Day 30: Tulum to Playa del Carmen

January 29, 2023

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We set out with lights and flashers through Tulum and onto the dreaded 307. At 5 a.m., and even until dawn at 7, the beast was mostly asleep. This allowed me to shoot the rare photo below, showing 307 free of traffic. As you see it also has a wide shoulder, although the dotted line is an invitation to drivers to encroach on that space.

We were now well and truly into the "Mayan Riviera", and that fact popped up early, with an illuminated billboard for one of the seemingly innumerable adventure parks that build "X" into their names.

With the coming of the light, we could spot a few birds, such as the LYB (or little yellow bird) below.

Or how about this large bird, painted on an overpass?

The next photo does not really convey the intended majesty of the Tullum Country Club, which is clearly proud of being a PGA site. We rather remember this spot as where Dodie stuck her head in a water sprinkler, some weeks ago, getting a much needed cool refresher.

The road began to fill up, this time not with so many semi-trailers, as before, but with more of the expected mini-vans, ferrying tourists to their all in one hotel experiences.

There were also a wholly inordinate number of laden gravel trucks, filled with demolition waste, and grunting and growling their way down the highway beside us.

Another common road user were the "expedition style" busses, ferrying customers to the "X" parks and hotels. I really don't have a grip on what they all are.

The busses pretend that they are real expedition busses, but of course it is all for show. I was looking at them and thinking maybe they are trying to channel Indiana Jones, in South America, maybe. Having just come from just about every darn part of Yucatan, I could be sure that they were in no sense representative of actual Yucatan. But then, I changed my mind. The theme parks are within their rights to create whatever fantasies for the visitors they want, just as all theme parks do. And then, this Mayan Riviera strip is legitimately now a major component of Yucatan. So these guys are just channeling themselves, and doing their thing. And I bet their river tours, snorkeling, and Mexican culture demos are lots of fun. So quit whingeing, Steve.

Well the "luggage" on top is faux anyway.

A similar line of reasoning applies to the business shown below. Since when is Yucatan a known blown glass Mecca - like Murano, Italy? Well, maybe since now!

Now here was the subject of some lively speculation, here at tour headquarters. After much deliberation, we think this is a Laughing Falcon.

Along almost all of the Mayan Riviera we find tall fences topped with razor wire, sectioning off the sea frontages. Periodically, there are staffed watch towers too.

The only ways in are presumably though the grand gates of the resorts.

When we first saw these defences, it was 2018, and we quipped that since these fences were designed to keep the Mexicans out of the American dominated resorts, that the US could hire Mexicans to build and staff their border wall, actually get it done, and save a lot of money.

Returning to more peaceful thoughts, here we have a dove, of some type?

We were stopped, probably looking at birds, when a rather grizzled fellow rode up, on his rather grizzled bike. He had his beard in a pony tail, which was a bit unique. He told us that he lives nearby and that he tried to cycle 100 km per week. I'm afraid we rather snorted at this weak effort. But he also said he had cycled extensively in Columbia, and he highly recommended it, particularly sticking to back roads. We asked about where he would then stay, and he said at haciendas, where he would just ask to put up his hammock. Hmm, don't think we like hammocks.

Even in the quite sanitized tourist zone, there are spots where "real Yucatan" bleeds through. Like, this roadside garbage shot is just nuts!

That dark lump in the shot above is kind of interesting. I thought it was an uprooted tree stump, but Dodie points out it is probably one of those termite nests. It was very hard to the touch. A saw cut through would be very interesting.

As we approached Playa, the noise, speed, and volume of the traffic increased, and became very wearing. At some points the shoulder also narrowed. Being passed by trucks and such, three feet over there, going 120 kph, can be harrowing, and at least very tiring.

Fortunately, Dodie spotted this bike path, running from one of the "X" parks into Playa. It really saved the day.

Just outside of Playa there is a zone that houses a small array of purely American style business. There are old favourites like Pet Zone and McDonald's and a Sam's Club. We stopped in at Sam's, and found that unlike Walmart which earlier we had found to be "Mexicanized" here, Sam's was a true clone of the American thing. It was huge and air conditioned, and had scads of large screen TVs, computers and tablets, and acres of presumably low quality but attractive baked goods.

Those laptops seem to be 15,000 pesos - they are not giving them away! For the same money I could get a lower end Mexican moto - also here at Sam's!

