Category: travel

We first visited Playa del Carmen in 1991 or 1992 on a stop toward the Tulum ruins and points south.  Playa del Carmen at that time had sand streets, a few one story small hotels near the beach, and a sign advertising a not yet built development called Playacar. The ferry to Cozumel was the draw that brought most visitors, as Playa’s population was very small.

We were surprised by the well-developed city we found here when we returned in 2021.  We stayed several weeks while we considered making our home here. But we wanted to see a little more of Mexico before deciding.

In January, 2022, we left Playa to travel more around Mexico.  We stayed from days to several months in various Mexican cities.

When we returned this past spring, we leased a newer condo with a great pool and a view from the roof.  After our lease expired we moved to a bigger and older condo two blocks from the beach and two blocks from 5th Avenue. I am really happy to be close to 5th Avenue, a walking street, where pedestrians rule!

5th Avenue

5th Avenue is a walking street in the tourist area of Playa del Carmen. It’s lined with restaurants, bars and shops selling clothing, handcrafts and more.  I suspect that lots of the handcrafts are mass produced in China.  In any case, the shops are eye catching.  Live entertainment in many of the  restaurants and bars as well as street performers in exotic looking costumes capture or assault the senses. I love walking streets and 5th Avenue doesn’t disappoint.

Running parallel to the beach, 5th Avenue extends for about five kilometers, with the action becoming quieter as the street extends further from the center of town.  On the beach itself, there are often public events.  Crystal bowl,  copal, and meditation  ceremonies at the new and full moon attract many visitors.

We swim when the water is calm and beautifully clear.

The Beaches

I often walk to the beach at dawn, which is a common activity for people who live here.  At that hour, a quiet vibe prevails, unlike later on in the day when the beach is crowded with sunbathers, vendors, swimmers and music.  Early in the morning, some take pictures as the golden orb crests above the clouded horizon,  others sit to welcome the sun in meditation, while others begin their morning swim.

Sandwiched between the mornings spent at the ocean and the evening visits to the beach or 5th Avenue, the rest of the day here is usually uneventful for us.  We haven’t found a native market, but there are supermarkets, where we get just about everything we need, and smaller produce markets.

Getting Around

Our new neighborhood is in a  pricey taxi district, so we usually walk to a different zone if we need to take a taxi to somewhere further away. 

When we want to go outside of Playa, Robert rents a car.  We’ve so far visited several of the archaeological sites on the Yucatan Peninsula. We have plans to visit more.

I Still Have Hobbies

Recently I decided that I wanted to sew or at least play around with sewing.  I was able to find two used machines for sale that are identical to the ones that I left behind in California.  I now lack nothing in the sewing department.

Buying the machines was  interesting in itself, because both of the machines were located in the non-touristy area of Playa.  It was kind of an adventure to go into the different neighborhoods.  And it meant that I was finally learning enough Spanish that I could ask how the machine ran before I bought it.

Here are some travel tips based on my own experience.

Purse and Fanny Pack

1. A purse is my airline approved “personal item”. I also use a fanny pack that is big enough for tissue, passport, my phone and a few small items I want securely close to my body. The fanny pack doesn’t seem to count toward the carry-on allowance.

2. My purse is roomy enough for a change of clothes and a few personal items. I like that I don’t have to dig through it to use my phone or pull out my passport, as those are in my fanny pack. Most airlines consider a purse to be a “personal item”. It can be fairly big, but it has to fit under the seat in front of you. Check your airline’s website for a detailed description of what constitutes a personal item and its maximum size.

My favorite purse is a Baggallini shoulder bag. Inside my purse I stitched cords to which I secure my wallet and other small items. My wallet, key and passport holder have loops that I stitched on them, so I can snap them onto or off of the cords. The idea wasn’t mine originally. An old travel purse was made that way, but, since my Baggallini bag had none, I decided to add them myself. Though my effort has an amateurish look, the result works as desired. After accidentally leaving my wallet on a store counter one day and then walking out of the store, I realized that all my valuables should always be tethered to the inside of my purse.

Backpack or Carry-on Suitcase

3. The backpack or carry-on luggage has everything else for a short trip.

4. Since Robert and I actually have lived out of suitcases for a large part of two years of travel, we also have checked bags. But if we go simply on a short vacation trip, the fanny pack, purse and carry-on suitcase or backpack would serve me well.

Shoes

4. I wear shoes that are easy to slip on and off, as US flights require the removal of shoes when going through security.

Laptop

5. At security, if you have a laptop in your backpack, you must remove it and place it in the tray to go through the scanner. It can’t remain in the backpack, even though the whole backpack will go through the scanner too. I take the laptop out of it protective cover before getting into the security line. But I put the protective cover back onto it before walking toward the boarding gate.

