The first time I visited Playa Del Carmen was fifteen years ago (f&#$ I’m getting old!). After spending six months in America on tourist visa, I had to leave in order to extend my stay. In New York I met an Israeli girl who had just gotten back from a month in Playa. She described it as an inexpensive heaven and mentioned that her friend Natalie is still there if I’m interested. How do I find Natalie? I asked. It would be easy, Playa is small. She said. The next day, I walked into an STA travel agency (remember travel agents?) and booked a roundtrip ticket to Cancun (which is about a one-hour drive from Playa).
Mexico, Playa Del Carmen
In my first night in Playa I stayed in a cheap hotel, an ex-brothel – the one that the Israeli girl had stayed in and highly recommended but neglected to mention that it was a complete shit-hole. The next morning, I left the zero-star Blue Water hotel and looked for something more “fancy”. Back then there was only one four-star hotel in town, which I couldn’t afford, or cheap, extremely basic hotels. The bungalow I found in Zula hotel was ten dollar more than the first shit-hole, but ten times nicer and was actually charming in its own humble way. The bed was like a giant swing, it hung from the ceiling on heavy ropes and was covered in a mosquito net. The only bummer was the shared bathrooms that were inconveniently located outside of the room, but the charm and tranquility of Playa made this a trivial detail. After I moved myself to Zula and had breakfast (don’t remember what I had, probably some tropical fruits), I began to look for Natalie.
Natalie couldn’t be found anywhere! Instead, I found Brian, a sweet and handsome American boy, who was at the end of his six-month trek through Central America. Brian jumped at my offer to sleep at my “fancy” bungalow and act as my bodyguard/boyfriend for the next five days. Fifteen years ago, people knew how to rely on their instincts – I didn’t need to Google Brian to know that he was one of the good guys.
Eventually I did bump into Natalie, who had been partying in Tulum, but we didn’t click like I did with sweet Brian. Who needs a Natalie when you have a Brian?!?
Fifteen years later, I came back to Playa with my more handsome (than Brian) husband and sons and my best friend (Gab), who came from Israel with her husband and two sons. We all stayed in a cozy, five-star house in Playacar (PaseoUxamel) that we rented through Airbnb.
Playa is no longer the small, humble town I remembered, it’s a big, fat city now, still charming, though. It’s definitely more expensive now than it was back then. I felt like my wallet was being milked all the time, we were constantly accosted by people who wanted to sell us something. Nevertheless, we had amazing time together.
