Day Two

  Chemuyil, Q Roo, Mexico
Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Of course waking up and knowing you are in paradise is one of the best feelings one can have, even if your night of sleep on the hard Mexican beds wasn't the best. We were on a new adventure in the Yucatan and had a flexible yet full itinerary. Our first order of business for the day was to trade the rental car for the one we'd reserved. American (Continental) Car Rental promised to send a representative from the office in Cancun to our hotel at 9am sharp so that we could start our day and get on the road. We'd planned to go and visit Xcacel Beach and the housing subdivision in Chemuyil. After about 20 minutes of patiently waiting we decided to go to the local office only to find out that they did not speak a lick of English. I think they understood more than they spoke though and we didn't feel comfortable with the communication.  We just didn't want to end up with any snafus over the rental car bill. We left and decided we'd just drive up to Cancun and take care of our business there. Unfortunately a curb jumped out at us (it did!) and we ended up with a very flat tire. We rolled into the Pemex and hurriedly a crew of about 5 young Mexican men came to our rescue. We were so frustrated by this point as our morning was not going the way it was supposed to be....but we knew that we'd eventually get where we were headed....and after all we were where we wanted to be. Even with the language barrier Mark and the guys were able to joke around about how to change a tire over the course of about 20 minutes. We filled the tank up with petro and were about to be on our way! Suddenly there was a man running up to our car who appeared to be from the rental car agency. I rolled the window down and he said "Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown we are very sorry for the confusion this morning. Please accept our apologies and you may keep this car and no extra charges will be made." Pshew! What a relief - at least we wouldn't have to jump through more hoops after an already tiring morning!

We started to drive down Highway 307 towards Chemuyil and decided that all of that commotion called for some shrimp tacos and beer! After all it was nearly noon. La Floresta was one of the restaurants on our suggested list so we pulled in and enjoyed a much needed reprieve and regrouping.  The shrimp tacos here were quite good and the beer was nice and cold.  We were ready for our afternoon.  Mark had found the Chemuyil subdivision on a website a fews weeks prior to our leaving town.  He was excited at the prospect of being able to buy a vacation/retirement casa so close to one of the most beautiful beaches in Mexico and wanted to see these homes first thing!  We found the town of Chemuyil and then the turnoff to the subdivision.  It was a very quiet neighborhood with most of the homes still vacant since this "new" project was recently opened up to foreigners.  Afterwards we crossed the highway and went to Xcacel Beach.  This is a turtle protected beach and there's actually a small palapa shack with a "guard" on duty.  You pay him a few pesos to pull in and park and have a beautiful, quiet beach all to yourself.  If he's not there, come antother day.  We only saw a few other people there the whole time - one of them was an ecologico worker and was counting nests.  They say not to visit the area from May through November as you will disturb the nests.  I love this beach!  There's a shell there that seems to have made it's home there and I hope it is there when I visit again. What a nice ending to a day that started out a bit rough.


We ate dinner at Babe's Noodle Bar, their 2nd location, which was right on 5th just a couple of blocks from our hotel.  We'd eaten at the original location right in the heart of Playa on 5th when we were here before.  The food is an Asian fusion of flavors and outstanding.  Their mojitos were the bomb!  Better than the others we'd tried.  Another "must visit again" for our list.......and another night of peaceful sleep in paradise.

And definitely we'll be back to Chemuyil again.....somehow I'm sure of that.