyone holding hands and being happy about being christians. The Mexicans went crazy for it, all cheering and giving a standing ovation.
From Playa del Carmen we went further south to Tulum where we stayed at an 'eco-lodge' and discovered 'eco-lodge' was code for no air-con! In the night woke we up sweating balls and ended up sleeping on the beach beds down on the beach. This was great because there was a thunderstorm lighting up the horizon and a big meteor shower, I've never seen so many shooting stars!
In Siam Ra'an national park we did a river and lagoon tour and the river was the most amazing crystal clear, vivid blue-green water, we put on our life jackets upside down with our legs through the armholes like big nappies so we could float down the river with the jackets acting like floating seats. That was a bit weird but worked pretty well.
After floating down the river we jumped back into the boat and toured the lagoon where we saw crocodiles and manatees. The manatees are shy creatures, appearing as nothing more than a white shadow in the water occasionally poking a nose out with a snort before disappearing again.
We moved accommodation to the tube hotel which had rooms created out of large concrete tubes, they were cute and had little round doors like hobbit holes and most importantly air-con!
In my next adventures... Whale Sharks!!!!
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