Playa del Carmen and Puerto Morelos May 2021

Finally traveling again. The last time I flew internationally was to Playa late October through early November 2019. It was my favorite Playa vacation and I have had many.

I had a weird experience as we were in a van returning to the Cancun airport. As the van pulled away from the condo I was excited to return to Playa but I had a weird feeling that it might not be as soon as I hoped…I seriously had that thought.

I was afraid that two weeks straight in Playa would be boring so I started my vacation in Puerto Morelos. We were first there in 2009 and made friends with the owners of Aquanauts dive shop, we dove with them on two other dive trips and got our advanced open water certification with their dive shop. We have kept in touch on Facebook. The last time we were in Puerto Morelos was in 2012. I thought this trip would be a chance to connect with them again.

I have been fully vaccinated for a while. I am aware there are break though cases of covid but I am not worried. I feel safe being vaccinated and not having any secondary health issues.

I had a direct flight into Cancun. Wearing a mask during the flight was not a problem. The problem was the movie selection was terrible. It was mostly old movies with a few current ones that I have already seen. The prepandemic selection was much better.

I also discovered that my blue surgical masks are a little small. Part way through my flight the loops from the mask were digging into my ears. Luckily I brought other masks that were a little larger.

My Cell Phone

I’ve had a company cell phone since cell phones came out so I had never had to pay a cell phone bill. That was until I retired in 2019. I could have been added to my wife’s plan but she has Verizon and I wanted to use my TelCel sim when I am in Mexico or another sim when I am traveling elsewhere and I wouldn’t be able to do that with a Verizon phone.

I went with Mint Mobile for my cell plan. When I got the plan in 2019 either Mint didn’t have an international option or I couldn’t figure out how to access it. However, this year I opened the Mint app and saw an option to buy international data. It was expensive but between my Mint data and using wifi at Puerto Morelos restaurants I would survive until I could buy a TelCel sim in Playa. Plus it is nice to have cell reception when I land in Mexico. Puerto Morelos had a TelCel store but it was across hwy 307 which made it difficult to get to.

One of the first things I did in Playa was walk to the TelCel store and purchased a sim and data. I have bought enough sims in foreign countries to know that the people working in the stores usually only speak their native language. The same was true for the woman at this TelCel store but she was very nice and patient. TelCel even had a data sale on so I got 3 gb for 150 pesos. What a deal.

Puerto Morelos

Layla Guest House

It is a boutique hotel that was built less than ten years ago. The hotel management had a lot of excellent ideas about running the hotel like movie night, karaoke and before covid they had bands playing on the roof.

 It seemed that upkeep wasn’t their strong point. The furniture in my room was a little worn. The TV was missing from my room. You could see the holes where it had been mounted and the cables had been run but no TV..

I had a large room with a kitchenette, small dining area, bed and couch. The bathroom is open to the outside which creeps me out a little. I had a similar bathroom in Tulum in 2019 and I had to kill a bunch of biting yellow flies that were in my room ready to feast on me when I wasn’t looking. I made a point to keep the bathroom door shut so the insects couldn’t invade my bedroom, both in Tulum and here.

Keeping the bathroom door shut didn’t work as well as I had hoped. One evening I saw a big furry millipede on the wall above my bed. The millipedes in Minnesota are slow and easy to kill. This one was the Usain Bolt of millipedes. I tried to smoosh it but it took off and fell behind my bed. I tried to find it but could not. I had insect repellant so I sprayed it around my bed in the hope it would repel the furry multilegged bug. I checked again when I got home from dinner and couldn’t find the bug. It was a reminder to book rooms on the second floor and rooms that don’t have open bathrooms.

I realized I should take pictures of the room before scattering my belongings all over.

The restaurant at Lola had a lot of vegan options but also non vegan options.. I ordered a pizza in their restaurant one evening. I didn’t read the fine print on the menu. It was awful. I told my wife about it when I called her later that evening. She laughed because when she looked at the menu online, she noticed that it was a vegan pizza and had vegan cottage cheese on it.

One evening I was lying in bed watching Netflix on my laptop and the power went out but it came back on after five seconds and then went out again. This continued until I turned the air conditioner off. I had no light and no power so it was time to go to bed.

Because of lack of air conditioning the room warmed up quickly and made it hard to sleep. The last time I was in Tulum my hotel turned off the air conditioning from 9 pm to 9 am and my concrete room turned into a concrete oven.

