There hasn’t been much to write about lately, but I thought “Merry Christmas” was in order for all our friends and followers.
Here in México, most people celebrate on Christmas Eve, or Noche Buena. That’s when families celebrate and exchange gifts. The big meal on Christmas Eve, or maybe Christmas Day, is tamales for the working classes and turkey for wealthier folks. Bacalao, or salted cod, is also a common holiday dish.
Leslie and I had a New Orleans-style shrimp dish for Christmas Eve, so nothing traditional but muy sabroso (very tasty) nonetheless. For Christmas breakfast, I made a nice scramble with pork and chicken tamales on the side. We’re going to two open houses today where turkey will be on the menu, so we’ve got traditions covered.
I will leave you with this fun poem, taken from one of the Facebook pages Leslie frequents. It’s meant for gringos living here in the Lakeside area. Enjoy! And if you have trouble translating some of the Spanish words, go to DeepL.com, which is my favorite translation program — better than Google Translate, and free also!
¡Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo de tus amigos en Ajijic, Jalisco, México!
The holidays were very good for us here in Mexico. We enjoyed a visit from our daughter, Stephanie, and we had a great Holiday Open House to show off the home renovations and let Stephanie meet some of our friends and neighbors. Ziggy and Marley liked the attention Steph heaped upon them!
Having the Open House also forced us to get the artwork on our walls. Now we can show you the finished product — part of it, at least.
Here’s a short video showing the living room (no sound this time). We are particularly pleased with how the fireplace turned out:
You may remember there was a lot of purple in the living room, especially on the fireplace. We decided to make the fireplace the same color as the walls and add a row of tiles from our local vendor of Talavera style pottery and art. We hope to put more Talavera artwork in the front courtyard and on the patio. Love the colors!
Here’s what our office/TV room looks like now:
And here’s the guest room and guest bath:
There’s more artwork to install. Deciding how to decorate the master bedroom comes next. But with most of our art on the walls, Leslie and I feel much more “at home” now.
What’s next? Landscaping and an improved front courtyard. We know the fountain in front needs to be moved because it’s right in front of the door and a few people have come close to falling because of its location. We’ll be working soon with a landscaper to develop a plan, ensuring that we have blooming plants all year round and a nice herb garden as well.
A few photos below to show our Christmas decorations. And we hope 2022 will be a better year for everybody!
Hasta luego!
The stockings were hung and the tree was trimmed! A great place for our olive wood Nativity set from Bethlehem.
We finally got our new front door! The frosted glass allows lots of light into the house, and the screened side panels open to let cool breezes flow through.
This is the second Christmas in México for Leslie and me, and this year is much busier than last. We’ve already had the Riviera Alta neighborhood Christmas party and the annual Carol Sing and Pot Luckat St. Andrew’s Anglican Church. We’re joining other families for Christmas dinner at the home of neighbors Barbara and John, and dropping into at least one “open house.”
Award-winning Polenta Bites With Mushrooms.
We also enjoyed the CASA — Culinary Arts Society of Ajijic— Christmas party. Leslie presented in the “appetizer” category: Polenta Bites with Mushrooms. She overcame some problems with the polenta and won first place! Her presentation was very good, but the consensus was that the taste of the mushrooms was maravilloso (mara-vee-YOH-so, marvelous)!
And I’m not trying to brag here because my part in this is very small, but the St. Andrew’s choir has been hitting it out of the park the last few weeks. We did “Ave Maria” by William Gomez (a native of Gibraltar) a few weeks ago — in Spanish. Click on the link to hear a small choir (like ours). If you’re interested, go to this video to see the words at the bottom of the screen. Our friend Judy had people in tears with her soaring mezzo-soprano solo. We’ve worked hard on the Christmas Eve anthem: “There Is No Rose” by Philip Stopford. The chorus in that video performed a cappella, and we will too.
