Gringo-Landia

On Sunday we packed up and Ty and Robin and kids headed to the airport. Joe and Della used their timeshare to get a room on the Riviera Maya for this week, so we packed up and drove about 10 minutes south of Puerto Morelos to the 'Mayan Palace'. It was kind of what we expected, massive complexes everywhere (3000 rooms), 4 overpriced restaurants, huge swimming pools, golf carts and shuttles to carry the tourists around. This was gringo central, full of Americans! Quite a culture shock for all of us (Luke and Emily are not used to luxury on this vacation) but it will probably still be fun if we can avoid interaction with the other gringo Americans :). The pool has a swim-up bar and there are tons of activities so that the tourists don't get too bored (bike-riding, golfing, movies, yoga, etc.) but most everything costs extra money, so Luke and Emily won't be participating in them too much..... Luckily our room has a mini-kitchen so we can prepare some of our own meals.

Today we headed into Playa del Carmen to get chilaquiles for breakfast and to get more groceries. On Wednesday we plan on heading to the ruins of Cobá and Thursday Joe and Della head out, while some friends from River Falls, WI, will be stopping in for the rest of the week.