Day 3: Playa del Carmen - Day 1 - Grampies Yucatan De Nuevo, Winter 2023

December 14, 2023

Day 3: Playa del Carmen - Day 1

Remember that Christmas story where the guy sells his watch to buy a ribbon for his wife's hair, while the wife sells her long hair to buy a chain for the guy's watch? It was a classic loss from lack of communication. We had a story like that last night, but we only lost sleep. Dodie generally likes it cold in our sleeping room, while I need to be warmer. We solve that at home with duvets of differing thicknesses.

We put on the A/C at bedtime here and set it to 16 degrees, its lowest number. After a couple of hours, it was quite nicely chilly in the room. Knowing that Dodie likes it like that, I doubled up my meagre tropical sheet. Then I put on another tee shirt, and finally tried sleeping under my pillow. Meanwhile over on the other of the room's twin beds Dodie was also freezing. Not knowing how to work the A/C control and not wanting to wake me, she also doubled her sheet. And that way we both shivered through the night.

After the freezing night, a good breakfast would have been nice. But what we had was the included breakfast of our humble (but not cheap) hotel. It featured the smallest dollop of refried beans we have ever seen. But actually, for a non cycling day, it was fine.

It was a non cycling day no less because the bikes were still in their cases. So, pumped (just a little) on refried beans, we set about reassembling them. This step, when described in other Bike Friday cycling blogs seems to happen fairly quickly and easily. We must live in a different Bike Friday world, because having broken the bikes down into itty bitty pieces to get them into the case, there is a lot of fiddling to get them back to road worthy. Specifically, it took 2 1/2 hours each.

The hotel had agreed to store our bike cases for a month for 2800 pesos (about $225), but we had another idea. We contacted a storage outfit, where the cases could spend the month for 900 pesos. Only thing, the place was about 5 km out of town. I got nominated to go out there with the cases. I talked to a taxi man in the street and did the drive for 250 pesos. Taxis are costly on the coast here, but we had heard numbers for this trip ranging from 600 pesos down to maybe 100 pesos. For a chance at the 100 pesos, though, I would have had to walk with the cases quite far out of tourist land.

As the taxi cruised along, I was thinking that we were going really far, and would I be able to walk back. At some point I became sure there was no way. We finally got there and I was dropped in front of a blank row of buildings, with no signage to hint of a self storage at all. In Spanish countries, like mainly SPAIN, I have grown used to this, so no panic. I phoned the self storage man and he said he had had to go to Cancun. But I should pound on the brown door, and something would probably happen.

I pounded, and a young man opened up. With the help of Google Translate, the cases were soon locked securely away. The young man, speaking no English but still named "Kevin", claimed an inability to summon a taxi, so I figured I would walk it, impossible or not. Kevin the volunteered to walk part way with me, since he was heading out to lunch.

Here is where the language barrier, together with some characteristics that Dodie has (rather accurately) described in me in uncharitable terms, kicked in to turn this simple chore into a bit of an adventure. I had blithered to Kevin about wanting to return to "Playa Centre", but he keyed on the huge nearby "Maya Centro", and when we parted ways he pointed me in that direction.

I continued walking, and soon arrived at Maya Centro, stopping in at the huge Soriana store to looked at too expensive USB chargers. I then continued in the indicated direction. Directions should be no problem, because I had my phone in hand. But remember, those shortcomings. The phone kept quoting increasing distances back to the hotel, and I did think that a little curious. But hey, Kevin said go this way...

Nice centre, too bad it was in the wrong direction!

Did I mention that it has been raining in Playa, sometimes quite heavily? Yes, and it decided to do it again as I walked, increasingly forlornly, down the unforgiving and busy 307. I did not make to Tulum, or anything, but I sure got tired, and wet. Finally I stopped in to a rare hotel along the way and tried phoning Dodie. Inexplicably, she had her phone turned off. But just then a taxi pulled up, to drop off some people who clearly did know what they were doing. I approached the driver, and suggested 200 pesos for a ride to my hotel. It would have to be 300, he said, because we were so far out of town, and on the wrong side of the road, meaning a drive to a turnaround spot. Say what? OK, but we still agreed on 250 pesos.

I did have the presence of mind to snap this Tropical Kingbird.

Back at our hotel, I gave the man the 300 anyway. It had been so far!

I went out in my raincoat (yes raincoat, not that I had had it out on 307) to get some much needed hot coffee at OXXO. Not quite the warm tropical story! But tomorrow we will no doubt be warm and happy, circling around Playa on the bikes, fine tuning them for the start of the more standard adventures, at Cozumel the day after.

I only started recording when the taxi had brought me halfway home

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