Well, I landed in Playa del Carmen on August 18. It feels great to finally get through all the details necessary to start my life from scratch.
I’m planning to be here at least 6 months, and possibly longer, depending on how long it takes the countries in Southeast Asia to open up. I’ve booked a nice, very inexpensive Airbnb studio for the first 3 months and I’ll play it by ear from there.
What’s it like here? It’s definitely a second world country. Across from me is a young family living in a small rooftop dwelling with half of it outside and the only way in is through stairs to the roof of the house below it.
Next to that are two sets of luxurious condominiums that would be at home anywhere in the US.
We are in the Mexico code orange for Covid, so most people wear masks while walking around and you have to have your temperature checked and your hands sanitized when you walk into any store or restaurant. Bars, beaches, gyms and yoga studios are still closed.
Many people here are like me, waiting for SE Asia to open up. The couple upstairs sold everything and were ready to move the Vietnam to teach English. Then COVID hit and they were stuck. Once Quintana Roo reopened to tourism they came here to wait it out. Another woman I paddled with was in Vietnam teaching English when Covid hit. She’s here now with her boyfriend teaching English and waiting to go back. Many people I see on the local Facebook groups are doing the same thing.
I’ve spent my time here settling in. I lined up an excellent dive shop here in Playa and another across the channel in the island of Cozumel. I joined the local Aloha Paddle Club and went out on my first stand up paddleboard session yesterday. It was magnificent. It will be both my beach and my gym while I’m here. If I can SUP 3-5 days per week and dive 3-5 days per month then I won’t have any trouble being here as long as needed :).
We were just hit by the dynamic couple of tropical storm Marco and hurricane Laura. I was supposed to swim with whale sharks on Friday but that got delayed from the anticipation of Marco, which didn’t hit here until Sunday. It was just two 3 hour sessions of hard rain and very loud thunder on Sunday morning and afternoon. I tried to go again today, but Laura’s wake created a whole day of rain. Not as dramatic as Marco, but more long lasting. Neither caused any real problems here. I’ll try again next Monday, which is closer to the full moon, and is supposed improve the viewing opportunities (even though we’ll be out in the daytime).
If you want to get a great pre-Covid overview of Playa del Carmen, I found this 18 minute video to be a really good summary of the area:
Finally, if this street art from Playa is true…
…then there may be only one course of action…lol!!
