“There are no goodbyes anymore in my life. The world has me flung. I might only say that we’ll meet again in memories or in world.” – Old Sean
Final Beach Days
For my final month in Mexico, I’ve been living in Playa del Carmen, the wonderful seaside town that has grown into a somewhat daunting coastal city in the past decades. Lodged inland at Bosque Real, I’ve spent my days riding a red bike through dusty streets in early-morning heat, past arcs of household trees, blocky, two-story buildings and stands selling fruits and sweets.
My neighborhood is quiet and shady, with cats pattering down the streets at night and a small, excited black puppy always happy to see me when I walk past. There’s a fine little café around the corner that meets my caffeine necessities and a few taco stands that can offer up food in a pinch.
My time in Playa, of course, has mostly been spent studying and working. I’ve also been attending a Muay Thai gym 5 days a week. The gym, RIS Muay Thai Playa has been my favorite thing about living here. There are a lot of technical and technique martial lessons interposed with conditioning, health lessons and a reasonable number of breaks.
I didn’t do any sparring during my brief time in Playa, but had I gone against some of the other students at the gym, I would have been thrashed.
The instructor is a grand man with a lot of fight experience and a background of study from Thailand. Even as I write this, my body is a shaky mess, but I’m definitely happy to have improved so drastically in such a short time, especially since I missed three days from an odd sickness a few weeks back.
A Love of Chubbiness
Of course, food is my primary love while traveling.
Playa is a bit expensive on the food side of things, but there are still some decent places scattered around.
Bajo Café (Mercado 30) is my favorite breakfast stop with outdoor-shaded seating and a fair range of healthy options of food. On the opposite end of the personal-care spectrum, Don Mario Italian Restaurant is exclusively for the fulfillment of my stomach and soul. The dishes are a bit expensive, but fairly splendid and I enjoy their ravioli immensely.
Nearby is Po Thai, a Thai restaurant which serves a rice dish in a bowl made from a pineapple I’m extremely partial to. For ice cream and other deserts, I recommend straying away from Aldo’s because it’s relatively flavorless.
Amorino is much better, since they decorate their ice cream cones into fast-melting flowers. But the best ice cream in the area is actually closer to gelato around here.
The Tequila Barrel is my recommendation for cheap chicken wings, but I’m not a fan of the atmosphere and the place doesn’t really open up until late at night, where girls in shimmering red dresses dance on the bar and drunken Americans are encouraged to join them for tragic emulations.
I’ve only been when the restaurant is basically dead, because wings, but I’ve walked by a few times at night to see the show.
Seaside Memories
Moving away from the central part of town, I spend the majority of my evenings out near the ocean. Playa Publica remains my favorite lounging and walking area, with enormous swells of bubbled seaweed, a dense hack of jungle barriers and a series of quiet areas along the shore with relatively few people.
Playa Punta Esmeralda is a very busy combination of seaside and bay, a freshwater river stemming from a local cenote and draining into the ocean. While quite busy during the day, it’s perfect for wading around safely at night.
Best of all are the graffiti ruins of Playa Nava, which are a series of half-broken cement walls overlooking the ocean. On occasion, I’ve passed and spotted people recording music videos here, complete with drones, bands and a heckled, bearded dude ushering people past while the cameramen dominated the sunset beach.
Tourist Town
Back inland, there’s of course, 5th Avenue. A tragedy of hyper-packed tourism, people hawking wares and restaurants promoting incredibly expensive meals, 5th Avenue is the de facto central part of the city for tourists. While I don’t recommend hanging around here due to the duel threats of expense and people aggressively selling knick-knacks, there are a few things I really appreciate around the area.
Firstly, there are legions of street performers who do a splendid job in the area. A troupe of 5 dresses up in full Maya regalia with feathers, plumes and staffs. They mostly pose for photos, but they look very cool.
Next, there are the Maya performers. Dressed in more practical regalia, this troupe of six to eight usually dresses with a lot more skin showing. Their short street shows start with a wail of a conch-shell, the hammering of a deep drum and numerous traditional dances, fire-breathing and some chants.
