At 6:30pm promptly the taxi driver Luis, we met earlier today met us outside of our condo. He dropped us at 10th Street and 12 Norte, which was a few blocks from the Blue Parrot, an Asian grill/sushi bar. After doing some wandering for about an hour or so, we went to eat. The food at the Blue Parrot was very good. Not to mention the hostess has to be the most beautiful woman I have seen since arriving to Mexico. We ate some sushi, sashimi, terpura and terriyaki. The service was very good too, and was cheaper then the meal at the Glass Bar. Although, the Glass Bar was still the best meal I have had in a LONG time. I have only had a meal that is close to that in New York City or San Francisco.

After dinner we decided to grab a drink at the Yellow Sub, an "American" bar that is on the second story right off 10 Norte on 5th Street. The margaritas there were pretty damn good, and they played American music. It was pretty dead in there when we were there, but I bet the place goes off the hook later at night. It was nice either way since we had a great view of the people on 5th Street below.

We had our one drink and went to the grocery which was about a 10 block walk through more of the locals part of town. I didn't see any Americans after about a block or two along the way. One valuable lesson that we learned tonight is that despite the fact that you can drink in the bars until about 5am, you cannot buy booze at the store after 10pm; very strange if you ask me. Anyways, if you want booze and your in Mexico, make sure you do it before 10pm. We went to a local grocery and as much as I hate Walmart, I have to admit they offer the best selection for groceries that I've seen so far; the quality is also superior for produce. Another short cab ride and we were home.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and the taxi's quit running at noon, and apparently a lot of other things shut down early. The plan is to goto Cazamel, but if the ferry and snorkeling will end early, we will head back to the Reef Club and hang out on the beach, then hit Cazamel on Monday. I'm hoping we will be able to go to Cazamel tomorrow since it's supposed to rain on Sunday (Christmas). We'll see what tomorrow brings!

We went back downtown to grab a bite to eat, and I had my first bad expirience in Mexico. We ate at this place called Ponchoville a restruant in the Hotel Plaza on 8 Norte about a block from the beach. Not only was the service HORRIBLE, they don't accept plastic and the food was mediocre at best. To anyone visiting Playa, I recommend staying away from this place. The cab ride downtown was really interesting. The main road used to get to the downtown area from Hol'Kaan was closed for repair so our taxi ride took us through a lot of the town that we would not have ever ventured. It gave us a chance to see a bit of the local life in the area. While I knew the area we were staying in is all tourists, it was nice to see a touch of reality. It became obvious at that point we were in a third world country.

Sitting in traffic, I watched the locals conduct their daily business. It's amazing how happy some of these people are with so little they have. It caused me to really appreciate the things I have. I really think that we as Americans take a lot of things for granted. I also am amazed at how few traffic accidents they have here with the way they drive. In all the driving around we have done in the past few days, I can safely say we haven't stopped at a stop sign once. One lane becomes two and passing other cars seems normal. The only actual designated lanes I've seen so far were the ones on the highway.

Anyways, after lunch, we decided to head down to the beach and do some walking; try to forget about the shitty expirience. The water is warm and absolutely beautiful. The colors are so amazing, I have never seen anything like it. It would have been nice to do some swimming, but I left my gear at the condo; I hadn't planned on needing it. After walking on the beach for a while, we started walking back towards our condo. On the way, we decided to go over to the Reef Club since we have access to their private beach with our condo rental. The Reef Club looked pretty good, and we will definitely be going back there to swim in the ocean. The people that work there are exremely friendly.

Since the Reef Club is unfortunately not very close to our condo (it is as the bird flys, but not via road) we caught a cab back to our condo. The driver was the nicest and most helpful we have had so far. He offered to pick us up again later after we "re-grouped" and even gave us a quick Spanish lesson teaching us some new phrases. It's amazing at how much I have picked up over the last few days. Last night I was impressed with myself as I conducted a conversation with a shop owner without using any English. I gotta say so far I love this country!

I woke up around 9am this morning to the sound of rain. Low and behold it wasn't just raining but pouring. After some breakfast, the maid came through and cleaned our place up, I think the rain has finally stopped. It is starting to clear up a bit and I think it will be a nice day. It's 12:30pm now and it's time to get ready to do something today.

This morning came early. We got up at 5am MST to get ready for a 7:45am MST flight to Cancun Mexico. After a short lay over in Denver we caught a direct flight to Cancun. We arrived in Cancun around 3pm CST where we were greeted by Alex, our driver. A short 40 minute drive down the coast and we were finally at the condo we rented out for the next week in Playa del Carmen; it's a beautiful place in Playacar.

