Playa del Carmen 2018

February 21 to March 5 2018

This is probably too personal but you have no idea who I am so I decided to publish it for whomever to see.

I promised myself that I would spend a month in Playa after my mother died as a reward for almost two decades of caring for her; grocery shopping on the weekend (which included having the cashier at Target eye me suspiciously as he scanned the package of Depends adult diapers), doctor appointments, taking her out to dinner once a week, etc.

As she got older the decision got tougher- wondering if I should move her out of the nursing home where she ended up at after a fall (as it turns out it was a perfectly fine nursing home) and having to tell the ER doctor whether or not go give her a clot busting medication after her stroke (I did say yes but that was a mistake, she lived through a very challenging month and a half more before passing away).

Honestly, she wasn’t that good of a mother and maybe not even that good of a person. If I had known that I would end up helping her for seventeen years after my father died, I might not have started.

My family is highly dysfunctional. The only way I would make it through Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners (my mother would tell me to ask my sister if my sister was still working, she was sitting next to my sister when she said that, for example) was to tell myself that if I really wanted to, I could leave, go to the airport and take the next flight to Cancun then grab a shuttle to Playa del Carmen and leave it all behind.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take an entire month now but it was nice to get away for almost three weeks.

On the positive side running away from my family might be why I like travel as much as I do. So something good may have come out of all of this dysfunction.

Getting There

Flying into Cancun on Wednesday usually means that the lines at customs and emigration are fairly short, but not during spring break season. Nearly the entire immigration area, which is roughly the size of a football field, was full of tourists. It took about an hour to clear immigration. We got the green light (if you have been to Mexico you know what I mean) in customs and exited the airport. We quickly found our shuttle, then it was less than an hour ride to the hotel.

Hotel EL Punto

I had gotten a great deal on Hotel El Punto. It was on Calle 8 and 5^th Avenue, just up from my favorite dive shop. The hotel was further south on 5^th Avenue than I would have preferred because as you go south on 5^th Avenue it becomes more of a tourist trap. I understand that Playa is a tourist town but the closer you get to the ferry pier the worse it becomes.

When I booked the hotel, I was going by myself. When my wife and I travel together we will stay at a nicer hotel than I would stay at when traveling solo.

Originally Karen wasn’t able to get time off work, which was fine with me, I just wanted some time away from everything so I could scuba dive, have a couple of beers on the beach, and unwind. It turned out that she was able to take a long weekend and join me for part of the trip.

One of my favorite places to stay in Playa is Senses Quinta. It is on 5^th Avenue between Calle 26 and 28. It is much nicer than El Punto. Since I was going solo (when I booked the room at El Punto) I decided to go the cheaper route and stay at El Punto. I also wanted to stay there because it was closer to Dive Mike dive shop. It was a decision I regretted.

El Punto is a nice enough hotel. The front desk people are nice. It is an older hotel so it is showing some wear but nothing that is a deal breaker. Since it is an older hotel the beds are rock hard. The newer hotels, such as Senses Quinta, have softer American style beds.

Besides price I opted for El Punto over Senses because when I stayed at Senses there was a band playing in the restaurant on the main floor until 11 pm. Not a problem for me but my wife goes to bed before then.

What I didn’t know is there was a bar down the block from El Punto that blasted music until 2 am so we were both sleep deprived.

Diving

I had been diving with Dive Mike since 2012. They recognized me when I walk into the shop and I know most of the dive masters which is nice.

Karen and I dove Friday, Saturday and Monday. They were all good dives. I like diving in Playa, we always see large turtles, southern rays, large barracudas, big green eels, and huge schools of fish.

The Mama Vina wreck is near Playa and I dive it every trip to Playa. It is a good dive because of the variety is sea life and the fact that it is a wreck. There is usually a large green eel sitting in the open at the base of the wreck. I’ve seen a very large turtle eating a sponge on the bow of the boat, lionfish, grouper, fire worms and and large schools of hatchet fish in the cabin area of the wreck.

Exploring the wreck is fun. The salon has an air pocket that is big enough that you can surface in it and your entire head is out of the water. We’ve gone into the bridge where the wheel to steer the boat used to be. We’ve also gone into the hold which is completely enclosed so you definitely need a flashlight.

I did the bull shark dive in 2013, it was a little crazy. The divemaster feeding the fish had to fend off the sharks with his plastic bucket several times. At that point I realized that I didn’t want to do the shark dive with my wife. If something went wrong I had no way of protecting her and she had no way of protecting me. It would be an awful way to lose a spouse.

My First Bull Shark Dive

However, Karen wanted to do the shark dive so we did. We laid on the ocean bottom at ninety feet while Charlie, the shark expert, took fish out of the plastic bucket to feed the fish. One bull shark showed up as we were surfacing but stingrays were more than happy to take fish from Charlie.

I continued diving after Karen went home. People say that sports like surfing and scuba diving are “soul” sports. That is absolutely is true. I am at my happiest on days when I am diving.

The video below is a compilation of the “best of” for this dive trip. It includes the shark dive (stingray dive actually) and the Mama Vina wreck.

Best Moments of Diving in Playa

Restaurants

Karen and I really like the restaurants in Playa. They have everything from Mexican (obviously), Argentinian, Spanish, Middle Eastern, and they have a little Italy with many good Italian restaurants.

The most popular Italian restaurant in Playa is Trattoria del Centro. We had to make a reservation, which is usually not necessary at most restaurants in Playa. Our meal was wonderful.