Here in México, Christmas Eve, or Nochebuena, is more important than Christmas Day. Families usually go to church for the Misa de Gallo (ME-sah day GAHY-oh), a late-night mass celebrating the Messiah’s birth. Family is very important to Méxicanos, especially on Nochebuena. A big family dinner may include tamales, pozole (poh-ZOH-ley, a hearty corn-based soup) or roasted chicken for most. Richer families may be able to afford a Spanish stew of dried cod and potatoes called bacalao a la vizcaina (bahk-ah-LAHO a la veez-cah-EEN-ah), or a dish called revoltijo (rev-ol-TEE-ho) that combines wild greens with dried shrimp fritters in a rich mole sauce. There’s more, like traditional turkey (pavo) with a rich stuffing based on ground meat or sausage, but I’m getting hungry!
Family members often exchange gifts on Nochebuena and the niños try to bust open a piñata. These are special piñatas with seven points, representing the seven deadly sins. The person trying to break the piñata is usually blindfolded to represent blind faith as a way to combat evil. Here’s a short video I took during the Christmas party at Olé México, where I’m taking Spanish classes:
The festivities often go into the wee hours — sometimes until dawn — with music playing constantly. That means Christmas Day is usually quiet, since most are still sleeping.
It’s time to wish everybody a Merry Christmas! Only this year I’m doing it in Spanish, since we live in Mexico now. As an added bonus, I will not include a video of me singing the José Feliciano song. You’re welcome.
Leslie and I are still in temporary housing, so we debated about how to decorate for Christmas this year. We thought about a live tree, and we checked Costco in Guadalajara for a “permanent” tree. Then we attended an arts and crafts fair one Saturday afternoon at The Lake Chapala Society and found two gems, both from the same vendor.
This is our Christmas tree this year.
Our front door is now adorned with a cornhusk wreath, and inside we have a “decorated” green cornhusk Christmas tree. By next Christmas we expect to be in our long-term home, so we can bring these back out and add to them.
Our daughter, Stephanie, is coming to Ajijic for Christmas this year. She’s thrilled to be on a plane for a few hours instead of the full 24 hours it took her to get to Malta two years ago. We’re taking her on a tour of Tequila, Mexico. That’s right — there’s a town called Tequila, and we expect to visit at least one tequila distillery for some tastings. This much we know: If it’s not distilled in the state of Jalisco, it’s technically not tequila. More on that in the next post. If this tour works out well, all our visitors can expect a trip to this town, one of Mexico’s “Magical Cities.” Need any more incentive to come down?
UPDATE: We visited the immigration office in Chapala last week to provide photographs and fingerprints. That’s the last step before receiving our permanent resident cards. Good news is, that means our applications have been approved. Bad news is, we’ll have to wait until January to get the actual cards. Stay tuned!
Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo!
Our cornhusk wreath. We are in Casa #1, Maria Felix. She was a Mexican movie star and singer in the 1940s and ’50s. The other two casas in the “Tres Divas” complex are named for Delores Del Rio and Frida Khalo.
You may recall that Leslie and I originally planned to go from San Diego to Costa Rica, but those plans changed because of scheduling issues. So we decided to take a cruise through the Panama Canal instead. A great way to celebrate our 25th anniversary, we thought. Well, we’re back to Plan A again!
It’s a long story — here’s the short version. The company we were working with to book the Panama Canal cruise failed miserably, so we called on USAA* for help. They quickly verified that canal cruises in the time frame we wanted were sold out. After some discussion about our options, they booked us on a repositioning cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Rome in mid-April. So we return to Europe in spring when temperatures are milder than in February!
That, in turn, caused us to take another look at Costa Rica, and we found what appears to be a good place — under budget — in the Central Valley town of Atenas (ah-TAY-nas). The plan is to be there for about five weeks, then head to a Pacific coast beach town for another five. Still working on the beach town. More on that in the next post.
The 14-night transatlantic cruise takes us from Fort Lauderdale to Civitavecchia, the port city of Rome, with stops in Tenerife, Canary Islands (Spain); Malaga, Cartagena and Barcelona, Spain; and Ajaccio, Corsica (France).
While we’re presently not sold on Italy as a place for us to live — at least not right now — Leslie and I would like to check it out and do some touristy stuff, like we did in Scotland and England when we started this journey in 2016. So the plan is to spend two or three weeks in various parts of Italy and then head to France for about six weeks, probably in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France, or maybe in Provence. Details to come.