After unpacking and resting for a little bit, it was off to 5th Street, where the majority of restruants and shopping is in Playa del Carmen. I asked Alex what his favorite place to eat in Playa was and he recommended La Prillia for their tacos. Once we got down to 5th Street, it was a competition to see who had the best exchange rate as it seemed to vary from 10.30 - 10.40 peso's per USD.

We wandered around for a while and decided to accept Alex's recommendation for La Prillia; it was wonderful! I ended up having spare ribs that were cooked in mango and tequilla; they were awesome! I'm not sure if it was a combination of the long day of traveling, lack of food and just sure exhuastion, but the one margaritta I had went straight to my head. Suprising since I was at 5100ft before arriving in Mexico and was now at sea level. Once we left the restruant, it was still fairly early. Now it was time to find a grocery and get some food for the condo. I learned very quickly that there is no such thing as an open container law (w00t)! After getting a beer to go, we started the trek back up 5th Street.

The street merchants are just like voltures, constantly trying to get the "rich Americans" into their shops. I had stopped to look at a shirt made of hemp and after one approached me and offered me marijuana and cocaine! Not even 5 hours in the country and I have people offering me things like this! Of course I rejected his offer, but I was suprised that it was offered at all.

We found a taxi, but the driver didn't speak English very well and neither of us spoke Spanish very well; he ended up taking us to Walmart... ugh. I hate Walmart in the US, but it's worse in Mexico I think. At least they have groceries so we were able to get some food for breakfast for a few days. Another taxi ride and we were back home in Playacar, exhausted and ready for bed; I was out by 9pm CST, which is extremely rare (I usually go to bed between 1am to 3am).

I didn't sleep well last night. Kept waking up in the middle of the night. Plus, since I went to bed so early, I wanted to get up and get ready at 6am. But, I was alone in that so I ended up going back to sleep and waking up at 10am. We had a small breakfast and got ready for the day. It was partly cloudy but still warm out. I decided to wear shorts anyway, since I figured it would be nice. We packed a jacket and were ready to roll.

We hadn't decided what we wanted to do, but we decided we would take today to figure it out, since we still have another 6 days here. The night before we were unable to haggle with any of the taxi drivers for fare and $5 no matter what is pretty ridiculous. It seems like that is the fair if you are American, but I know some of the locals only pay $2 or $3; at least the tip is included. Anyways, it was a day to explore and figure things out, so we walked downtown. It wasn't very far either, probably a mile. There is a lot of construction going on from the hurricane and from new development. Our condo is right on the golf course, so there are some new places going in right off the course. I was suprised to see them being sold by Remax and Coldwell Banker though!

We finally got downtown, and I needed to find a bank so I could hit up the ATM. There are only two banks that I know of so we went to the closest one. The exchange rate didn't seem to bad from my quick calculations but I don't recall exactly what it was. The ATM charge wasn't the best, but I expected it would be higher then normal. That is one problem I didn't think about. Typicaly when I take cash out of an ATM that has a fee, I withdrawl several hundred USD at a time so I don't have to pay the fee for multiple withdrawls. The problem is that in Mexico I didn't want to carry a lot of cash because that just seems stupid, so I regretfully will be paying a lot in ATM charges. Lesson learned for next time.

After I got some cash, we checked out the ferry to Cazumel, since we want to do some snorkeling and eat at a restruant that was recommended over there. We found the best deal for what we wanted to do at Fun Quest. Silvia hooked us up with an amazing deal that ended up being 50% off from their listed rate. After checking it out further, they book their packages with hotels and if you go through your hotel for their services you will pay a much higher rate since the hotel takes a rake. The other thing I learned was that the other companies offering better deals then her for the same thing required sitting through a presentation for a time share. Something I'm NOT interested in doing; I'm on vacation people!! Hopefully it will be nice tomorrow and we will get to goto Cazumel!

Seeing how it was already about 12:30pm we decided we would spend the rest of the day wandering around the downtown area and doing some shopping. I ended up buying a few things for myself and some gifts for some friends. I found some beatiful jewelry and clothing. A word of caution when buying jewelry however is if you are buying silver look for the stamp. It should be printed on the inside of the piece and will indicate the quality. For those that don't know, 925 is pretty standard and decent quality; it's okay to buy. If you can find 950 though, it's better. I only found one store that had 950 so far and I could easily see the quality of their jewelry was superior to other jewelers in the area. Just the amount of detail in their pieces was amazing.

One of the restruants on our list of places we must eat at was The Glass Bar, which is of course on 5th Street. I had the lobster raviollis with tomatoes; it was absolutely amazing! I have had a lot of great meals in my life, but this is definitely in the top. The service was also very superior to anyplace else I have eaten since arriving here. I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone traveling to Playa del Carmen. We then finished the night at a nice bar with good drinks called the Tequilla Barrel.