Piola is our favorite pizza place. Karen and I ate there and I went back by myself after she left.

We also had pizza at Don Chendo. It was very busy, indicating it should be good but I like Piola better.

We had dinner at Negroamaro, and Italian restaurant with excellent food.

Zenzi is a nice beach bar just up the beach from Dive Mike. I really like that after diving and rinsing out gear we can take a short walk up the beach to Zenzi and have a great lunch.

One of our favorite meals was at Pintxeria. It is a Spanish restaurant on 10^th avenue. We celebrated Valentine’s Day here. We had excellent paella.The server, or maybe he was the owner, was super friendly and added to the experience.

I found Trujillos Cantina De Selva the day Karen left for home. It is a beautiful open air restaurant with good food and a ton of ambience. I wish I had went there with Karen.

Muy Salsa is a small restaurant on 5^th Avenue just north of Calle 38^th. The food was average but the people working there are nice.

We had dinner at Hijos de Tostada the last time we were both in Playa. It was really good and the service was too. This year the food and service were forgettable.

We had lunch at Burro Playero one afternoon. I had eaten here several times on my solo trips and thought the tacos were very good and cheap too. I told Karen how much I liked it so we stopped for lunch one day.

My tacos were awful. She ordered tuna ceviche and ended up getting mildly sick from it. We exed this one off our list.

I had lunch at El Oasis. I didn’t expect that much because it is in the heart of the tourist zone but my shrimp tacos were good.

De Local is a newer restaurant on 5^th Avenue. My pizza was good and the past looked good too. The internet influences everything today. The logo for De Local looks like the icon on Google maps that indicates the location you were searching for.

Club de la Cerveza has and amazing beer selection and the food it great too. Most of the menu is small plates so we usually stop in for lunch or hor d’oeuvres.

Club de la Cerveza has a beer exchange program. You can bring a beer with you from home and exchange it for a beer of similar value at the restaurant.

They keep the empties so people can see what has been exchanged. Some are placed over the bar and others empties are put behind a metal grate so the cans are visible.

I was walking past the grate and one of the cans caught my eye. Fair State is a small tap room in Northeast Minneapolis but they are one of the best tap rooms in Minneapolis. The Roselle is one of my wife’s favorite beers and there was an empty can of Roselle that someone brought all the way from Minneapolis sitting behind the grate.

If you are planning to go to Playa bring a can of your favorite beer and exchange it at Club de la Cerveza.

Another beer bar I stopped at is Caguameria. It is a block off of 5^th Avenue. A caguama means a large bottle of beer in Spanish so Caguameria means a place to drink a large bottle of beer? They had some Mexican micro brews. It is a nice place to hang out.

Chez Celine, there always seems to be a line because the food is excellent and priced very reasonably.

Nativo has good cheap breakfasts and huge smoothies.

Cueva del Chango is an interesting restaurant that makes you feel you are in the jungle.

Maison Pierre is a French cafe and bakery in Illusion Boutique Hotel. Breakfast was okay but the restaurant is next to the dive shop so it was handy on dive days.

Madrez Café is on the other side of Dive Mike. It gets great reviews on Trip Advisor but I didn’t care for my pancakes.

I had lunch at La Diabla Cha Cha Cha. Other than having a very cool name the food is good and it is right on the beach. This location must attract interesting names because the beach club that was located here was Canibal real. The problem I experienced when I was there is the sargassum as piled up on the beach rotting and giving off a foul smell.

I imagine Canibal Real shut down because most of the beach had eroded away. The current restaurant (I am not retyping that name, too long) has some beach chairs but not much beach is left.

An update. As of November 2019 the building is empty. I believe the sargassum did them in.

I saw on Trip Advisor that there is a group of expats that meet at The Dirty Martini. I just happened to walk by one day when they were meeting. It appeared to be quiet the group.

Two hotels were built at the end of Calle 8 where it ends at the beach. These are expensive hotels that are probably bigger than they should be. They tower over other buildings in the area. They are called Thompson Hotel and Carmen Hotel.

The Carmen Hotel has a roof bar and pool. I checked it out this trip. It is very nice. The bar area is covered so you aren’t sweltering in the sun. If you want to enter the pool area you have to stay at the hotel or pay an entrance fee. I went up to the roof for a beer and the view. It is a good place to spend the afternoon at.

This section is called Weird Stuff I See In Playa. For years there was a shop called Skinny Bikini Potatoes. I never went in. I was a little afraid to, I am not sure what they would sell in a shop with that name.

At least once a trip I see things that strike me as odd. The pictures are below.

Recap

I thought I would have been bored by spending almost three weeks by myself but I wasn’t, I could have stayed longer. I like Playa, I can wonder 5^th Avenue and the beach for quite a while before getting bored.

I wasn’t able to decompress completely from seventeen years of caring for my mother but it was a start.

El Punto- It is not a bad hotel for the price but I won’t be going back. There are too many other hotels that are better.

The diving is great as always. I once posted on ScubaBoard that I thought the diving in Playa is as good as Cozumel. I won’t do that again. There are people that believe Cozumel is the best and nothing will change their mind.

The Food- We had many excellent meals in Playa. The restaurants in Playa might be what we like best, other than diving.

Going Home

I was greeted by a snow storm when I got back to Minneapolis. It made me start to plan my next trip to Playa.