Playa del Carmen

We manage to get ourselves organized and out of Guatemala City. A large bag of purchases we don’t want to carry to Cancun is stashed at the San Carlos Hotel. We book a return flight from Cancun to Guatemala City with Volaris and three nights at the beginning of January back at the San Carlos. Kudos to West Jet for giving us a full refund on our unused Cancun to Kelowna flight.

We visit Chichi the day before we leave, hoping to not find her in her cage miserable and crying. To our great relief she is busy playing in a secure outdoor area, with the two puppies who are her roommates in a separate isolation room reserved for young unvaccinated dogs. The staff all adore her and are giving her lots of attention. We take a box of Christmas cookies for them to enjoy and to say how grateful we are. Incredibly the cost of boarding her is a mere $25/day.

The flight to Cancun is 3 hours long, immigration and customs at the airport is a disorganized hour long slog, and the taxi to Playa del Carmen is another hour. We are on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, a large boxy piece of land (looks kind of like a dog’s head) that juts out into the Gulf of Mexico & the Caribbean Sea. Playa del Carmen is on the Caribbean side, just south of Cancun.

It’s a city of about 300,000 people and one of the fastest growing urban areas in Latin America. It’s also one of the most cosmopolitan, as reflected in the food, the shopping and the other tourists. Many Europeans vacation here and many are well-dressed and affluent looking. We’re in our worn-out travel clothes, in need of haircuts, and still sporting a few flea bites thanks to Chichi. No mistaking us for anything other than “travellers”.

Our condo is a lovely, spacious three bedroom, three and a half bath space with access to a rooftop deck and pool. The location is perfect, a few blocks off the beach, at the north end of the famed 5th Avenue, the pedestrian street that runs along the beach for several kilometres. It’s lined with restaurants, bars & shops of all description, mostly trendy, a few tacky.

https://www.vacasa.com/unit/24066

We’ve been to Playa del Carmen before, the last time in Feb 2019, and while much is the same, a lot has changed. There are more stylish apartment buildings, more wine bars, more restaurants, more supermercados. The one we visit the first night here rivals Whole Foods in terms of size, selection, and aesthetic. It’s mind-boggling. The store is full of gringos buying specialty wines, cheeses, deli meats, baking, granola and other high-end products.

The tequila section is massive, with something for every budget. We buy a large bottle of the least expensive brand, some margarita mix and a big bag of fresh limes for daily cocktail hour. The cheap tequila is not made by George Clooney – his brand, Casamigos is a bit pricey – but tastes just fine to us.

It’s weird to be here at Christmas, with no snow, no short dark days, no long nights. It’s the winter solstice the night we arrive but you’d never know it. The sun pretty much rises and sets at the same time throughout the year with very little variation. Sunrise and sunset are both around 6:00. The daytime temperature is in the high twenties; nighttime low is high teens. Very comfortable! There’s little wind, just a slight cooling breeze off the ocean and almost no bugs. I’ve killed only one mosquito thus far; the two containers of repellent we lugged along are still almost full.

Our first priority is a trip into Cancun to the Aeromexico office, where we are reassured that we can take Chichi on the Guatemala City – Mexico City – Vancouver flights as long as the carrier with her in it weighs less than 9 kg, we pay $300 to stow her under a seat, and arrive at the airport 3 hrs prior to our flight departure. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says we can bring her into Canada, without a rabies vaccine if she is less than 3 months old, and with the vaccine if she is older.

The last impediment is the Guatemalan government’s Ministerio Agriculturo, Granada y Alimentos – MAGA for short – and not to be confused with Make America Great Again, but that is how we remember the acronym. They will not stamp the exit documents unless the dog is 3 months old and has a rabies vaccine. Yuly, the veterinarian, is trying to finagle an earlier exit so we don’t have to wait until mid-January, her 3 month birthday, to leave.

In the meantime we are enjoying some rest and relaxation, time with Craig’s brother Brent, his wife Heather, and their kids, Kirsten & Scott, and gearing up for life with a puppy. We know from the week we spent with Chichi that it is time consuming, sleep depriving and a lot of work.

A few days of rain keep us indoors playing cards, reading, napping, noshing. Once the weather clears we walk on the beach and up and down 5th Avenue. A day-long outing to Chichen Itza is blessed with sunny blue skies and the occasional cloud to provide much needed relief from said skies. It’s much warmer inland, away from the beach, and very humid.

First stop is Valladolid, a small, compact city in the middle of the Yucatan peninsula. It’s been designated a Pueblo Magico, one of 90 small cities in Mexico that are deemed to have cultural significance. Jimmy, our guide, gives us a mere half hour to dash about snapping photos and/or shopping, or, in my case, finding a bathroom. I’m able to see a few of the shops lining the main square and the imposing cathedral before it is time to leave. Valladolid is a place we could revisit for a longer stay.