The power was still out the next day. I talked to the owner in the morning and he told me that a truck had taken out the power line going to the hotel and the neighboring residences. He said he was amazed that the power company hadn’t fix it yet. 

Four o’clock that evening the power company still wasn’t there so the owner took matters into his own hands and had his maintenance man prop an aluminum ladder against the power pole and attempt to connect the wires.

It appeared the maintenance man understood electricity and being properly insulated because he had on work boots with thick insulating soles and he was careful to not touch anything that would ground him and allow the electricity to possibly kill him.

The problem with him trying to reattach the wires is that almost every power pole I have seen in Mexico resembles a power strip with too many adapters and cords plugged into it. The poor man was trying to determine where the wires should be connected but twice I saw him connect wires an it was followed by a lot of sparks and a huge amount of smoke.  I couldn’t watch, he would either electrocute himself or blow up the transformer on the power pole. Neither option had a good outcome for him. I went back to my oven of a room.

I had been in my room for a while when I saw the maintenance man walk past carrying the ladder and shortly after the power came back on. It turned out the power company arrived before the maintenance man electrocuted himself. Thank goodness.

Ohm Delfin Dive Shop

After I checked into Laya I walked the two short blocks to the dive shop to book diving. The dive shop, Aquanauts I assumed, appeared to be in the same location and the red and white dive flag was still hanging where it had been the last time we were there. I didn’t read the small print that said Ohm Delfin and not Aquanauts.

I walked into the dive shop, wearing a mask of course, and booked diving for the next day with a woman sitting behind the desk. After I booked diving, I asked where William and Crescent (the owners of Aquanauts) were. She looked surprised and said Aquanauts had moved three years ago and her dive shop had taken over the location.

William and Crescent’s dive shop moved to the El Cid resort. I was disappointed, I was hoping to connect with them. As I left, I looked at the dive shop flag and noticed it did say Ohm Delfin, not Aquanauts.

Delphine, the shop owner, is a whirlwind of energy. She is always upbeat and herding the divers like a group if baby ducklings. Her business partner, Elody, was calmer but just as good as Delphine.

Restaurants and More

It is hard to explain, Puerto Morelos had changed in the nine years since I was last here  but it was still pretty much the same. The city square hadn’t changed much and some of the restaurants around the square looked familiar, I am sure they were there nine years ago.

The street that changed the most was Javier Rojo Gomez. We had stayed on that street before and there were a few restaurants but it was pretty sleepy. This trip there are blocks of restaurants extending down from the square.

One of the largest restaurants was Spyders. It had a huge outdoor area and had bands playing the nights I walked past it. I tried to go in but they had limited seating because of covid.

I got slightly sick from pasta I had at My Little Italy. My last night in town I had dinner at El Pirata. I never send food back but I ordered shrimp tacos and the waitress brought fish tacos and the fish was really fishy. My stomach was still a little off from the bad pasta so I wasn’t going to eat the fish. She was happy to take the tacos back and bring me shrimp tacos.

Puerto Morelos had add a added a Chedraui Selecto recently. The wine selection was amazing for a small town in Mexico. I am a beer drinker and they even had Belgian beer. La Trappe is one of my favorites.

Finally Playa

The Puerto Morelos part of my trip wasn’t great. I had pasta that made me sick, the dive shop wanted to charge me for a day of diving that I had only conditionally agreed to, the hotel lost power for a night (through no fault of their own) and my room was invaded by a large millipede.

I was ready to go to Playa. I got up packed and had the hotel called a cab for me. The cab driver was female. This is the first time I saw a female cab driver in all the years I have been coming to Mexico.

It was a short drive to Playa. I could see La Resedencia as the cab drove down calle 38. The cab driver remarked that it looked like a nice building.

La Resedencia

When Karen and I were here in November 2019, we walked past La Resedencia. A salesman started talking to us. We were not interested in buying but we chatted with him. I thought the idea of using so much wood in such a tropical environment didn’t make sense. I would be worried about fading, weathering, maybe even termites.

Once I checked in, I discovered that the description and photos on Air B&B were incorrect. It was advertised as a one bedroom with a couch and the photos showed showed a one bedroom. It was a studio and it didn’t have a couch or living room area. I was only paying $50 a night and I didn’t want to move so I didn’t complain.

