Travel Diary

This vacation was a quick week in Playa Del Carmen. I had actually never even been to Mexico, but some buddies were going and invited me along, so I went.

It was my first time in Mexico. I know, right? And it’s so close. The opportunity just never had arisen before. It was time.

I didn't know much about the place. I did some research, yet being busy with work, I just didn’t have much time to plan it. And the bottom line was that it mainly served as a way to relax and not work for a week, so it din’t really matter what I did—as long as I was on vacation. I wanted to study Spanish more, but even that didn’t happen. Each time I had a few moments to start studying...well, I studied French. Which does not help much in Mexico.

October 5, 2019

For my flight out, I elected to take a direct flight. Never really cared much for transferring. This meant getting up quite early, but hey, I was used to that. I headed to the airport around 4am and parked at ParkSFO, which had a discount for staying over seven days. From there, a shuttle takes one to the airport. It’s free and it’s frequent. I do like having my car available, but if the trip is long, I often take Uber or worst case: BART. I believe it was only my third time at ParkSFO.

At the airport, I saw a very cool exhibit about 1950s retro items. They had a nice arrangement of things such as TVs and food and magazines from that era. Sort of like a free museum exhibit. I took photos, perused a bit, and then caught my flight.

For the flight over, I had upgraded to first class. It was only $230 more and I liked the idea of starting my trip with a bit of luxury. Treat yo’ self.

The flight went fast and soon I was in a new country: Mexico. Since I had my bags me, there was no waiting at baggage claim. I also went through customs quickly since I was near the front. Finally, I reached the outside.

It was hot!

Hot and humid! First thing I did was remove two layers of clothing (I always dress heavy for a cold cabin in the plane). No need for anything but a t-shirt where we were staying. Then it was a long wait. My friends would not arrive for another 40 minutes. But there wasn’t much to do, and I had no money. I could at least use my phone since I had switched to tMobile and they offer cell coverage in Mexico. Nice perk.

As I waited, I saw the endless transportation salesmen trying to peddle rides to anyone and everyone exiting the airport. It was interesting to watch. Finally, my friends arrived and we took a shuttle to the rental car place.

They had Steve fill out endless paperwork and did the usual insurance upsell. After that, we took off in a small, but reliable car. It was about an hour’s drive to reach the condo. While finding the place wasn’t hard, locating the entrance was a little tricky. It took some time, but we managed to located the parking garage and had the attendant let us inside. Okay, first, we had to get wristbands and then we went to the condo.

The keys were in a lockbox next to the door. The combination...well, did not work. We all tried our hand at opening it, but no luck. It wasn’t even a typo as they had sent us a photo of the keycode. More trying. Still, nothing. Finally, Terry texted them...and it turns out they had changed the code. Forgot to send us the update, they did. Hmm. What else might they have forgotten?

Once inside, we had to decide on rooms as there were three of them. I opted to take the smallest room and pay the least amount. All I needed was a bed and it had that. A TV would not be necessary. There was nothing I needed to watch. And I had a tablet for my usual shows.

Once squared away, we went out on the streets and located an ATM. I went first and I must say, I spent about 15 minutes trying to get cash. The main problem was I confusing the pesos for dollars since the currency indicator is the same. So when it said the fee was $17.40 for taking about $100, I had to cancel it and select a larger amount. But the figures were all in pesos, so the fees were not that insane.

During the trip, the peso was about $18 to the USD, so my formula was to divide by 10 (drop a decimal point) and then halve that. It was a good way to be close to the cost in American dollars. I think I took out about $200 and it lasted the entire week for food and drinks and such.

After getting cash, we found a great outdoor taco place (actually, almost all the places are pretty much open to the outside) and got some dinner. I had not eaten since the flight that morning. I ordered some fajitas, which were fairly good.

Next, we found a mega market to buy some groceries. The place was pretty massive. I got beer and milk and cereal. I figured it would be nice to have cold cereal for breakfast.

Which never happened. We just kept munching on the cereal straight out of the box. Was worth a shot I guess. I think it was a Frosted Flakes ripoff cereal.

Back at the place, we crashed. Falling asleep was no problem.

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