Finding Our Way In The Jungle

This leg of our trip is a bit unusual. Though we are in a city, we are remote to the city. We are in a condo, the condo is in an extensive complex of many condos called PlayaCar. Not all of it is connected, it is all gated. It is about a 20 minute walk to the business part of the city, or from our condo to the beach. Some condos are closer to the beach. It is unlike anywhere I have ever stayed, and unlike anywhere I ever thought I would stay in Mexico. There is a bustling touristy Centro portion of town, and a few blocks away from that the Centro area becomes like other parts of Mexico I have visited. This is our second day here and our extensive walking has begun to reveal the character of Playa del Carmen.

We walked through the touristy 5th Avenue area today, then headed west in search of Mexico. We had researched markets in town hoping to find something similar to the markets we had frequented in Oaxaca and San Miguel de Allende. They were our means for buying food and cooking, and in both places were close to our living arrangements. Unfortunately, it appears that kind of market is not the norm here, and definitely nothing like that is close to us. We are going to have to work harder for our food, or maybe go out to eat more often, even though that will also entail at least a 15-20minute walk.

One difference that has become apparent here is that there is not abundance of street food carts. We did find some as we went west of the touristy 5th Avenue today. We ate some great tacos for lunch. On our way out of the Centro we also found a lot of good looking restaurants on 15th Avenue, and much cheaper than the fare on 5th. At least we are finding part of town that feels like Mexico.

On our way back to the condo today we decide to try an alternate path. We thought that since we had turned into a PlayaCar  gate it would eventually meet up with our part of the PlayaCar. Wrong decision. After close to 30 minutes to a dead end we turned around. The good news is that amongst the condos there were some jungly areas, and in the jungly areas there were some ruins that were being overgrown. Long before settlers came to the Yucatan the Mayans were here. Evidence of that is not always removed from the areas that are being constructed. Below are some pictures of some overgrown ruins.

As promised here are more pictures of the jungle around our condo, including the middle one taken from one of our balconies, and one of the walkway into our condo area.  For an unknown reason the phones are suddenly having difficulty uploading photos, so that is it for now.

We will keep exploring and posting. We will also be going to some surrounding areas so there will be much more to see.