4000 pesos for a mountain bike. That 200 US dollars - pretty good!

Very soon after Sam's were turned into Playa, at first onto a mainly Mexican frequented street. The difference between Mexican retailing and Sam's was immediately obvious.

Despite having branded it not so great three weeks ago, we returned to the Maya Turquesa hotel this time. Better the devil you know. But this time the staff surprised us. We were early, and rooms were not ready. But they said - here, stash your bikes in this unused room, and go have fun on the town, or hang out by our pool, until the 3 p.m. check in. And as for wanting a ground floor room, for ultimately leading the bikes in (planta baja - we are learning!), no problem. And then finally when we wanted to trade up from a room with one small bed to one that in fact had three beds, also ok. And could we cancel our Booking on the one bed one and still get our "genius" discount on the bigger room? Yes! So we ended in a giant room with three beds, a fridge, and a stove, on the ground floor. Since we are staying here for an amazing one extra day, we are feeling really good about it. And as I type this, I am sipping hot coffee that I made on my own stove. Wow.

Our hotel has the advantage of being very near but not on 5th Avenue, which is the main drag of tourist Playa. What a scene!

We decided that while we are here, we will go with and not fight, whatever Playa is . One thing that Playa is, unlike Tulum, is easy access to the beach. Just by walking briefly to the end of our street, we were there!

Of course, a gazillion people were also there. Set up in beach bars and having a great time. You can not quite see it in the photo, but over their heads is netting to catch the coconuts and prevent the tourists from getting bonked on the head. Good idea!

My brother has a Mexican onyx chess set, from which one white bishop has been lost. We have been looking for some sort of replacement. Certainly there are lots of complete sets on offer here, but of course not just one piece. Harold, if you are reading this, how about that white swordfish?

Tomorrow we plan to do a deeper dive into the Playa gift shops, though we already have picked up some trinkets for grandkids, and some lovely drugs, which are also sold out of the gift shops. I have been taking Nexium type antacid, which is really costly at home, even by prescription. Last year we bought a bunch here and it worked fine. I could also get a sack of anabolic steroids and become a really bulked up cyclist!

We noticed that in Yucatan, despite Mexico's chocolate growing tradition and potential, chocolate bars are rare and costly. One thing is that they require refrigeration, or at least air conditioning, But look at these bars so familiar to Canadians. 12 US dollars?

We could see that we will need a few more cash pesos to complete our trip, so we set out to find an ATM on 5th Avenue. There are a whole bunch of them, but each and every one dispenses only US dollars. I was saying that we will have to walk into a "real" section of Playa, to find a real ATM with pesos. But Dodie spotted some police officers and put our quest to them. I was skeptical, both because I think it's a good policy to stay away from police officers and also because I thought such a question was outside their expertise. But no, we got easily directed to a Bannorte, just around the corner from our hotel, that had a bank of machines stuffed with pesos. Score one for "the policeman is your friend".

Armed with a new pile of pesos we set about getting with the Playa thing. Remember yesterday I poo pooed a wood fired Italian pizza place in Tulum? We tonight we went to one in Playa! And... it was really great. Fully authentic, I would say. We may even go back tomorrow!

In response to a lot of whining I have been doing about the quality of photos taken by my little Nikon point and shoot, Scott Anderson and Suzanne Gibson recommended the Panasonic ZS60. I went off electronically to buy one of these, and found them sort of in short supply, in Canada anyway. But I located one at a branch of a local chain (London Drugs) and on their web site put down my credit card and then over Skype got them to promise to put the camera aside until we get back.

Picking up the camera is one of the few good reasons I can think of right now for going home. So imagine my reaction when an email came today from them, chirpily announcing that my camera had been picked up and that our transaction was now complete. It's not that easy to call a Canadian company from here to yell at them. They kindly offer a call centre number, and that's an 800. My Mexican Telcel SIM does not mind dialing Canada, but it will not do an 800. That leaves Skype. Skype will work fine, if it has strong wifi or mobile data. Like, really strong. After I found that, London Drugs said "oops". I said "Go find the camera and put your hand on it". The whole affair took about an hour. But now I have a reason to go home again!

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 1,409 km (875 miles)

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Scott AndersonHopefully they find that camera for you! You’ve got two reasons to go home though - look around the island and find an osprey!
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