Next the bus pulls into a “Mayan Villiage” that looks nothing like a Mayan Village. It looks more like a centre for tourists who think they are getting an authentic Mayan experience. A traditional Mayan blessing ceremony is carried out in front of a parking lot full of huge tourist buses. It’s well after noon and we are all hungry but must spend 20 minutes in the Mayan shopping mall before we are allowed to eat. Lunch is a highlight: slow-cooked pork & chicken that fall off the bone, the requisite rice and beans, and a coleslaw that looks pretty fresh and not too risky.

By the time we get to Chichen Itza it is after 2 and the sun is mercifully past it’s zenith, behind a large cloud. We first visited this World Unesco Heritage Site in 1993, thirty two years ago. The only visible change to the ruins is that you can no longer climb them. Climbing access  was closed after a woman fell to her death in 2006. Not surprising! We’d found climbing up to be somewhat harrowing but climbing down to be a terror filled slow-go.

Dating from 600 AD, Chichen Itza is thought to have been one of the largest Mayan cities and one of the most diverse, leading to a variety of architectural styles. Throughout the 16th century Spanish conquistadores raided and waged war on Chichen Itza, but the Maya were not easily conquered. In 1588 the Spanish recruited Mayan soldiers from other areas of Mexico and successfully defeated the Chichin Itza Maya.

Once Mexico declared independence from Spain Chichen Itza became private property for a short time until the Carnegie Institute, in the early 20th century, was granted permission to explore and study the site. National Geographic also conducted excavations. In 1972 Mexico passed a law that put all the nation’s pre-Columbian monuments, including those at Chichen Itza, under federal ownership.

Chichen Itza’s Temple of Kukulcán (El Castillo) has been named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Today it is one of the most visited archeological sites in Mexico, second only to Teotihuacan, a site near Mexico City. Many tourists come for the Spring Equinox, to see the light-and-shadow effect on the temple during which a feathered serpent appears to crawl down the side of the pyramid. 

The Maya knew a thing or two about the cosmos, particularly the sun & the moon. Their pyramids are built to align with the movement of the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth, producing a predictable calendar of sorts. This knowledge helped guide agricultural sowing and harvesting.

We’re told we are here on the single busiest day in the site’s history. To say there are a lot of people would be an understatement! It’s impossible to get photos without a crowd. Iphoto’s convenient little eraser comes in handy for removing the most grievous photo bombs.

Back on the bus and heading to a cenote for a swim it’s fair to say we are all looking forward to a refreshing dip after the heat and dust of Chichen Itza.

A cenote, a natural pit, or sinkhole, occurs when a collapse of limestone bedrock exposes groundwater. The term originated here on the Yucatán, where the ancient Maya commonly used cenotes for water supplies, and occasionally for sacrificial offerings. There is a cenote under El Castillo at Chichen Itza, and the Yucatán Peninsula alone has an estimated 10,000 cenotes.

Refreshing it is! We jump in with abandon and paddle around in the cool, clear water for as long as we can before getting back on the bus. It’s a long, near 3 hour drive back to Playa del Carmen and 10 PM by the time we get home. The condo building’s entry code has been changed and we cannot get in. We’re tired and hungry and not in the mood for problem-solving. Just as I am about to toss some pebbles at a lighted 2nd floor window, a guy I recognize from the pool is returning from the market and lets us in. He’d spent the afternoon in the same situation, trying to get in touch with the Vacasa host. It’s not the first time we’ve had negative experiences with non-hotel vacation rentals and we often wonder about the wisdom of going that route.

By now we’ve heard back from Yuly, our Guatemala City vet, with the good news that MAGA has stamped Chichi’s export permit. It’s news worthy of celebrating, which we do with two for one margaritas out on 5th Avenue. Yuly has also purchased a pet carrier, treated a Giardia infection and a topical yeast infection. Probably she is just doing her job, but we feel like she has gone above and beyond the call of duty for us.

It’s New Year’s Eve as I finish writing this, sitting in the Cancun airport with a Starbucks coffee, waiting for our flight to Guatemala City. The year end has me in a reflective mood. How would I describe 2024? What awaits in 2025? What do I want more of in my life? Less of? And, given how fickle and unpredictable fate can be, is there any point to this kind of pondering? Maybe we’re better off just going with the flow, taking life as it comes, the good, the bad, the ugly, the fortuitous, the challenges. Garth Brooks famously crooned “happiness isn’t getting what you want, it’s wanting what you got”.

I did’t want a dog. But it seems I now have one. I cannot even begin to imagine how life is going to change as a result of an impulse move in the market in Chichicastenango. All I know is that it’s is going to veer in an entirely new direction. Maybe the only plan I need is to enjoy the ride and stay open to the lessons that arise.

Feliz Ano Nuevo!! Todo lo mejor en 2025!