We checked out of the hotel and headed downtown, dragging our luggage down the main street to the ferry terminal. We were very sad to leave isla and questioning whether we really wanted to leave for playa.
The boat ride to Cancun was beautiful and we splurged for a taxi from Puerto Juarez to the ADO bus station. Good thing we did because it would have been an adventurous public bus ride.
Our taxi driver was not very nice, probably because we didn’t want to go to the Pleasure Palace and he was only making $5 off of us.
We paid the $6 for the two bus tickets to Playa and left right away. After 3 hours sleep, I was tired and slept for part of the trip. We arrived at the bus station on 5th and decided to walk the 8 blocks to the hotel.
We were initially very surprised how bustling and trendy Playa was. Much more so than we remembered from our last trip. Eclectic was the best adjective for Playa. Alongside Starbucks and fancy restaurants were old fashioned shops selling trinkets and typical Mexican souvenirs.
We got in around 1:00 and our room was not quite ready yet. We decided to grab a drink at the Coco Maya next door based on the front desk’s recommendation. Again, I had fajitas and Tracie had fish tacos. The best part about the Coco Maya were the excellent chips and salsa.
We were let into our room and were pleasantly surprised by the Playa Palms. The room had a nice double bed, kitchenette, and hammock on the patio overlooking the water. The bathroom was nicely decorated with yet another nice showerhead.
We hit the beach and went for a walk and talked about the offer that we had gotten on the house. We debated whether or not to counter or not right now or just tell them that we wanted to wait to deal with on Monday. We decided to counter and after some going back and forth, we sold the house on Friday.
We decided to walk to Walmart and get some 7 peso tacos along the way. This place was hilarious as they had a 12 year old taking our orders, the menu was written on the wall, one of the chefs was chopping a pile of about 20 onions, and the plates were covered in plastic so they didn’t have to wash them.
The tacos were okay and they didn’t serve beer, so I had a Coke in a bottle. Our trip to Walmart was a success as we stocked up on beer, snacks, breakfasts and the like. We walked 5th that night and bought some gifts for the family.
The sounds of the Blue Parrot and Coco Maya weren’t too loud and after swinging for a bit in the hammock, we both fell asleep fairly quickly.
Day 7 Friday
We spent most of the day on Friday walking the beach. We walked south for a long time, saw some kite surfers, a hurricane damaged house, some huge resorts, and some skydivers.
That night we consulted trip advisor and decided to eat at Los Amigos. It was quite a walk from 5th but it was well worth the trip. I ordered the most amazing steak. Filet cooked perfectly over an open flame. Tracie’s dinner wasn’t as good.
Day 8 Saturday
We debated whether or not to head to Tulum and/or Akumal for our last full day. We stopped by a snorkel shop and they suggested that we catch the colectivo to Akumal if we wanted to snorkel. We decided to play it by ear and see what we felt like doing.
We pulled up a beach chair in front of Playa Palms and were pleasantly surprised that there was no construction going on. We brought our own drinks and snacks down and were content to sit in beach chairs, eat, drink, and take pictures of each other. It was the perfect way to the end the trip and we decided that traveling to Akumal to snorkel couldn’t possibly make the trip any better.
We picked El Fogon for our last dinner and made the walk to 30th avenue again. The first thing you noticed at El Fogon was the meat rotating on the spit. The next thing you noticed was the smell wafting through the restaurant. We both decided that the smell of the restaurant was as good as the food. Tracie ordered chicken fajitas and I ordered beef fajitas. One person on Trip Advisor said that these were the best fajitas in Playa. They might have been right.
After an appetizer of soup and chips, they brought the fajitas which were very good. Tracie couldn’t decide whether these fajitas or the fajitas from the first night were better.
We stopped by Blockbuster and Walmart to see if we could find a movie to watch on the trip home and then decided to commence our night operation.
We decided that 8 baggies of sand would be the most we could bring home so we got out Ziploc bags and used the glasses from the room. We snuck out onto the dark beach and scooped up eight bags of glorious white sand and brought them back to our room, hidden in our backpack.
Day 9 Sunday
With much sadness, we packed up and made the long walk to the bus station. We were surprised upon reaching the airport to learn that our flight left two hours earlier than we thought. We barely caught our flight. We weren’t sure how we felt about that.
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