Warm Clothes

6. I wear layers of clothes. Airports and airplanes can be quite chilly. Wearing the clothes will keep you warm. If you are too hot, you can take off a layer if you want to. Wearing the layers saves space in your luggage, too.

Drinks Avoidable and Necessary

7. The planes are packed full these days. Don’t expect a roomy flight. No one seems to get up to use the bathroom on these crowded flights. If you have any urinary weakness, do not drink coffee before you board the plane!

8. Part of the necessary expenses of flying is having to dump your water bottle at security, only to have to buy bottled water inside. And it’s pricey. But you really should not let yourself get dehydrated, be sure to buy water for yourself if you are going to be sitting around in the airport lounge for a while.

Water in some countries is not considered potable. I assume that includes tap water in airports.

Gum

9. One of the travel tips that I recently learned was to have chewing gum with me on flights. When my ears started hurting upon descent, a woman next to me gave me chewing gum, saying it would help. Chewing the gum really did clear the pain away as we landed. I will always fly with a pack of gum from now on.

More Travel Tips

You surely can easily find more travel tips by searching on the web. Here is a site I found that you may like: www.worldpackers.com/articles/first-time-travelers

We decided to make a short visit to Izamal, near Merida.  Izamal was the first of Mexico’s Pueblo Mágicos. The magic of Izamal is not just the beautiful yellow color of its buildings and abundance of plants. Izamal also has Mayan pyramids, historic churches, and a huge public square, complete with horse-drawn cart rides.

 The central area’s streets are cobblestone.  The cobblestones seem to be set deeper than those in some other historical town I have walked in, so they didn’t poke into my shoes.

Our horse drawn carriage ride took us by each of the four large pyramid sites in Izamal. Later that day we walked to view them. They were not all open for exploration. We climbed the largest accessible structure, though, which seemed enormous. Climbing the side to what we thought was the top gave us access to a large grassy platform, itself the base of a smaller pyramid.

Though Izamal is as famous as other Pueblos Magicos, it is bound to become better known in a short time. Soon, it will be a stop for the new Mayan train that encircles the Yucatan.  I’m glad that Robert and I got to visit it beforehand.  We climbed the pyramids and enjoyed a horse drawn cart ride. In the evening, we watched and listened as hundreds of birds flitted about in the public square jockeying for roosting space in the trees. https://youtube.com/shorts/Mi46-s8TYeM?si=iQIafgwk61wVoWLI

I would gladly visit this charming and ancient Pueblo Magico again. If you go to Izamal, you may enjoy learning more at this site A Day in Izamal: The Magic Town & Its Massive Pyramid – Sailingstone Travel.

Xel-Ha archaeological site is easy to visit on the way to Tulum from Playa del Carmen. We had a lovely visit to view the ruins and the cenote. I forgot to use mosquito repellent, so I brought home some itchy souvenirs all over my body. Apart from the mosquitoes, the site is peaceful and parklike.

We walked along the ancient sacbe, which is a causeway or raised road, which took us to a structure and to a beautiful cenote. I haven’t done the research, but the structure’s proximity to the sacbe caused me to guess that perhaps it served as a kind of “guard house” to screen people or goods coming toward the city on that ancient road.

When we visited Coba archaeological site, we learned that a sacbe connected Coba to Xel-Ha in pre-Colombian times. The sacbe facilitated trade between Xel-Ha and Coba. Xel-Ha provided goods from the sea and shore such as fish and shellfish.

The number of structures that we saw indicated that this was no small village, but a place of substantial population and importance. There are also archaeological remains across the modern highway 307 at the Xel-Ha park. We didn’t see those on this visit, as it is not connected to the Xel-Ha archaeological site.

Altogether the visit to the site took an hour or two.

Coba Archaeological Site

Coba Archaeological Site was our choice for our third day trip in the rented Nissan March. This important Maya site was not new to me. When I worked on my master’s thesis in Anthropology, years ago, I read many journal articles about Coba and the findings there, particularly in regard to Coba’s food crops and its urban settlement patterns. Robert and I then visited Coba shortly after I finished my thesis in 1990. During that visit, my memories of what I learned were very fresh. Alas, my recollections were not as clear this time.

At the site entrance, we hired a guide!

We hired a guide for a two hour tour and slowly walked the path from one pyramid to the other. Coba archaeological site is big and the featured pyramids are spread about. Though we walked with our guide to the furthest of the ruins that we planned to see, our guide encouraged us to hire a pedicab for the return to the site’s entrance. He told us that the fares for the rides help his ejido. So we rode in a pedicab back to the starting point at the entrance to the site. You can enjoy our view from the pedicab here!

