[Composed 12/1/2024]
Today was mainly a travel day, with a slow breakfast being our primary luxury. It's a testament to the wildness of the resort's grounds that simply walking to breakfast and checking out, I managed to spot two new-to-me bird species, and one new-to-me mammal: Central American agouti. While not as cute as the cotis we saw yesterday, it was still impressive to see a creature in the wild I didn't know existed.
Cancun's international terminal was a modern affair, with lots of places to eat and chill while we waited for our flight. Though I did have to smile at the signs in the bathroom announcing that the water wasn't potable. The terminal may have been fancy, but we were still very much in overseas travel mode.
The protocol at the airport is to announce the departing gate relatively close to boarding time. We figured we could outsmart this process by scouring the web. According to our research, flights to IAD typically left out of gate 26. We schleped over to that end of the terminal only to find that 25 was the last gate. When our gate was finally posted, it was gate 1. So yeah, so much for outsmarting the system.
Our flight to DC was easy and in no time we were on the ground in IAD. It was especially jarring to go from breakfast at a perfect 70°F, to the walk to our car in nearly freezing temps. I suppose that just made me appreciate our trip even more.
Here's a few observations about traveling in the Riviera Maya before I sign-off.
Renting a car was a win for us. The drivers in this part of Mexico aren't particular aggressive, and they even have the habit of turning on their hazard lights as soon as they begin to slow down. That's a practice that would be worth adopting here.
The traffic control device of choice in the area is the humble speed bump, and man, is it effective. Unlike stop lights, it doesn't rely on the electrical grid or other infrastructure. Unlike traffic circles, it doesn't rely on specialized driver knowledge. And unlike signage, it can't be bypassed. That's a bit of genius, right there.
Occasionally, we found that we'd have to do U-turn on what was essentially a highway. But, with a little patience and courage this too turned out not to be a problem.
Between the restaurants in Playa del Carmen and historic sites inland, having a car meant we could access it all and at our own pace.
In my head, I had the scale of the area all wrong. Up to the moment we picked up our car I thought we were going on vacation to Cancun. Uh, nope. Yes, we flew into Cancun Airport, but immediately drove South and never looked back. This is like flying into Baltimore Washington Airport, staying in DC, and yet thinking that you're visiting Baltimore.
Perhaps we'll make our way to Cancun on some future adventure, this just wasn't the trip.
As for food, I'm glad we opted to skip the all-inclusive resort packages. They're certainly tempting, but for us, the food options outside of the resort were just too high quality to ignore. From Kosher options, to Thai, to the area's well stocked grocery stores, focusing on the included resort meals would have almost certainly been limiting.
Perhaps most importantly, we felt like the area had way more to offer than our few days of travel allowed for. There are more historic sites to see, cenotes to explore and Kosher restaurants to eat at. There's a bunch of kid and teen friendly activities too. I could easily see coming back next Thanksgiving to continue exploring the area.
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