The condo was small. It had dark wood on the ceiling and floor and one of the walls was painted a dark gray. Room lighting in Mexico is usually very dim and this room wasn’t an exception, there were a couple small halogen lights scattered around the room.

Besides a bed the only other furniture was a desk with a director’s chair and a tall kitchen table with two director’s chairs. The chairs were already falling apart. When I moved them the canvas backs fell out. The only place I could sit was the bed.

The condo had a kitchen. It wasn’t well stocked, it was missing important things like a bottle opener, dish soap, dish rag, dish towel, and bowls.

My other complaint was the condo didn’t have a broom. There was no maid and it was very easy to track sand into the condo. The TV also would quit functioning. It was a very nice 65 inch smart TV but several times a day it would lose connection to the internet and I would have to unplug it and plug it back in to get it to work.

The main reason I stayed at the condo was because of the pictures of the gym on the website. It appeared to be large with a lot of equipment. One wall wall in the tiny gym was mirrored making it appear to be much larger that it was. The gym had a treadmill, cross trainer, spin bike and a rack of dumb bells. You can see from the picture above there was barely enough room to squeeze in between the equipment and the mirrored wall.

The condo had two roof top pools. There were beds and chairs to relax on. There was a bar area but no bartender or liquor. However, the bar area was a good place to work. I used it several days and there were a couple twenty something guys that were working remotely.

The best thing about the condo was the location. It is on calle 38 just off 5^th Avenue. There are many bars and restaurants near the condo and the beach is only several blocks away.

Before I left I contacted the rental agent and let him know about all of the issues I encountered.

Dive Mexico Dive Shop

I liked the dive shop. It was directly next door to La Resedencia condos. The owner was friendly and the same with the dive masters. My favorite dive master was Paco. His English was very good. I asked him if he lived in the US. He told me he learned English by watching the Simpsons with closed captioning on. He had a Simpsons  sense of humor too.

My favorite dive in Playa is the Mama Vina wreck. I dove it twice this time. I went to Cozumel one day. I did a drift dive and the second dive was the C53 wreck. My other dives were the usual Playa dives- Moche deep, Tortuga, and Sabalos.

Restaurants

My favorite area of Playa to stay and eat is the north end of the tourist zone. In my mind that is from calle 24 to CTM and from 10th Avenue to the beach.

I was worried that a lot of my favorite restaurants had closed since 2019 but most had not which is a small miracle considering the pandemic.

There are some really good restaurants in Playa. They have an Italian section loaded with Italian expats making pasta just like they did in Italy. Calle 38 from 5^th Ave to the ocean is packed with an assortment of very good restaurants. The restaurants on 38^th are pricier than most but they are worth it.

My last trip here I discovered a little taco restaurant on calle 38 across 5^th Ave. It didn’t have a real roof, they strung tarps across the top of the restaurant that leaked when it rained but that was part of the ambiance. The tacos were cheap but they were some of the best I had in Playa.

As soon as I checked in and unpacked at La Residencia I walked there to get lunch. I also ate there one other time.

The name of the restaurant had changed. It was now called Mariskinky Funky Beach Food. They had also done some upgrades, the tarp roof had been replaced with an actual roof that didn’t leak. The tacos were still excellent.

When I travel and I used to travel for work, I occasionally couldn’t decided what to do for dinner. When that happened, I would buy snacks from the vending machine. Not very healthy but it worked. 

In Playa my go to when I can’t decided what to do for dinner is to go to one of the pizza by the slice restaurant. On the corner of 5^th and Calle CTM there is a restaurant called Pizza Italia. There is another pizza by the slice restaurant called Renzos further south on 5th.

I also ate at

Hios de la Tostata– This is a chain but the food is generally good. I had great shrimp tostadas twice there this trip. My only complaint is there wasn’t any social distancing. They sat me at the packed bar one night.

Hios de la Tostata Beach Club– I didn’t include this in the beach bar section below because although it is a bar/restaurant on the beach they don’t have any tables in the sand or a beach bar vibe.

The beach has eroded so much in front of the restaurant that there isn’t any beach left. Regardless, this is still a nice place to grab lunch and a beer and enjoy the ocean from inside the restaurant. I had a super friendly waiter. I really liked the hot sauce they served so he sold me a bottle. It is called Casa Carlos and it is worth a try if you are in Mexico.

