Next stop…Playa del Carmen!

Having decided to leave PoMo on Thursday, I woke up thinking I would post to my blog first thing and then leave.  Well, as I mentioned in my last post, the wifi in my room was considerably less than dependable, so I ended up going out for breakfast instead.  I went back to Pelicanos because I knew they had Huevos Motulenos…my favorite Mexican breakfast as many of you already know.  They also served a complimentary dish of fruit.

Hell would freeze over before I would ever have a Coke for breakfast when I’m home…I always have a couple cups of coffee when I get up.  But I almost never get coffee when I’m in Mexico because it’s so darn hot!  In fact, I had TWO Cokes this morning because there was hardly any breeze and, well, it was so darn hot!  Here are the Huevos Motulenos.  I’ve had them here before and they are very good.

While I was walking to the restaurant, I saw these flowers in front of one of the shops in town.  I don’t know what they are but they are so pretty.

Finished breakfast, got packed up and it was off to the bus.  It’s about a two-mile cab ride to the bus pick-up area.  The cab driver dropped me off on the highway, then I had to cross the highway to the other side, buy my ticket to Playa del Carmen because you have to stop there to get another bus to Tulum.  Then I crossed back over the highway and waited for the bus.  The wait turned out to be about 30 seconds as I saw him coming down the road…perfect timing!

Buses in Mexico are awesome.  The United States could learn a few things from Mexico about public transportation within the country regarding these buses.  They are very cheap (my fare to Playa del Carmen was 26 pesos which is somewhere around two American bucks), extremely comfortable and air conditioned…and they play movies.  This is a horrible picture, but I’m posting it to show what they’re like.  They have curtains on all the windows so that you can pull them shut if you don’t want to see outside.

This bus was playing the movie, “Date Night,” with Steve Carell which was dubbed in Spanish.  It’s so funny to see an American movie dubbed in Spanish because it usually doesn’t sound anything like the real actor.  I had never seen this movie before, but I was laughing along with everyone else even though I didn’t understand a damn word.

So, here’s the bus station in Playa del Carmen.  While I was on the bus, I decided to just stay the night in Playa.  I have reservations on the 3^rd and 4^th at a place in Tulum, and I thought that maybe they would have a vacancy tonight as well.  But I knew I would be able to find a place in Playa because it’s a much larger town and they have a lot more hotels.

The big touristy area in Playa is a strip of stores, restaurants and hotels that runs about 10 blocks.  It is full of souvenir shops, restaurants, high-end stores, bars, fast-food restaurants, drug stores, real estate offices, tour guides, etc.  You don’t want to know the number of times I heard, “Hey, lady…come in my shop!”  I’m not a Playa fan.  It is too big, too glitzy, too over-priced and too slick.  But I didn’t want to take the chance that my hotel in Tulum didn’t have a vacancy tonight, so I decided to find a place to stay.

While walking down the strip, I spied this place with a vacancy sign out front.  It’s the Hotel Lunata.

I walked in and found this wonderful oasis.  This picture doesn’t do it justice because it was truly a lush garden and you didn’t feel like you were anywhere near a big city.

Complete with the resident cat…

I decided to go for it because it was really cute!  Look at that beamed ceiling!  And the inlay of river rock on the tile floor…

And all the wood…

And is this the cutest bathroom you’ve ever seen or what??  Look at that wood sink counter!

This is just outside my doorway…

I looked in the little refrigerator in the room and instantly thought, “Sweet!!!”

Then I saw the sign on top of the fridge.  Darn it.

It’s a good thing this little trinket was glued to the shelf because I would have taken it.  Haha…I kid, I kid.

It also had a tiny balcony where you could see what was going on on the strip.  Here’s my view to the right…

And to the left…

The one bad thing about the place was that I couldn’t connect to the internet in my room. So, since I didn’t have internet access in the morning to do a post in PoMo, I needed to find a restaurant that had wifi so I could do some work.  I found one very close to the hotel and just had to order their cheese stuffed poblano pepper.  It was VERY good.

And here are my friendly waiters, Ricardo and Hugo, who endured me sitting there for a couple of hours while I blogged and checked e-mails. Hugo looks a bit serious, but he was a very nice guy.

Only a block away from the strip is the Caribbean Sea.

Toes in Playa sand…

The beaches are kept very clean of seaweed here.

It always bugs me when people get in the way of my pictures, so sometimes I just take them out…haha!

This looks kind of fun.  Maybe on another day…

Here’s a shot of the shoreline.  It’s always pretty crowded in Playa.  I think a lot of nationals come here on holidays.

They even have a Harley store here…

I want one of these for my font porch back home…

I went through one shop with the strangest signs I’ve ever seen.  I’m thinking maybe the owner is not real “guy-friendly”…

They needing some English editing on this one…

This one just totally creeped me out…

Towards the evening, a lot of “entertainment” comes out with people trying to make money in any way possible.

Lots of artists…

And strange sights…

I’ll have some time in the morning before I have to catch the bus for Tulum, so I may get a few more shots of Playa.