I am home and finally getting up my pictures from Mexico. I spent two weeks in Playa del Carmen. Playa is very touristy and not really for me, but is centrally located and a great location to hit stuff to the north and south of the Yucatan. There is one main street in Playa called 5th Avenue with a ton of touristy stores, restaurants and bars. At night, it can get so crowded on 5th that it almost reminded me of Vegas. Not many Americans... mainly Italians and Europeans. The hurricane damage was minimal to the beach due to the fact that Cozumel took most of the beating, so unluckily for me, the Europeans could still run around topless and speedo-ed (never really the ones that you want to see in such attire).I spent quite a bit of time hanging out in the town behind the touristy street, eating at whatever places I could find the most locals. The fact that I know very little to no Spanish and very few tourists wander off in to that area made it more difficult to communicate, but they were good at humoring me. Eventually, I was hanging out with enough locals that did speak English and Spanish that they could help me around. And the food was spectacular! Tamales, tortas, and empanadas for under a dollar.
I did four days of diving. One day of ocean diving to Tortugas (where I saw about 20-25 sea turtles) and Barracudas (which also lived up to its name), one day in Cozumel (amazing dive which included rays, eels, a lobster the size of a Labrador, cool corals and swim-throughs, and a fun bearded toadfish) and two days of cenote dives (cool layer of salt and fresh water that causes light to refract differently and then stirs up, one random eel, tons of stalactite and stalagmite formations, and even the remains of Mayan pottery). The cenote dives really made me want to get a cave diving certificate.
I also went to Coba and Ek Balam to see the ruins. Both were spectacular and not terribly touristy. And also visited a small fishing village and bird/wildlife sanctuary to the north called Rio Lagartos that was beautiful, and had a flamingo breeding ground (and salt mines). Tried to go to Tulum, but apparently the locals I went with hadn't ever been and didn't know it closed at 5, so we goofed off in the village and walked around town (it had a HUGE 700 year old tree and a cool cemetery).Highlights/funny/cool incidents from the trip:
- The bus ride from the airport to Playa, I was sitting up front. Along the highway, some large bird smacked in to the front of the bus and cracked the window a bit. When the driver asked the ticket-taker what we hit, the ticket-taker said "Maybe a chicken?" The bus driver replied "Chickens don't fly" and the ticket-taker replied "WELL... neither did that bird!" Caused a minor delay but it was all good.
- When I asked what a great local restaurant recommendations for dinner when I first arrived, I was told "Johnny Rockets". I laughed and said no...and ended up eating the best $1 tacos at some stand called Billy's instead.
- Apparently, Subcomandante Marcos held a rally at the soccer field behind my hotel one night, and I actually got to caught a quick glimpse of him on horseback as he went through town.
- Met two cool married brothers from Maine that were staying in the same hotel so I had fun hanging out and had people to eat with (since apparently being a single female in Mexico was unheard of as is eating alone) until they left.
- Highway Driving. CRAZY. I spent quite a bit of time as the passenger in Jorge or Alex's cousin's car. They take a two lane highway and make it three or sometimes four lanes as they pass down the solid yellow line (really, the yellow line is obviously just a suggestion and not one taken too seriously. It really seems to be a waste of good yellow paint). At night, the oncoming lights just barely miss you, and there are people running across the highway on foot to jump on the collectivo buses. Oh, and they are speeding... I looked down and saw on the small dirt road that Jorge was going 130 km/hr.
- Finding out that the glass bottles hanging on tree branches on the side of dirt roads actually signified that there were people living in the jungle there
- Riding a bike around Coba. Most of you know that bike riding is one of my many "not-so-strong points", but I managed it fine and it was actually pretty fun whizzing around through the jungle.
- Mayan culture. I love it! The people are so friendly and wonderful. The ruins are beautiful. Jorge was from a tiny village in the Chiapas and I would love to do another trip to Oaxaca and travel through the Chiapas and then go to Guatemala. But I need to learn more Spanish or convince one of the guys to go with me.
- Talking to Jorge about why they have basketball courts every where. Jorge said that the government builds them in all the little villages... even in the small Mayan villages with no schools, doctors, sometimes electricity, sewers, etc. He was really angry about it since it was a waste of money and as he put it "We Mayans are short people. What are we going to do with a basketball court?" (mainly they put makeshift soccer nets in front of them). He said that a better use of the government funds would be to educate some of the shamans or witch doctors of the villages on how to cure common ailments without the use of local flora and fauna, since during hurricanes, that all gets wiped out and then people can end up getting really sick or dying from simple things.
- Other tourists taking pictures of me hanging out at Alex's store. We would sit out front and chat and Alex's 13 year old cousin, Ari, tried to teach me Spanish and I tried to teach him English with Alex as both of our translators. I noticed people occasionally walking by and taking pictures of me. One Canadian couple did finally ask if it was okay to take my picture, and they seemed very surprised when I answered back in English "Yeah, if you want a picture of a chick from Seattle".
- Heading off with some locals I met at La Parilla to the discotec off the tourist street in town where I stuck out as the ONLY non-Mexican in the place. The DJ had taped videos from BET and MTV and shows them on a big screen (they still have the channel logos on the videos).
- Spending one of my final days shopping with a guy that was a soccer player in Cancun that wanted to play on the Playa team so he was living at the bus station and ran up and down the beach several times a day and just tried out any time a spot on the team opened up. But he spoke English pretty well and I would show him what I wanted and he would tell me what to pay for it and how to get the price down.
Any way, here is the link to my pictures (I haven't had a chance to add descriptions yet): http://flickr.com/photos/betsy/sets/72057594057611284/
If you read this far, your prize is that I have been perfecting my favorite meal: fish in garlic and red chile sauce, coconut rice (actually from Belize) and steamed veggies and of course... guacamole (although they didn't really have guacamole in Mexico, I still love me some avocado). You should let me know and I can cook it up for you. It was tested twice this weekend by other victims and as far as I know, they are still fine. If you don't like spicy or fish, the tequila I brought back makes everything taste better :) Next up... Vietnam for a month some time in September - October.
Love,
Betsy