Beach Bars

The three beach bars near my hotel on calle 38 are Mamitas, Kool and Martina’s. Mamita’s is always packed so I stay away from it. Kool is also very busy. I’ve never been to Martina’s.

I prefer the beach bars on the southern end of Playa. I usually end up at Zenzi at least once a trip. They have decent food and cold beer. Most afternoons or evenings they have live music. I tried to have lunch at the beach bar next to Zenzi but the waiter never showed up so I walked next door and got waited on right away at Zenzi.

Fusion is another excellent beach bar. It has friendly hostesses and staff, good food and is reasonably priced.

I have eaten at La Tarraya in past years. It is a little more low budget. The chairs and tables are white plastic. Neither the host or waiter spoke much English but they were friendly. The food was good too.

The Best Places for a Beer

I discovered Club del La Cerveza many years ago on my first trip to Playa. It completed my Playa experience. I really, really like Belgian beer. To the point that if I discovered it when I was younger I may have may have liked it so much that I would have ended up in treatment. I am only slightly joking.

Until I found Club de la Cerveza my beer selection in Mexico was limited to Dos Equis, Corona or Pacifico. Back then I was happy when a bar had Montejo or Indio.

I was happy to see they were still in business and thriving this year. Unfortunately, their Belgian selection had shrunk to just Duvel and the price had doubled but it was still cheaper than in the US.

In 2019 I discovered Colectivo Mexicano Cervecero or CMC as the sign says. I walked past it several times before I noticed that the sign above the entrance was a picture of a pink elephant on a blue background. I looked at the sign and continuing down the street for about ten paces before it sunk in, I know that elephant! It’s the logo for Delerium Tremens!!

I went back later that evening and discovered they did have Belgian beer. Two restaurants with Belgian beer in Playa! Life just gets better and better but of course that was pre pandemic.

The thing about food in Mexico is that a lot of restaurants are inconsistent.  There are many times I ordered a specific item at a restaurant and really liked it but came back the following day and ordered the same item and was disappointed by it. That happened at CMC. I ordered shrimp tacos that were really good but when I returned several days later and they were not nearly as good.

The salsa that you get with your tacos at CMC is amazing. The black salsa below is hot enough it could eat through the stainless steel container and has amazing flavor.

My favorite cheap bar in Playa is Cerveceria Chapultepec where like the menu says- everything is 23 pesos (Todo 23) or at current exchange rates it is a little over $1 US. Before the pandemic it was 21 pesos. I wasn’t too upset about the 2 peso price increase.

Chela de Playa

It is located just down from La Resedencia on calle 38. There had been another tap room there in 2019. I think it was called Tulum tap room or something like that. The beer was expensive and not very good so I wasn’t too upset that Chela De Playa replaced it.

I stopped in one evening. The hostess was very friendly, she remembered me every time I came back after that evening. They even moved their cash register (iPad) down to make room for me at the bar when they were full.

They had one of the best Mexican  beers that I had anywhere. I was going to buy a couple of cans to bring home but they were sold out. A 20 ounces beer was 100 pesos ($5 US) but it was half price during happy hour.

The Pandemic

I received my first vaccine dose on March 3^rd, my second on March 24^th and I was fully vaccinated on April 7^th. Life started returning to normal at that point. I returned to the gym and I didn’t worry about getting covid if someone without a mask stepped into our house.

The governor of Minnesota lifted the mask mandate on May 13 the day after I left on this trip. My life had started returning to normal.

Since I was fully vaccinated before this trip and we now know that my odds of giving someone else the disease are very small when vaccinated, I only wore a mask when require or when people near me wore masks.

My experience at Ohm Delfin dive shop was a good example. I walked into the shop with a mask on and the owner put her mask on. She exited the shop to talk to employees who did not have masks on and she took hers off.

I encountered employees in stores and restaurants that appeared serious about wearing masks because they always had one on or even double masked.

My shuttle driver to Puerto Morelos from the airport was in his twenties and it was obvious that he lifted weights so he was in good shape and should not worry too much about getting seriously ill from the virus but he double masked and kept the window cracked for the entire ride. He had family members that died of covid so I can understand his concern.

Playa during the day was the same as Puerto Morelos Morelos. Concerned people wore masks or double masked. A good percentage were compliant.

