Travels with Hayley

So my Intrepid tour officially finished today and everyone has scattered off back home/to the next part of their travels, leaving me alone to fend for myself once more. Fortunately I am a wildly resourceful and independent modern woman as you all know so I was excited to see what the solo day would bring!

Playa del Carmen wouldn’t have been on my list of places to visit, but as the tour ended there and I have an extra couple of days before my flight I was determined to check out what the town had to offer. I took myself off for a morning walk around my neighbourhood which is about 20 minutes outside the centre of town and estate agents would call it – up and coming I would imagine…I really rather like it though, it’s grungy in a kind of down to earth way, fabulous street art, lots of locals around and very few tourists.

Have to admit being less of a fan of the dog who lives on the rooftop opposite my bedroom though who barks incessantly night and day – I know I’m a dog lover but I could cheerfully have strangled it at some points last night (don’t worry, I’d have slung it in a ceynote afterwards as an offering, waste not want not…)

I’d heard the beach here is amazing so I went to check it out – sadly they are having a big issue with seaweed (although apparently this is a good year) and it was making the sea a bit grotty and brown in parts. It’s a funny place, each section of beach is owned by the luxury hotel that sits behind it so you can walk along the shoreline but you can’t sit there. And the access back to the main road is controlled by the hotels too so you have to walk ages along until you finally find a public access road to get off the beach again. Consumerism gone wild.

After eventually making it off the weedy sand, I had another walk and decided to stop for some brunch at a cute little cafe. As I sat down I got a text from Ale – my roommate Lisa had been on a tour through Central America last year and her tour guide – Ale – just happened to be on a tour through Mexico that almost mirrored ours. We’d met up with him briefly in Oaxaca but it was the night of the ‘keeeessss meeeee’ incident so I hadn’t had masses of time to chat to him much! Anyway, we’d worked out that we were both going to be in Playa today so he mentioned he might give me a call for a coffee before his next tour started (just friendly, he has a girlfriend, everybody stand down…). I sent him a pin with my location (honestly, sometimes technology is just brilliant isn’t it) and 15 minutes later he arrived on his bike. Well, suffice to say, I had to massively overtip the cafe staff as we totally lost track of time and we were still there 3.5 hours later!

We had the best time, he was telling me tour guiding stories and was the most brilliant storyteller – I was literally crying with laughter, my stomach hurt afterwards we laughed so much. I can’t possibly do them justice – one included a huge, meathead American texting Ale (who is a pretty small, slightly built guy) at 11pm one night to ask him to walk him to the toilet 10 yards away down the corridor as he was ‘worried about getting robbed’ (of what who knows, what was he planning on taking to the bathroom?)

“I said to him, I said ok dude I will do it but look man, let’s play this out for a second – what exactly do you expect me to do if we get jumped? You’re three times my size man. l mean – I could translate the robbery – but I think maybe you’d get the gist without me!” Spoiler alert, no translating of muggings was required…Also an utterly brilliant story about not knowing the English word ‘nibbles’, assuming it was ‘nipples’ and the chaotic chain of events that ensued including lesbian bars and porn! Actually lesbians featured heavily, there was another story about a lesbian sniffing dog – one for another time!

I had the rest of the afternoon free so went to check out Fifth Avenue, the huge pedestrianised street here that is apparently insanely noisy and heaving with people at night, but during the day wasn’t so busy, everyone still sleeping off the night before I presume.

It’s just thousands of shops, bars and restaurants with pumping house music blaring out – things on offer range from the standard souvenirs you can get everywhere to some very high end clothes, beachwear and ceramics shops, plus a whole bunch of high street brands like Skechers, Levi’s, Crocs and the like. It’s not exactly…classy let’s say – pics below…

There’s some interesting sales techniques here ranging from all out flattery to practically chasing you down the street offering cheaper prices – too right as well, everything is much more expensive here than anywhere else in the country – for example, an 8 minute taxi ride between the 2 hotels yesterday cost £10 – there’s no Uber or anything similar here as apparently the town is under the control of the local mafia who run the cabs! The souvenirs are 95% exactly the same thing across the country but a key ring that cost £1.50 in San Cristobal is £8 here! I’ve been window shopping only that’s for sure…

As part of said window shopping I went into a shop selling handmade leather bags, shoes etc and was hit with the most powerful sense of deja vu – it look me a minute to place that it smelt exactly like the tack room when I used to go horse riding – warm leather from the saddles. Isn’t it strange how a smell can hurtle you back in time so effectively. I also had to repeat to at least a dozen shop keepers I’d been here 3 weeks, yes it’s my first time in Mexico, yes it’s lovely, thank you for the compliment on my accent, no I’m not married – why you ask? Just lucky I guess! (I actually learned how to say that last bit in Spanish before I came, it got a lot of laughs!)

Stopped for late lunch/early dinner at a health food restaurant and had a delicious bowl of falafel, veggies, avocado and quinoa which was a welcome break from all the heavy bread based cuisine! And then de- healthed a bit with a scoop of date and hazelnut ice cream – it was vegan though. And made of gold apparently at £4 for a single tiny scoop!

Wandered back to the hotel, stopping for a chat with a guy sitting in his front garden with his wife and friends. He was somewhat – refreshed – and wanted to tell me all about how much he liked America, even though they put him in jail for 6 years. So it’s nice he wasn’t bitter about that…it’s also nice that I walked directly into a bush as I left them which really cheered their night right up, I could hear the screams of laughter halfway down the road…

Spent the rest of the evening having a look at what to do tomorrow – have settled on going to a pearl farm that’s a ferry ride away so off to sleep to make sure I leave early enough to navigate all the logistics!

Lots of love always xx