More contemporary mariachi bands in groups of two to five are often seen moving up and down the shopping strip. And of course, there are the Jarabe Tapatio dancers, which dominate the middle of the street a few times every walk with a sizeable cell-phone-recording crowd.
Finally, usually in front of open-balcony sit-down restaurants, there are the break-dancers, musical-trick-jump-ropes and mild acrobats. And of course, as any tourist area, there are the pop-culture cosplay folks, dressed in Spiderman suits, Shrek masks, Deadpool outfits and other wildly setting-detached costumes, lurking after tourists for fist bumps and selfies for a few pesos.
Nooks and Finds
If one needed a free bathroom in Playa (believe me, they’re somewhat scarce and hotel areas in particular are somewhat militant about ensuring no trespassers from the beach wander onto their grounds) the best location is Quinta Alegria. A large mall with live vines tumbling down from the second floor and a few placid water features, it’s a nice, little area to walk through with free bathroom access on the second story.
Scooting away from the street performances, the area also has some impressive art pieces to look at. Pepe Soho Photography on 5th Avenue has crystal-clear enormous painting in exquisite detail. The photographs are laid on a silver-alloy base which makes the lighter tones appear to glow, especially in slightly-dimmed light.
If you want to know my favorite art location, however, it’s Huichol Land.
Walking inside is a holy-riot of primary colors flaring on animal idols. These Paper-Mache creations are hard packed statues, such as owls, cats, horses, dragons, wolves, turtles and lizards. Their skins are covered in a firm wax layer, and miniscule, colorful glass beads are pressed into the wax with needles to create dynamic patterns.
The art style hails from the Huichol, a tribe of Mexican natives on the west coast of the country. Their patterns are sublime, with a multitude of meanings pressed into the designs. For example, the starburst symbol of Peyote implies life and success. The Two-Headed-Eagle symbol is rooted in the duality of the gods. The scorpion is a protector, the butterfly a creature of luck, the serpent a proxy for ocean gods and the mountain lions are wide-ranging messengers of the God of Fire.
The people running the shop are extremely respectful and knowledgeable. Part of stepping inside includes a small gift of papers with information about the Huichol, their beliefs and history, making this more of an interactive museum than a shop.
Mural Walker
Of course, art in general is plentiful in Playa del Carmen. Street canvases exist nearly everywhere and, in typical Mexican fashion, there are huge walls with grand murals all over the place.
Veering off from the main street, my favorite walk-through area is the heavily-jungled Calle 28 near the beach. This isn’t exactly a tourist-attraction, but I like this street a lot. There are serpents carved around large jungle-plants, a fair number of nice, somewhat quiet eateries, and a few running-water cenotes with small statues of iguanas, birds and turtles decorating the exquisitely-green edges.
Best of all is the so-called walking tree, the Alamo. An Alamo (also known as a Kopo or Sacahua) is an old barbel tree notorious for living near cenotes and, more impressively, being capable walking. The Alamo grows thick, ropey “beards” of aerial roots in its branches, which drop down and thicken into buttresses. These buttresses eventually take on the weight of the whole tree, so when the original trunk dies, the new “leg” walks the tree to a more nutritious patch of soil.
Finally, comes shopping. As a general rule, I don’t shop when I travel. I can barely afford to carry the weight I’m currently toting around, and extra goods are a surefire method for blowing out my knees in my twenties.
However, if I had to pick an area for shopping in Playa del Carmen, it would be Palacio Municipal on weekends. There’s an open-air market made of vendors under white awnings in the park-area. Deals here are much cheaper than the rest of Playa and a fair number of locals usually shop around here as well.
Departure
And once again, my time has vanished. Today is my final day in Playa del Carmen. Tomorrow morning, I’m meeting some friends for farewells, turning in my house key to my land-lady and fleeing the country. Once again, I’m returning to the US right as winter is ebbing.
Until my next explorations,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written March 9th 2021
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This Fire-Maple 1L Hard Anodized Aluminum Pot cooking pot is perfect for single meals. I use it in hostels, apartments and on camping trips. The narrow shape lays down flat in my bag and the material is very light. The folding handles make it a good tool for making hot chocolate on cold mornings
