Day 4: Cancun to Playa del Carmen

November 28, 2021

"yo soy un hombre sincero de donde crece la palma"

We are truly here in the land of the palm trees, and ready to set off.

Our job today is simple, hop on to 307 and beetle straight south to Playa. Here we are, ready to go:

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The first 6-10 km of 307, basically until the airport, was fairly rough with much broken pavement and two or three lanes of traffic with no shoulder.

Even in this fairly brutal zone, there were still the amenities of little micro kitchens under popup tents, where people could find breakfast.

Pretty soon the road settled down to offering us a shoulder, for at least 40 km., though the traffic volume remained heavy throughout. With the shoulder, the traffic did not feel threatening, but the constant noise waqs certainly wearing. For that volume of traffic, the noise was actually much less than on an equivalent Canadian or American road, because 90% of it was well tuned, basically brand new VW transporter window vans or Toyota HiAce's. I began to listen to it not as individual vehicles but as a single machine, conveying tourists to the Mayan Riviera resorts where they would presumably be turned upside down to shake loose the $US, and then returned to Cancun. Though I have put it in these terms, I actually see nothing wrong with this industry that has been created along the coast. It's good for the local people, and the tourists, like us, are having a whale of a time!

One sort of off note did pop up quite early, as we came to a giant shopping mall under construction (or maybe it is now abandoned). It was surrounded by a giant km long fence of billboards, that depicted the joys to come after completion. The off note was that those depicted as enjoying the facility were entirely white. In fact, every single billboard of any kind along the entire strip depicts the activities of white people. This is brutally pretty accurate, but hell! While I was feeling slightly outraged, I found another reason to be ticked off. 100% of those depicted white people were young! Whattabout me, fellas? (And oh yeah, all females depicted are skinny!)

We also came quite quickly to the first of the Riviera mega hotel complexes. These generally feature over the top impressive entranceways, but you usually can not see the actual buildings. This first one, though, could be spied through the fence:

This one is called Xavage, and its really an adventure park rather than a hotel. It costs about 3000 pesos ($175) to get in for a day, though that includes a buffet!

The naming of stuff along the coast has gone beserk with the use of the "X". The most common billboard is for X-Caret, and this is one of their more innovative examples:

But there are about a dozen others, each using some kind of "X" word play, like these:

Aside from the many billboards, the cyclist can also look at the entrances, like these:

I am not sure how they keep these facades green, as I looked for and could not spot the irrigation systems.

There was a little bit of natural excitement for us along the way as well. First we (ok, Dodie!) spotted an actual bird, looking like this:

And next a thrill for a northerner but no big deal here:

The sun was of course far brighter than we are used to, and we did keep drinking from our many water bottles. We stopped in shade a few times, and Dodie found this great spot, where a two minute nap did wonders for me.

Concrete like that can seem very soft to lie on when you are beat!

As we approached Playa, construction offered a torn up road and a shoulder that was either bad or gone. I struck me that as elsewhere on this continent, places where bicycles can safely travel are usually more accidental than planned, and when it comes to tearing stuff up the bicycles usually suffer first.

Soon enough, though, we could hang a right and proceed along Playa's main drag, which is a pedestrian/bicycle zone!

The main drag, will soon turn to a mega tourist zone.

This time, the Booking latitude and longitude took us bang on to our digs at the "Casa del Artista", and few streets up from the main drag. This was a bit of a step up from the previous nights, with a clean white washed aspect, courtyard with tables, actual hot water, and even AC (which we have not tried yet). The lovely young Barbara greeted us with cold fizzy water with fresh lime. All so nice!

Clean room. We also have a kitchen and a sitting room with the desk I am writing from.

A quick hot shower and headed out on foot to sample the pleasures of Playa del Carmen. Our first observations were firstly that the throngs of tourists were largely unmasked. But next, the throngs seemed thinner than we remembered, and it took a bit to line up a shot that would seem suitably "thronged".

Despite these drawbacks we had a wonderful time, walking about 5 km past all the trinket shops and restaurants, none of which seemed to offer authentic Yucatan food. Another change from what we remember was that the energy with which the touts in front of businesses and restaurants tried to pull you in was rather subdued. Don't know why that would be.

The street did offer all sorts of distractions, though. One was the number of young women dressed for the beach and wearing almost nothing. We think this is disrespectful of the local people, but we are not bent out of shape by it. Another was the presence of a small contingent of Jewish guys, apparently offering Bar Mitzvah "boosters" to any susceptible lapsed jews they can find. We saw this same activity in Paris.

Obviously you can also attend a Chanukah something, with these same folks:

More in keeping with local culture was a Mariachi group, with a solo singer that may have been a member of the group or maybe was just a passer-by. I will try to post a video soon, so you can guess as well.

We decided this fellow was a more serious artist that was not thrilled to be earning pesos this way.

Although we could not find any really authentic food, and certainly not Poc Chuc, we did stop for cold chocolate, which is another authentic item. The flavour was really good, and a big hit with us:

Dodie's "Maya" flavoured chocolate had chili and some cinnamon.

The whole scene was really fun, and we walked farther and longer than we should have, finding ourselves a bit far from home and out of energy. But since you are just sitting on your sofa at home, come along for a few more scenes from along the strip:

Lots of colourful work like this in the shops

These glitsy twirling things would look better in a video. They were to be found at many shops.

"Frida" stuff is everywhere, from semi serious artwork to things like this. Frida Kalho was a famous Mexican artist that died in 1954. Her self portrait images are super famous.

When we first came to Playa on the "chicken bus" many years ago, I found Senor Frog to be hilarious, and I took it to be a legitimate part of local culture.

That one hundred times sanction seems harsh!

With the Omicron variant now on the horizon it seems unlikely Canada will lift the PCR test requirement. In fact we may be lucky to be let back in!

In the town square, police carefully take the flag down for the day.

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Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 82 km (51 miles)

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Douglas LotenPerhaps it’s a Yucatán vs Quintana Roo thing… or maybe just a Cancún and Playa thing, but 99% of the people in Mérida, Progreso, Chicxulub or anywhere along the beach all wear masks. The exceptions are the Snow birds or the Boat People?
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