Playa del Carmen

---

We arrived in Playa del Carmen around lunch time. It was blisteringly hot. The bus termnal was on 5th ave, the main pedestrianised street full of shops and bars. We dragged ourselves and our stuff around the corner, with no clear idea of where we were going, until we found the taxi rank. It was only a few blocks to the hostel, but with my sunburn, all our bags and with it being the hottest time of day it would have been tortuous.

The hostel was bright blue, with a large open space in the middle of it with double height ceilings. The walls and floors were brightly painted and decorated with flags from around the world. The reception had a thatched roof and the balconies which surrounded the communal area were made of wooden logs. All in all, it had a friendly, tropical and slightly shabby vibe to it that I knew I would feel at home with. Opposite the hostel there was a huge wal-mart which would be useful.

We spent the afternoon exploring Playa. The beach is about 4 blocks from the hostel and runs the entire length of the town. It is beautiful - hot white sand and bright blue sea, but a little narrow and quite busy. The road next to the beach is packed with hotels and restaurants so the beach is full of sun loungers and tables and chairs.

5th Av, the street where all the action happens, is full of tropical-looking, crusoe-esque bars, expensive shops aimed at American tourists and big tacky souvenir shops.There are some interesting looking restaurants doing salads and smoothies, frozen yoghurts and lots of hip, chilled hotels. I like Playa. Much more my sort of place than Cancun.

After getting some food from the supermarket to last us our two days here, we decided that we'd check out the nightlife. It was a friday night after all and it had been a while since we'd had a big night. We showered and dressed before taking Hannah's laptotop down into the communal area. We wanted to the sociable but spent the first hour being too shy and sober to talk to anyone. Instead we messed about on facebook. We soon ran out of booze so got ourselves some wine from Wal-Mart.

We returned to the hostel, feeling a little bit tipsy, and had a quick play in a chair hammock next to a table of 3 boys our own age who we assumed (due to them wearing pink shorts) were German. They turned out to be british and invited us over to sample some disgusting tequila. They were quite posh - one was actually called Toby - and they all had jobs in the City, but I cast aside my inverse snobbery because they were quite fun. After an hour or so we were joined by some beatuful french people and we began to play drinking games. After that, Hannah and I ended up going out, sans Frenchies. We got some Mojitos in a lovely bar, and from there we went somewhere else further along the avenue for a tequila shot - courtesy of the boys. As we walked along searching for our next bar, we came accross a CocoBongo's PR guy offering us free entry. Hannah and I had been determined not to go there as it could never beat our CocoBongo night in Cancun, but with a fair amount of booze down us and free entry it seemed like a good idea, even if only for a look.

It was packed inside, but we found enough space to dance. The boys got a round in, but not long afterwards we lost them in the melee and were then invited by a hostess to go up to one of the bars on the balcony. I was quite chuffed because they only choose pretty girls to go up there! The shows were quite good - a Queen impersonator, a Beyonce impersonator and trapeze artists were among my favourites and we had a great view. We watched the boys leave and decided we would go back to the hostel but got out too late to catch them. It turned out they'd gone on to two other clubs after CocoBongos and didnt get home until 5 when we chatted to them in the morning!

Once home we sat in the enormous communal area for 10 minutes or so, chatting to Massimo, a middle-aged, salty looking diver whose cockney accent and sun bleached hair hid his Italian heritage.

We woke up on Saturday morning just in time for breakfast - cereal - and much to my delight English breakfast tea. After a few hours getting outselves together and going to the laundrette etc. we walked to town. Our guidebook had told us of a collection of Cenotes (sink holes) just off the highway between Playa and Tulum. We caught a colectivo for $MX30 (£1.50), which is a minibus that just leaves whenever it is full and will drop you off at your destination so long as it is vaguely on its route. When we got off we paid a man at a kiosk by the side of the road $MX100 each to visit the cenotes. We didn't realise til afterwards that these weren't the only set, or that each kiosk was for a different set of Cenotes, but the ones we saw were stunning anyway. The man told us (well, Hannah, in Spanish) that if we walked down the dust track he would get his friend to meet us and give us a lift to the cenotes. We set off. We couldn't see the end of the road, it just seemed to go on forever and the heat teamed with our hangovers put me in a bad mood, for all of 5 seconds until I realised where I was and what I was doing. We trudged along until we saw something red speeding towards us. A quad bike! The Mexican on top of it gave us his best grin and indicated for us to climb aboard. This was worth 100 pesos alone, I told Hannah before we sped off, sending dust and gravel into the air.

We stopped a few minutes later at a cocllection of buildings, which looked like a restaurant under construction. Our man showed us some loos where we could change. He waited for us and then led us to the first cenote. There were a few sorkellers and scuba divers. This one was on the surface . The water was bright blue and you could see huge rocks only a few metres below your feet. There were a few small fishes and a fair amount of algae. The next one we went to was stunning - mostly subterranead, deeper, clearer and enormous. We tried to take some photos but they didn't really do justice - the light was just too much of a pain. The final cenote was also subterranean, but at some point the roof had fallen in, creating a little sunken paradise. Trees and plants were growing there with water all around and where the roof was still standing, plant roots reached through the rock and into the water. We didn't swim because the water looked a little cold and deep for our liking. We just stood for a while enjoying the tranquility. We got back to the main road via the quad bike again, this time with a child strapped to the front of it and me and Hannah on the back.

Back at the hostel, Hannah enjoyed an epic 3-hour nap whilst I giggled my way through Snakes on a Plane, much to the amusement of the Israeli man next to me who was incredulous as to how I coukdl enjoy such a terrible film. We made our tea and strategically positioned ourselves next to a beatiful looking boy, who also turned out to be Israeli, but a terrible conversationalist. He gave us some handy tips for the rest of our journey (he'd done our route but backwards) but told us some very meandering and not especially interesting long stories, and then started playing on his phone whenever the conversation wasn't about him. We passed up an offer to go see Massimo play a gig just down the road - we were both too tired and instead had an early night.

On Sunday we got up earlyish. When Hannah woke me she'd already been to the Laundrette to pick up our clothes but it was shut. Uh-oh! We panicked a little because we were leaving Playa for Tulum and ALL of my clothes were at the Laundrette - I slept in a dirty tee as it was all I had - we'd only remembered to collect our washing once the place had shut. We went back to the Laundrette later that morning but it was still shut. We asked around the few laundrettes nearby - did anyone have a key? When would they open? But eventually it opened and we got our stuff back - clean, fresh and folded. We spent some time packing and then planned to spend our day on the beach, but when we stopped to peek in a shop on our way there, the heavens openend. There were some noisy cracks of thunder so we ran to a cafe to wait it out, and sat watching the road flood whilst eating salads and drinking smoothies. After that we walked into town, bought our bus ticket and did some shopping in the first decent clothes shop I've found in Mexico - Bershka. By then the weather had cleared up a little so we spent some time on the beach before heading back to the Hostel for our things and taking a taxi to the bus station. Our bus cost just £1.80 for the hours journey, since we went second class. No more 1st Class ADO journeys for me!

---

Photos

Mayan Warrior
...and complete lethario: 'do you charge for pictures?' 'its free if you give me your facebook name or phone number?'