During the walk, Robert asked if we could see the lake from the path. The guide led us to a spot where we had a glimpse of the lake. Robert remembered viewing the lake on our visit to Coba in 1991 from the top of the pyramid.

Our guide told us that since the last big hurricane the lake has had crocodiles, which washed in with the hurricane’s waters. He told us that prior to the hurricane, the lake had no crocodiles, so the people of the ejido used it for swimming, but now it is dangerous.

During the walk, our guide showed us copal trees and how the sap is taken and processed to make into a hard resin. Copal is the incense of choice for all the ceremonies around here and was during pre-Colombian times, as well.

Mayan Bees Are Tiny!

Our guide pointed out the Mayan bees on one of the trees. I read about these bees when working on my thesis, but I had never seen one close up. The tiny stingless bees make honey that is more syrupy than the honey of European bees. They live in trees. I was fascinated to see them up close. Later, at an store at the site’s entrance, we purchased a tiny jar of it!

The surprise that I enjoyed on this visit was the opportunity to walk among the trees along the path. The heat of the August didn’t seem to penetrate the canopy of foliage. It actually felt comfortable. Out in the sunlight, away from the cover of trees, though, it was challenging to stand and look at the archaeological ruins! A couple of days before, during our drive through the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, I had been disappointed that we couldn’t really walk through the forest. Here, we did walk and it was surprisingly pleasant. In the photos above, which are scanned from slides that Robert took in 1991, you can see how dense the foliage is in this part of Quintana Roo.

The Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve

Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve day trip from Playa del Carmen was our first day trip since moving to our apartment here in Playa.  Though we had other places in mind as well, the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve topped our list.  Up until recently, the comfy buses were great for travel between cities and withing cities, but we knew we would see more if we rented a car.  The car we rented was a Nissan March, a smallish simple 4 door hatchback.  Robert did all the driving.

From Playa del Carmen, we headed south to Tulum.  The main beach road in Tulum, Avenida Coba, is also the highway that heads south into the biosphere reserve.  Robert’s goal for our day trip was to get as far as the Boca Paila bridge. 

The unpaved road was a bit rough.  Since the car was small, Robert drove slowly and very carefully.  That way, he managed to avoid bottoming out in holes, ridges or gullies on the road’s surface.  The road obviously had endured some rainstorms since the last grading, but recent days had been dry, so it was a perfect time to explore.  Although it isn’t that far from Tulum, it took about two hours of driving on the unpaved road to get to the bridge.  The foliage of the reserve is beautifully green, deep and dark.  I would have loved to walk a bit in the forest.  It appeared to me that the plants were bigger there, the fan palms had enormous fans, the pinnate palms were tall with deep green fronds.

Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve is not exactly as I expected, but lovely nonetheless!

I expected a park where we could get out and walk among the trees along the road and access the beach.  But through most of the zone, at least as far as the Boca Paila bridge, there was fencing near the road.  The fencing demarcated private or off-limit property, so that we could not access the beach on the one side nor the lagoon on the other.  Some of the properties had signs indicating they were lodges or guest houses of some sort.  There is a rustic restaurant in the reserve a few kilometers from the entrance.  We did go there.  At the restaurant, though we didn’t access the beach, it appeared that we could have walked down to it.  The picture below is of the beach from the dining area.

Since we had planned only a day trip, I hadn’t done research on staying in the Sian Ka’an biosphere reserve.  We do plan to visit Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve from Playa del Carmen again, but not for a day trip.  We will stay at Punta Allen, the end of the road settlement that offers various levels of lodging to visitors.  Next time, to get there, we will take public transportation, a tour, or rent a much sturdier vehicle.

The Puente Boca Paila was the turnaround point of our day trip. We stood on the bridge and took some photos.  It was a very hot afternoon. Although Robert would have gladly walked to the ocean on the nearby path, it was too hot for me to attempt it and waiting in the car would have even been hotter.  Next time we hope to choose a cooler day for our visit!

Traveling when old has similarities and differences to traveling when young. Two years ago, Robert and I uprooted ourselves to travel in Mexico.  But we didn’t settle in one place. We’ve traveled around. The ease of using the buses, planes, hotel and Airbnb sites made short term stays in different areas fun and affordable.

We have more luggage now!

There’s a big difference between the kind of traveling we do now and the kind that we did in the ’60s ’70 and even the ’80s.  For one thing, we use suitcases now, while we preferred backpacks back then. Everything we need for our everyday lives fits in two suitcases, each, but they aren’t little suitcases.  Dragging them through a bus depot or airport is embarrassing. I used to travel lightly and proudly, without encumbrances other than a small backpack.