If all goes well, we will be back in the Chicago area in late July to see our doctors, catch up with friends and family, and make a decision on a retirement location. By the end of this year, we hope to be vagabonds no more!
Looking back at the last post, I’m afraid it may have left you with the impression that we don’t like San Diego. We love San Diego, but our focus is to live in another country. Plus, the cost of living in southern California is quite high, so things will have to change dramatically for us to retire here.
Lots of Navy people attend this church. The design of the sanctuary is that of an old sailing vessel, upside down. The roof is the ship’s keel.
There are lots of great things about San Diego, though. One of them is not even in San Diego — it’s St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, the “Church of the Voyager,” on Coronado Island. We’ve made some good friends at St. Paul’s and have learned a lot from Pastor Robb’s sermons, like his current thought-provoking series on the Gospel of John. Anytime we’re back in San Diego, we will return to St. Paul’s.
I’ll close with this: Stephanie’s Christmas gift to us was tickets to the musical “Hamilton”! All three of us went on Thursday, Jan. 11, to the San Diego Civic Theatre. Wow! This is the best show I’ve seen since “Les Miserables,” which is my all-time favorite. The music, the staging, the singing, the dancing — all just incredible. I’ll admit I was prepared not to like it because I’d heard some of it was in rap. But the rapping was like the recitative, or spoken words, in opera. It worked really well. I highly recommend “Hamilton.” Go see this one, it’s definitely worth the price!
The music is the real star: songs like My Shot, The Room Where it Happens, and Washington On Your Side, just to name a few. They’re not tunes you can hum while walking down the street, though. They are rich and complex, like fine wine. One of the most impressive things about this musical came after the last notes died away. The entire cast took a bow together. Curtain calls didn’t start with the minor characters and end up with the stars getting the most applause. No. The cast appeared at the end as equals, no matter what role they had. It made me think about Mr. Jefferson’s eloquent words, “…all men are created equal.” Too bad we have drifted so far away from that idea.
The Civic Theatre is an excellent venue. Decent seats and good sight lines, even from the upper balcony. We could see the dance moves well from up above.
*We use San Antonio-based USAA (United Services Automobile Association) for car and home insurance, life insurance (Mike), banking and investments. In fact, I’ve never had any other brand of car insurance — over 45 years with the same company. The bank and investment services are available to anybody, but the insurance is sold only to current and former military officers and certain non-commissioned officers. The company offers many additional services to members, including a car buying service and a travel agency. If you ever served in the military, go to their website to see if you qualify to become a USAA member. And no, they didn’t pay me for this advertisement!
Happy New Year, everybody! May this be a great one for all of you. Leslie and I have been sharing a bad cold since right before Christmas, so we’ve been staying pretty close to home and doing very little of interest. Nothing to post about. We both feel much better now but we still have lingering coughs that sound worse than they are.
A new year brings new plans. We will be here in San Diego until the end of January (longest we’ve been anywhere since this project began). Unless our circumstances change significantly, San Diego is not on our list of possible retirement locations.
The cost of living is stunningly high here. For example, there is a one-bedroom, one-bath condo for sale on the first floor of the building we live in right now. It’s 717 square feet and is listed at $398,000. A two-bedroom, which is what we would need, is closer to $500,000+ in the downtown area. In nearby towns like La Mesa, one of our favorites, you can find two-bedroom places under $500K, but they’re generally quite small. And rents are high throughout the area. I’m not going into detail about real estate because everything depends on location. Prices are affordable if you don’t mind owning a double-wide in El Cajon. Want to see water from your house? Now you’re looking at seven figures.
Groceries cost a lot more here in Southern California. Ralphs is the biggest and best grocery store in the downtown area, and it’s an easy 10-block walk from our condo. (An aside here for my editor colleague John: It’s Ralphs, not Ralph’s. No apostrophe — checked their website to be sure.) The best thing about Ralphs is getting 30 percent off all wine (mix and match) if you buy a minimum of six bottles! That’s a great deal. These prices, though, not so much:
gluten-free penne pasta, $2.79.
Classico pasta sauce, $2.99.
zucchini, 1.29 lbs., $1.92.
grape tomatoes, $3.99.
