Our Mexican Adventure

Since our blog is not only for us to record our experiences, but to share a little of Mexican knowledge with our readers, we hope you don’t mind if we start including some fun facts about Mexico, it’s people, and it’s culture.

For instance, did you know …

• Mexico has 31 states — we drove through 15 on our way to Playa del Carmen.
• Playa del Carmen is in the state of Quintana Roo. It is the youngest state of the Mexican Republic. It was declared a state on October 8, 1974.
• You’ve heard about the Mexican postal service, right? Apparently, it’s so unreliable that utility bills are paid in person. No checks in the mail, no online payments, no credit card payments. Cash, in person, only, por favor.
• The driving distance of our journey from Chicago to Playa del Carmen was approximately 3500 miles.
• John recently found out that the cheapest way to purchase beer is to buy a bottle similar in apparence to a 40-ouncer. Locally, it is called a “caguama”, pronounced Ka-wa-ma. You can find them at most mini-supers (the corner stores), and they go for about 16 pesos (about $1.50 US). No need to hide it in a brown bag; there’s no open container law here!

Valentine’s Day. Roses, heart-shaped chocolate boxes, racy red lingerie, broken hearts, depression. Gotta love it. This year, Hallmark will not profit from us. No greeting cards, roses, or lovey-dovey gifts for us. Just lots of quality time together. Aw!

So, how does one celebrate El Dia del Amor in Mexico? Let me count the ways. The options are endless, but we’ll bore you with how we chose to celebrate ours.

We started off the morning with a tasty breakfast of waffles with Nutella and bananas. Strangely enough, it took a move to Mexico for us to come to appreciate the wonders of Nutella, which originated in Italy. We then moved on to a beach restaurant where we took seats in the sun and sand, enjoyed chips and salsa and 2 for 1 Coronas, and immersed ourselves in our books. $6 for 6 Coronas and chips. Gotta love happy hour!

When the cloud cover started to make us shiver, we returned home, where John expertly grilled up some arrachera (marinated skirt steak). This combined with grilled onions, fresh tortillas, our array of salsas, some mood lighting and the sounds of Shakira (Hey, it’s the most romantic music we have.) made for an excellent Valentine’s dinner. We’re now getting ready to head out in search of some good red wine. We had intended to have wine with dinner, but couldn’t find our new corkscrew. Yes, we are really roughing it here in Mexico.

Come to think of it, this is pretty much a typical “vacation day” for us here. We’ll enthrall you with one of our typical “working days” in Mexico at some other time.

We realize that it’s been a while since we last posted, and we have actually done things worthy of posting (unlike today). But we’ll get around to posting that stuff on one of our working days.

Last week was a sad week for us, but the arrival last Friday of our friends, Nikki and Mahesh, pulled us out of our slumps. They were only here for a few days and wanted to do diving, diving and more diving. Libby, although certified and having 15 or so dives under her belt, wasn’t feeling up to joining them. But John jumped at the chance to finally get some scuba diving in.

The first day was spent ocean diving south of Playa del Carmen. Although the water was extremely choppy, our group was still allowed to head out. The first site was called “Tortugas” (or “Turtles” for you gringos!). Normally, one can see 10-15 turtles on a dive – we only spotted 4. The second site was called “Barracuda Reef”, a reef with many curves to manuever through. Although we didn’t see many barracudas, we did spot a gigantic eel taking a siesta. We’ll have to try these dives again under calmer waters for a chance to see more marine life.

The following day, our diving posse spent the day exploring some nearby cenotes. Cenote diving is similar to cave diving, with the exception that you are never “very far” from safety. The two dives began at a site called “Dos Ojos” (or “Two Eyes”). The location gets its name from the two similar entrances to the cenote located close to each other. With our flashlights in hand, we played follow the leader through the water filled tunnels, exploring the various stalagmites and stalactites. During the second dive, we stopped at an air-filled dome called “The Bat Cave”. Cenote diving is amazing; we definitely recommend it!

Special thanks to Dave, Karl, Alex, Luis, and Oscar at Abyss Dive Shop for the wonderful experience.

In addition to diving, we also introduced our foodie friends to the many culinary pleasures that Playa has to offer — brownies at Ah Cacao, oh so tender arrachera (grilled, marinated steak) at HC de Monterrey, mojitos and noodles at Babe’s and yummy tacos al pastor. They were impressed, and are already planning their next trip to Playa.

Hanging with Mahesh and Nikki put us back into tourist mode, and we are now planning a few trips. Today, we snuck into Dreams Tulum Resort, an all-inclusive, to spy for our friends Catherine and Brian, who plan to get married there in April. Should be a wonderful wedding. Congratulations on your engagement, guys!

On Monday, we plan to return to Merida where we stayed for one night before initially arriving in Playa del Carmen. We really liked the city and wanted to spend more time there, but at the time, we were anxious to make it to our final destination. Now that our camera is broken and Merida has the closest Canon repair center, we have the perfect excuse to go back. We also hope to finally make it to Akumal for some snorkelling sometime next week.