Playa del Carmen, Mexico - Day 1

Today started off relatively early, we had breakfast downstairs in Havana and caught a taxi to the airport to check in 3 hours before our plane was set to depart, crazy, I know. We got our boarding passes, went through security and waited for about an hour, after that we finally got to board the plane, it seemed like there weren’t many people on the plane which was good as it allowed for more locker storage above us. The trip was only an hour and it was a fairly non-turbulent flight. 

When we landed in Cancun we went to get our bags we found that the carousel, that carries all the suitcases around, was stuffed full of cases to the point where they would fall of the carousel into the middle of it or fall off it at the start making it almost impossible to find them. Then we got our suitcases and passed through security (Which had a way of deciding whether or not you would get randomly checked. You would press a button and if it light up green you could go, red if you wouldn’t.).  

We found our driver that would take us to the resort, got in our Chevy Suburban (I counted 63 Chevrolet Suburbans on the way to the resort.) and drove for about 20 minutes to our home away from home for the next 5 days on the beach with the Carribean Sea as our front lawn. 

When we got there we checked-in, went next to the beach and had some lunch while our room was getting prepared (we were early). Once we’d had our lunch it was off to our beach front bungalow where we relaxed for a long time, got changed and went down to the beach (A 10 second walk.). It was great, sunbathing and then swimming in the non-rocky area, after that we just went back and relaxed on our bungalow’s hammock.) before getting ready for the night.

In the evening we headed to Quinta Avenida (Avenue 5), a long shopping mall stretched the length of the street (The road is closed off specifically for the public and the shops.), where we went into shops like Nike, Old Navy and some really cool local artist stores selling hand painted wooden animals. It was a pretty cool street and there were street performers as well as about 50 shops selling the best tequila in Mexico. 

At the end of the street we caught a taxi back to the resort where we had dinner (Included in the price.) which consisted of Cordon Bleu and Smoked Salmon as options. That pretty much ended our night except for the preparations for our tour of the Mayan Temple and cenote in the morning.