Silk almond milk, 1/2 gal., $3.49.
Across the street from us is Grocery Outlet Bargain Market, a discount food store. Prices are lower and the walk is less than a block, but they don’t carry the range of stuff Ralphs or Whole Foods does:
5 limes, $1.00.
zucchini, 1.29 lbs., $1.02.
Quaker oats, 42 oz., $3.29.
Ritz crackers, $1.99.
pineapple, $1.99.
When we have a rental car, we go up to the hip Hillcrest neighborhood to Whole Foods. There are some things we can only get at Whole Paycheck, like our favorite Intelligensia House Blend coffee, which sets us back $13.99 for 12 ounces. It’s worth it. Some other stuff:
guacamole, .85 lb., $7.64.
romaine lettuce, $1.99.
coconut milk coffee creamer, $4.49
low-sodium bacon, $5.49.
People-watching is great at the year-round Little Italy farmers market.
Then there are the Little Italy (Saturday morning) and North Park (Thursday afternoon) farmer’s markets. I have no idea what we spend there, but it’s dramatically more than at the tianguis in Ajijic, or the mercado in Mérida. For example, you may recall me bragging about getting 13 limes at the Santiago mercado in Mérida for about 75 cents. At the Little Italy market, one vendor was selling limes at three for a dollar. Sometimes, though, you get what you pay for, like free-range eggs from Three Sons Farm in Ramona, Calif. — expensive at $7 a dozen, but by far the best eggs I’ve ever had.
I looked back at cost-of-living posts from Mexico, and you should feel free to do the same if you like. The Orowheat whole wheat bread I enjoy, for example, is $3.49 at Ralphs. We paid $2.30 for the same loaf at Wal-Mart in Ajijic, Mexico. At Ralphs, a dozen large eggs is just a penny shy of four bucks. In Ajijic, less than two dollars.
Mexico still seems to be in the lead in our home search, and cost of living is a big factor. But we’re giving Europe — France and maybe Italy — another chance in the spring. More on that when plans firm up.
Finally, some sad news. We had to say goodbye to our cat Sam last week. He was only 10 and suffered from episodes of poor health about once a year since he was a kitten. Dr. Berg, the best vet in the world, would give him a B12 shot and some other treatment and he would bounce back as if nothing had happened. She did that several times while we still lived in Westmont.
Sam
This time, after more than a year of excellent health, he didn’t respond to treatment as he had in the past. He stopped eating and his kidneys and liver were shutting down, so we consulted with Dr. Berg and with our dear friend Barbara, who was caring for Sam in our absence, and made the tough call to end his suffering. We deeply appreciate Barbara, who did all she could for him. She and Sam had bonded, and we know she feels the loss as we do. We bring these little creatures into our homes and into our lives knowing their life spans are shorter than ours, but it’s still hard to handle.
2018 started on a sad note as Leslie learned that her second cousin, Helen Thoman, died in New Jersey at the age of 99. She was a grand lady, and a lot of family history may have been lost with her death, especially information about Leslie’s Hungarian relatives.
And we were shocked just after Christmas to learn of the unexpected death of our former neighbor Dan Smith. Dan and Zdenka were the best neighbors we ever had. I remember Dan shoveling his own driveway, then shoveling ours, then shoveling Monica’s driveway across the street, after her husband Ed died. Dan was one of those really big men who was never without a smile. Except, maybe, when the Chicago Blackhawks lost a hockey game! He was truly a gentleman, and a gentle man. Z, you and Christopher are in our prayers.
We miss you, Dan. So glad we had this dinner together last summer.
Stephanie’s Christmas tree, overlooking the corner of 9th and Island.
Once again I’ve taken a long time to put up a new post. But I’ve got a lot of very good excuses for my procrastination! We continue to look at possible retirement locations, but we’ve been doing some Christmas shopping too.
First I should tell you that Leslie and I are not in any danger from the wildfires ravaging Southern California. Most of the fires have been north of Los Angeles in Ventura County. The biggest and baddest of them, the Thomas Fire (they name fires like hurricanes here in California), is one of the worst in the state’s history.