Then night came. The worst example I can think of is I was walking past Senor Frogs at about 10 pm. There were three young women from different countries on stage playing a drinking game. The MC had his mask around his chin and was yelling into the face of each woman from about a foot away telling them to drink. There were a lot of other places that when evening came the masks disappeared.

The prices had gone up but only slightly since since I was last in Playa. The only restaurants that I liked that went out of business were Casa Loco and the taco shack across 5^th on calle 38 from my hotel. Although Amate 38 and Luma Traverna del Mar were not that busy this time so I hope they survive.

The US requires a negative covid test to enter the US. There was a testing station set up outside of Miranda condos which is one block from the beach and two blocks from where I was staying. Once I was within three days of my departure date I booked my test. It was super simple. I scanned the QR code on the sign at the testing site. It brought up a a website where I booked my test for later that evening. When I returned for my test they ushered me into an air-conditioned van where a fully gowned woman swabbed my nose. I had my results in 15 minutes, negative of course.

My experience on the return flight home was the same as the trip down; everyone masked and no complaints.

My wife and I had booked flights and a hotel for a return trip to Playa in June. We saw covid cases spiking so we decided to cancel the trip. Again, we are both vaccinated but we were afraid Playa would go into lockdown. If that happened, restaurants would be takeout only, the beaches would be closed and we wouldn’t be able to scuba dive. Not much of a vacation.

I am writing this later so Playa never locked down. I kind of regret not returning but it was too much of a gamble.

Sargassum

The sargassum season is roughly from May until September. It literally started washing up on the beach while I was diving. There was scattered sargassum when we left in the dive boat and we had to climb over a pile of sargassum when we returned. It was crazy how fast it accumulated.

Sargassum removal is also a problem. It is a job for some people. They sped the day raking and shoveling the brown weed. They also use heavy equipment to rid the beach of it. Unfortunately that means my beautiful ocean view can get interrupted. They can’t leave it on the beach because it gets extremely smelly when it starts to rot.

Art Work on the North End of 5th Avenue

If you have nothing better to do in Playa take a walk on 5th Avenue north of CTM.. You will see some really great street art. Enjoy the photos below.

Recap

Puerto Morelos

Puerto Morelos isn’t bad but it is not what I am looking for in a vacation, so I won’t be returning. The restaurants were just okay. The dive shop was nice but I was disappointed that they would have made me dive when I was sick rather than refund my money. The hotel was okay but if I were to return I would ask for a second floor room to make sure there weren’t any creepy crawlies in the room.

Playa del Carmen

It was nice to get back to Playa. This wasn’t my favorite vacation but that was mostly because of La Resedencia. My room was dark and tiny. The dive shop was acceptable but I would have liked to dive with Blue Life.

All of my favorite places to have a beer were still in business- CMC, Club de la Cerveza and Cerveceria Chapultepec. I found a new favorite too called Chela de Playa.

My favorite beach bars were still good and still open for business- Fuzion and Zenzi. I was happy to see that Hijos de la Tostada had moved into Canibal Real.

The beach is still eroding. They placed sandbags in front of the Grand Hyatt to protect the deck but the waves were lapping the deck. There was a resort just south of calle 38 in 2019 where the two casitas closest to the ocean were falling into the ocean. They had been town down.

The Pandemic

Mexico didn’t require a negative covid test or proof of vaccination so other than wearing a mask and being handed a Purell wipe when boarding the plane, getting to Mexico was the same as prepandemic travel.

I was disappointed that when I booked my flight Delta was blocking middle seats but when I flew most middle seats were taken. I am fully vaccinated so I wasn’t worried about getting covid I wanted more space.

I was a little worried that there might be a crazy antimasker on my flight and we would be delayed while they removed him from the plane but everyone was civil. Everyone wore their mask except when eating or drinking.

Being fully vaccinated and also knowing that there is a small chance I could infect someone else I wasn’t that careful about wearing my mask in Mexico. I did wear a mask when I was around other people but not when I was outside.

In both Puerto Morelos and Playa some people were very careful about the pandemic and others not so much. Most restaurants I went into the employees were masked; it was the patrons that weren’t always careful. I saw more people wearing a mask outside in Puerto Morelos than in Playa. From all the data wearing a mask outside wasn’t necessary.