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!