The Lilac Fire (now fully contained) was the only one in San Diego County. It hit the North County area pretty hard. You may have seen national news reports about a number of thoroughbred horses being killed when this fire swept over a stable complex. Heroic efforts by horse owners saved many horses. Two people trying to save them were seriously injured, but it looks like they will both recover. Fortunately, the Lilac Fire never came near downtown San Diego. We didn’t see or smell smoke at any time, and we didn’t venture north while the fire was at its worst. We saw the effect of the Santa Ana winds, though. Nasty stuff. And humidities were below 20 percent most of last week.
Leslie and I have visited a few more places we could consider living, provided we’re forced into Plan B for whatever reason. Escondido is in North County (that’s what they call the northern part of San Diego County). It’s an inland town of about 150,000 that has a few 55-plus communities. Nice town, roughly 30 to 45 minutes from downtown San Diego. We also spent some time looking around Solana Beach, an upscale community right on the Pacific Ocean. Both are places we could definitely afford to live. We just wouldn’t be able to buy food or clothing or anything else for that matter!
That’s the big drawback to Plan B. Rentals can be $3,000 to $4,000 a month, or higher, for a two-bedroom apartment. Buying a condo means shelling out upwards of $500,000 in the downtown area for a two-bedroom — more if you want a view or an upper floor in a high-rise. And it’s not much better in the outlying areas where we’ve been looking.
The North Park neighborhood, an older area just north of Balboa Park. Costs are a bit lower here than in downtown, and it’s a neat area. A possibility.
There is a way for us to pay for housing here, but it involves dipping into investments way earlier than planned. That raises the specter of outliving our money, which is not something we even want to think about.The other downside, especially to apartment rentals, is that everything is so small. We’ve seen two-bedroom apartments in North County that are about 850 square feet. The bedrooms are too small for our king-size bed.
Gotta go to the upside, though. On Tuesday I met with some guys at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church. It was noon, and we were sitting outside. I admit, I wore a long-sleeved shirt. But my new friends Tom and Lee were both wearing shorts! Looking for “normal” temperatures in the low 60s F. for Christmas Day.
And so it goes.
That’s all for now. Merry Christmas to all our family and friends, and Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish friends. Happy New Year to all!
More in 2018.
I leave you with this photo, taken at the North Park Farmer’s Market last Thursday afternoon:
Yes, that is a chicken on the woman’s shoulder. A pet? Maybe, we didn’t stop to ask. Most people have dogs. But hey, it’s California.
In the last post, I said one part of the plan for San Diego was to spend the holidays with our daughter Stephanie. Another part was to continue being warm — or at least warmer than we would be if we were still in the Chicago area. So far, so good.
One of the upsides to living in California. Great wines!
It was over 80° F. on Thanksgiving Day here in San Diego. Leslie and I enjoyed a great Thanksgiving dinner with Stephanie. The list of things we’re thankful for begins with Steph. Being here in San Diego to share the holidays with her ranks right up there. And leftovers, of course. I’m always thankful for leftovers!
We got the festivities started a little early. On Nov. 18 (the Saturday before Thanksgiving), we enjoyed a “Friendsgiving” celebration with Stephanie and more than 40 of her closest friends. The hosts provided a roast turkey and a turducken. All the women brought a side dish and all the men brought two bottles of wine. There was a lot of great food, and a lot of wine! Leslie made her famous home-made cranberry sauce (way better than that gelatin stuff out of a can) and Stephanie made some amazing mashed potatoes. The party was on the rooftop of a condo building where one of Steph’s friends lives. Long walk for us — almost a whole block from where we’re living now.
Plans for Christmas Day haven’t been formalized yet, but we had dinner with Stephanie last weekend and helped her put up her Christmas tree. In keeping with tradition, we watched the 2003 Will Ferrell movie “Elf.”
A small part of the crowd at “Friendsgiving.” We were the second- and third-oldest at the party. One other set of parents was there: David (he’s 70) and Patty, a neat couple we enjoyed meeting.
This week Leslie and I have been going to a number of communities in and near San Diego to see if maybe we could live here. We still plan to live outside the U.S., but San Diego has always been “Plan B.” There may come a time when we would need to be closer to Stephanie — driving distance rather than a potentially long flight.
