Mexico is my favorite place in the whole world. I fell in love with the country when I lived there in 1994. This is my third time back. Playa is my new favorite place there.
Cat also came on this trip. Check out Where’s Cat to see her pictures.
This was the second trip in which my mother’s whole side of the family came. Usually the rule is: Unless you’re marrying the person…they can’t come. However exceptions were made due to family snaffus. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say it was crazy.
The snaffus made it possible for M. to come with me. She shared a room with Aia and I. Well Aia only slept in the room one night. She was out more than we were.
The first night we went to a bar and danced. I can’t remember the name..but it was right on the beach…apparently they had a fire show later…like around 2am but we left after midnight.
We stayed at the Iberostar Tucan. A great place. Only the Mormons and those with medical issues weren’t drunk all the time. The food was good…the koi ponds and paths dangerous. My camera had limited capability on this trip…so not as many photos as I would like.
M. took this with my camera as we flew in. See all those clouds? Welcome to the rainy season. Though we were wet all the time…it make every thing comfy and cool. We enjoyed ourselves much more than if it had been hot and sunny the whole time. The locals kept trying to tell is that it wasn’t the rainy season at all. It didn’t come down to some one screaming it’s not raining during a hurricane but dang…sometimes it was close.
We took a bus from Cancun to Playa. The ride was stinky. I slept most of the way I think.
The road from the resorts to Playa were nice a walkable, with ruins along the path. Lots of jungle. We walked at least once. This is just past the beach. Playa is a full town with lots to see. I really enjoyed it. My brother and grandfather didn’t want to leave me by myself there but I finally convinced them to. The walk was nice. There is an army base on the beach…plus parties and bars. The store are all stacked together…most of them are open air.
Iberostar has good room service. Every morning we had a new towel sculpture:
We also saw bunnies, pigs, people and once they did flowers in our curtains.
We watched some Mexican tv while we where there. VH1 has an amature strip show for Mexico. That was bizarre. Several of the strippers were transvestites.
The pool was great…it wound around an island with a jacuzzi and the shallow end had mini fountains. The family took up post by the kiddie pool…which was just a shallow round pool for the first half of the week then moved to the shallow end with the fountains.
That’s Aia. A., my new sister in law was swimming with her. You can see her sunglasses sneaking up on Aia.
It rained a lot. We took several late night walks. During one M and I hid out under one of the grass umbrellas. We were too drunk to make to the room in rain…or we didn’t want to get more wet…I forget which.
They had a ceramic painting both there…one rainy day we sat and painted.
The resort had a ton of wildlife. Monkeys, sirikis, flamingos, koi, peacocks, iguanas, lizards, cats, rats, weird turkey birds, swans and even an alligator…the only thing that didn’t run free.
Those monkeys would sit on top of the building and howl.
I spent most of the time in the ocean. The waves were huge…my immediate family can stay in there for hours. Even Aia road the waves in an inner tube.
Dinner was buffet with a few restaurants. We did the steakhouse and the Mexican place during our stay. I wish we could have gotten to eat more in town. I would love to come back to Playa.
Here’s my aunt and her friend at the buffet.
They had shows ever night. First came a kids show. My nephew was braver than my daughter.
Then an adult show. My cousin L. answered a trivia question and found herself doing karaoke and dancing.
We also took a tour to Chichén Itzá, which was the thing I spend all my money on. First we took a bus through Verdad. The town was nearly abandoned when Cancun was build according to the tour guides. We got some good pictures of the local church even though the bus didn’t stop.
M. got a picture of the town square…with her reflection.
Chichén Itzá was amazing. I missed going the last time I had a chance…I didn’t want to miss this one. First we went to the ball court. The ball court echoes seven times. The glyphs on the walls depict the game and the sacrifice. The winner is the one sacrificed in this game.
We did not have enough time to see everything. The well my uncle went too looked like a filled cenote. The guide told us that it is very deep and filled with bones of children. However everything they have been able to uncover in the well has been malformed.
Around the main pyramid there are many sacrificial altars and sitting statues. The main Mayan god was that of the jaguar. He’s on many of these altars.
Across from the pyramid were the barracks. We were told they were maze like.
There were lots of vendors wandering around with places staked out by blankets. They were selling a lot of Aztec things…and a lot of things were being varnished as walked around. A common trick they would pull: They would hold out an exceptional piece of work and shout “1 peso!”, then as you approached they would pull an awful piece out from behind their back and tell you “1 peso” for the new thing. The old one jumped to 40 pesos. I still managed to get a nice statue for 4 pesos after holding my ground. Even Aia did well. She talked several vendors down to one peso from 20 pesos for some glass pieces.
The pyramid was exceptional. If you stand at the right place and clap…the pyramid tweets at you. During the solstice and the full moons…the pyramid lights up along the stair railing creating twin diamond backed snake bodies down to the carved stone heads. It’s very impressive. No one is allowed to climb it any more though.
The skies were wonderful that day. It rained a bit but it was a little hot too. My sister, M, and A headed to the observatory. We climbed it with Cat. We could see the nunnery and some other buildings but we did not have time to see them up close.
Next we went to a cenote. First there was lunch…some local whitefish with habenero sauce that was extremely good. One of the best meals I had this time. The cenote is a hole in the ground mostly filled with water. Locals bath in the water for blessing. It’s cold and deep but both Aia and I went in.
Long roots hand down from the celing. My cousin’s friend jumped from the observation balcony which was half way up the cave wall…nearly three stories.
He was escorted out by the police. The water had an energy that was amazing.
Here’s where my camera ran out pictures. We went into town, ate and played rummy while drinking zombies. Overall a great trip. I want to come back here the next time I go to Mexico!
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