Things that we didn’t need before when traveling include things that didn’t exist in the 60s, 70’s and 80’s, like our laptops, cell phones and their associated cables and chargers, keyboards and my 21 inch monitor.

I have a lot of vitamins, a neck massager, a “ma roller”, wraps for knees, wrists and elbows, a heating pad, ice pack and more. Even though I don’t have any aches and pains at this moment, I carry these tools. And though seldom, I have used each and every one at least once on this journey. In reality, it’s a lot easier to pull something out of my suitcase than try to find an open store in some tiny unfamiliar town at ten o’clock at night or 5 in the morning.

Mail

As a grownup and elder, I don’t have a mom or dad to take care of my mail and things back home. Thankfully, with cell phone and laptop, I take care of most of my mail (digital), order supplies that I need and pay taxes online. Infrequently, we order physical mail to be sent from our physical mail center, when we can’t get back to pick it up in person.

When we left for Mexico, I had only clothes for moderate and warm weather. After a few months in the tropical lowlands, we went to Mexico City in mid-January. The cold was impressive and we immediately went shopping for sweaters, jackets and warm pants. These items added to what I carry. I replaced my small suitcase with a larger size. Now, my several changes of clothes include items both for the cool highland climates and tropical lowlands. I only buy clothes that wash and wear easily. Though I wash some things by hand, most often we take our clothes to a nearby lavanderia. Here in Mexico, do-it-yourself coin-op laundromats exist in some cities. We prefer those.

Good health is vital when traveling!

Since my first serious encounter with tropical illness in 1965, I don’t take good health for granted.. Therefore, I have vitamins and herb supplements that I would have never dreamed of carrying in my youth. Supplements that are reputed to build the immune system are part of my daily regimen. For my mental and physical well being, I think this two year journey has been very beneficial.

We pay attention to the body’s need for exercise and fresh air, so we travel slower.

A big change between now and when we were young is that our bodies rebel when confined to a bus or airplane seat for hours.  While we used to cover lots of ground by traveling long distances at night, we avoid overnight rides now. We plan our trips so that we are on a bus or plane for no more than four to six hours, preferably two or three. We then stay no less than two days at the destination. This gives us a chance to stretch out, walk, rest, and see a bit of of a new place. Even if not a preferred destination, we have found there is going to be something interesting to see or do everywhere.

Photos are easier to take and store now!

In the past, photos taken by my camera required developing into prints before I could see them. It seemed costly to take too many and I was never sure if they would turn out right. Some of the places we have visited lately are places we visited 30, 40 or even 60 years before. I wish I had more of my old pictures to use as comparison photos, but I only have a few of each place, some not in focus or with good lighting.

Of course, my cell phone takes great photos. I can take as many as I want and discard the failures! And keep them in the cloud for future viewing. It’s great to not have to lug slide projectors and slide trays around. Fortunately, I scanned all my old slides, converting them into digital jpgs in 2006. All my old slides are in the cloud now, too.

Selfies are not very flattering!

Daily in social media I see photos of young beautiful women who pose so gracefully in front of every monument, beach or festive crowd. That is not us at this time of our lives. I wish I had more photos of a photogenic me, but, alas, the photos reveal me as I really am.

Language Fluency

I’ve traveled in Mexico since the 1960s. In the 60s, I had just come out of high school and college where I spent four years studying Spanish. In subsequent trips, I never was at a loss for words. But when we came to Mexico in 2021, I would open my mouth, rapidly speak a few words and then a deafening silence. Somehow, in the past twenty years, I had forgotten most all the Spanish I used to know. Limited to only remembering some words and phrases and verbs only in the present tense. I would have feared for my memory, in general, but in the past twenty years, I had no problems with remembering other things that seemed important. Passing the real estate exam, substitute teaching, running a small online business, mastering the art of horoscope interpretation, and more occupied the past two decades, so it must have been just a matter of attention and practice.

Language Apps to the Rescue

Language apps are wonderful for filling in the memory gaps. Google Translate helps when I read articles or even a menu in Spanish. I downloaded the Language Transfer app and use it sometimes. It helps with understanding the structure and origins of Spanish.

I use Duolingo daily. I love how the lessons are short and easy to do at various times during the day. At first Duolingo was frustrating, because it took me through beginner’s, present tense lessons, for almost a year before “introducing” me the past tenses. But obviously, I needed the review, or the app would have moved me on faster. I’m still not fluent, but I am heading there. And in addition to learning the language, it feels like there are other learning benefits. All in all, travel has been good for my brain!