There’s a Farmers Market every Saturday morning, year-round, in the Little Italy neighborhood of San Diego. Lots more than just fruits and vegetables: hummus, sauces, jellies, bread, cheese, you name it.
So far we have visited places as close as North Park, La Mesa and El Cajon, as well as farther-flung haunts such as Carlsbad, Temecula and Poway. We also drove through the coastal villages of Solana Beach and Encinitas, both of which are very similar to Carlsbad. And we have a few other places to check out.
The leading candidates appear to be Carlsbad (a quaint beach town) and Temecula (inland, lots of wineries). It’s jarring, though, to look at tiny apartments — two-bedrooms, about 850 square feet — that would cost us three, four, even five times as much as a nice furnished home or condo would in Mexico.
And so far, all the independent senior housing we’ve seen has been at a very high price and includes three meals a day in the facility dining room. We’re not interested in that — not yet, anyway. We want to cook most of our own meals. If you’ve tasted Leslie’s cooking, you understand.
One of the desserts we enjoyed at Friendsgiving. Couldn’t resist including this! Leslie says the turkey is made of fondant, a type of decorative icing for cakes.
UPDATE: We’ve been struggling with where to go after San Diego. The original plan was to spend some time in Costa Rica before heading back to Europe to check out France and Italy. But we couldn’t seem to find appropriate housing in our preferred area of Costa Rica, the Central Valley. The other problem was how to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, which is Feb. 6, 2018.
We always try to be flexible, so here’s the new plan: A Panama Canal cruise for late January and early February. That would allow us to see a bit of Costa Rica, as well as some of Panama and Colombia. It would also get us from the west coast to the east coast while crossing the Panama Canal transit off both our bucket lists!
Getting to the east coast (Florida) sets us up to take a repositioning cruise to Europe (up to four weeks). That should make for a nice vacation — like the one we did last year in the U.K. — and it’s a little less expensive than airfare. Plus it gets us to Europe in spring when the temperatures are more amenable. Yes, we’re still leaning toward Mexico for our retirement home, but we need to give Europe another shot.
More on that later. I leave you with photos of Stephanie’s cats, Louis and Piper. They’re both Maine Coons, which is the third most popular breed in the U.S. right now.
San Diego sunset, looking from the Convention Center toward Coronado Island.
Leslie and I have settled into our new digs here in beautiful San Diego. We managed to score an East Village condo two blocks from daughter Stephanie’s building and only “slightly” over our budget. (If you know SD, we’re on 11th Avenue between Island and Market.) I’ve already gotten us public transit passes and we took the trolley to the famous Saturday morning Little Italy Farmer’s Market. The people-watching is incredible!
It’s a bit cooler here than in Ajijic, 68° to 72° F. during the day and upper 50s to low 60s at night. Very pleasant, but we’re wearing sweaters and light jackets, especially in the evenings. Haven’t done that in awhile. Still, back in Chicagoland it’s already winter, so we’re smiling and enjoying life.
Our first trip to Ralphs Grocery for food was clear evidence we’re back in the States. For essentially the same stuff, we paid more than double (maybe close to triple) what we paid for groceries in any Mexican city we’ve lived in. That’s just anecdotal; I’ll do a “cost-of-living” post later on. But the significantly higher cost of food and dining out is undeniable. It’s one of the major reasons we’re leaning heavily toward Mexico as our retirement home.
But we have to do our due diligence, and that’s why we’re here. This is an experiment to see if we can live within our budget in Southern California, as an alternative to living in another country. We already see some upsides to San Diego. Leslie is thrilled, for example, that she can see Stephanie almost anytime she wants. She’s also excited that she can find her favorite coffee creamer at Whole Foods!
And it’s great that we can be here for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I’t’s been awhile since the last post, I know. I’ve been sick for a week but I won’t bore you with details. Seems like this happens to one or both of us when we move. Not every time, but several times our progress has taken a back seat to illness immediately following a relocation. I’m better now and should be back to full strength in a day or two. If you’re ever in San Diego and you need a doctor, I strongly recommend you go to Sharp Rees-Stealy Downtown Urgent Care. Great nurses (thanks,Virgil!) and doctors (thanks, Dr. Taylor). You’ll think you’re in a hospital. These folks treated me very well.
More to come…
I am a thorn among roses at one of Stephanie’s favorite spots, Coasterra. We had lunch overlooking the harbor with Steph’s long-time L.A.-area friends Terry (far left) and Emina (far right), who were in town for the weekend.
Leslie and I spent Christmas 2010 with daughter Stephanie in Playa del Carmen. In fact, this is the only place in our travels so far that we have actually been to before. Back then, we rented a two-bedroom condo near the beach for about a week, spent nearly every day at Kool Beach Club and sampled some excellent restaurants. We’re back, almost seven years later, and a lot has changed.
Pedestrian-friendly Fifth Avenue is Playa’s top draw.
Quinta Avenida (Fifth Avenue) is still the hot spot in Playa but it seems busier now, with even more opportunities for tourists to spend their money.
On our first stroll down that famous pedestrian-only street, we were attacked by at least a dozen vendors who aggressively tried to sell us something, thinking we were tourists. Easy assumption to make, I suppose.
I saw one or two restaurants that looked vaguely familiar. Otherwise, big changes. The little wine bar the three of us enjoyed more than once in 2010 — gone. The Mayan-themed restaurant where I got some great cochinita pibil (a traditional Yucatecan pork dish) — it’s Guy Fieri’s Restaurant now. I guess that’s called progress.
We got in last Saturday, unpacked and got settled, then decided to revisit Kool Beach Club on Monday. I remember it as being a place with great food and drinks, and a DJ that played techno-beat electronic junk music that annoyed me.
Back at Kool Beach Club!
Until I caught my toes tapping to the beat. Then I heard the overlay change — something dropped in and something else dropped out. The music was changing, evolving, interesting to listen to. But the beat was the same. Hard. Driving. Constant. Not annoying anymore — fascinating. Didn’t read much in my book after that.
Well, the beach has changed. The music isn’t nearly as good, and a couple of new condo-hotels have been built, making the beach more crowded. The food is still great at Kool Beach Club. We had some terrific fish tacos Monday and will probably return several times over the next month.
Changes are not limited to the beach and Fifth Avenue. Playa del Carmen (pop. about 150,000) isn’t laid back anymore. It looks like they’ve built condo buildings all over the place in the last few years, especially between the beach and Avenida 30, a major thoroughfare.
New condos along Calle 34, near our condo.
In 2010, PDC was centered on Fifth Avenue establishments catering to the tourist trade. Not anymore. There are restaurants and boutique hotels along 1st Avenue, 10th Avenue and all along the calles in between (avenidas, or avenues,go north-south while calles, or streets, run east-west).
One big downside to Playa is the lack of an English-speaking Protestant church. We loved St. Paul’s Anglican Church in San Miguel de Allende, as well as St. Mark’s Anglican Church in Mérida. Christ Church by the Sea in Puerto Vallarta (also Anglican) was OK, too. Unfortunately, that denomination apparently has no presence in Playa del Carmen, or anywhere in the state of Quintana Roo. There are non-denominational churches in neighboring cities like Tulum (about an hour south) and Puerto Morelos (about 30 minutes north) but nothing in PDC that might meet our needs.
Same with expat groups. Leslie found three groups on Facebook, but all appear to be geared toward real estate. We haven’t connected with any other expats yet.
We’ll be here in Playa until July 15. That should give us time to experience this little beach town and visit other possible retirement locations, such as Bacalar (on a lake near the border with Belize) and Tulum.
We’re in a modern two-bedroom condo across the street from PDC’s major sports complex, where I join the locals to go jogging around the cinder track every morning.
As for the weather, it’s hot and humid — really humid. But temps here are in the upper 80s F. instead of the upper 90s as they were in Mérida. Humidity, though is consistently high, so we start sweating when we walk out the door. Nice breeze at the beach, though.
More next time!
The pool in Aqua Terra, our home for the next month. Not as private as our digs in Merida, but it’s nice. And the big saltwater “pool” is just a few blocks away!
Ex-pats in Mexico 