Lessons Learned after Five Months on the Road

So far our retirement travels have been enlightening. We have been on the road for over five months and have learned a lot about what we want moving forward. The process is by no means over, but lessons learned so far will certainly help direct our path forward.

Lesson one: When “trying on” a location to see if it “fits” you definitely need three or four months. When you are only somewhere for a week or three you are still on “vacation.” There is no time to get tired of the heat, to hate the humidity, or to get annoyed by the noise or the garbage in the streets. You do not notice the day to day difficulties of getting around – because when you are somewhere for a short while you tend to take taxis and eat out. Even a month is not long enough because it is just not enough time to make a place your own, or to get to know the community. It is possible we could learn to like Playa del Carmen, but because we are only here for a month, it is too short of a time to get “plugged in” and it is too short of a time to justify buying the things we need to make our stay comfortable. For example, in Bucerias, because we were there for three months, it was worth it to buy some Tupperware, a strainer and a cheese grater, it was worth it to pick up some blankets and to plant a few herbs…all things that made our time there better. I rearranged the furniture and made the place my own. Here, we feel like we are camping. The place is not well equipped, but because we are only here a short while it just makes no sense to buy a bunch of stuff.( We finally broke down and bought two good beach chairs and a beach umbrella – cost us $120. We figured we could use them here and then ship them back to Bucerias for when we go back there. Not! Turns out FedX wanted $300+ to ship them so now we will have to leave them behind.)

Lesson two: Playa del Carmen is a very touristy city with a large expat community, and many charming neighbourhoods.

We chose to stay in a non-tourist neighbourhood where there are very few xpats. Unless you speak very good Spanish, I do not think this is a very good idea and I will not do it again. We speak Spanish well enough to get by and to ask for what we need – but it is near impossible to make friends. A friendly hello on the street is nice – but we are missing interaction with people we can communicate well with. In general, I like to avoid areas that are very touristy, which is why we are here, however, I have learned that community is an important part of a happy and healthy retirement, and we just do not fit in here in Colosio. The disparity is too obvious. We are too rich. People here are very poor, they live in hovels, and they work around the clock to squeak out a miserable living. We just do not have enough in common with them to be able to make friends.

Lesson three: In the poor neighbourhoods, where few foreigners go, there is little to no “Mexican charm.” Mexican charm is a construct of the rich. It exists only where people have money. In poor areas there are limited government services like garbage pick up, so everywhere we walk (outside of the well-designed fifth ave walkway) we are stepping over dirty diapers, dog shit, and filth.

Lesson four: Be careful when people say you can live in Mexico for $1000 month. It is true that you can live on very little, but you are not going to get an area where the houses look like the yellow house above. Nope. The only kind of neighbourhoods you will find where you can rent a flat for $500 a month and eat a meal with chicken, rice, beans, tortillas, soup and water for 25 pesos (about $2 CAD, less than what you will pay for a beer in the tourist area), will look like this:

Truly, if you want Mexican charm, safety, and garbage pickup – and to go to restaurants where the workers have a sink in which they can wash their hands, it is not happening for the small amounts International Living magazine might lead you to believe, unless you are far inland, away from tourist spots, nice beaches, and international airports.

Lesson five: There are all kinds of things that I have back home that I do not need or miss. I don’t miss a varied wardrobe, hairdressers, or a car. I don’t miss boots, winter coats and furnaces. However, there are definitely things I have learned that I don’t want to live without: things that make my life easier and happier. These things will vary from person to person – so it is good to go through this process to learn what they are. For me, I miss, and now know I don't want to be without, a decent kitchen with proper kitchen tools. I love to cook so dull knives and crappy pots really bother me. I also need a decent bed and pillow. It is a must. For Stephane, he really misses having a big TV and decent internet. We watch movies and TV series a lot in the evenings, and he wishes we were watching on a big screen instead of my small laptop. And it would sure be nice to not have the show stop several times as the internet goes in and out.

I know I have many more lessons to learn, but for now, I have an overwhelming appreciation for all I have back home. Family. Good friends. Clean streets. A quality mattress. An functional kitchen. A decent TV.
There is more to life than good weather and nice beaches.

Expectations

I have travelled a lot and no matter where I go, I always struggle with the same question: Should I book in advance or wait until I get there?

So here’s the thing…If you want a REALLY good location, usually you have to book WAY IN ADVANCE – it is almost impossible to get a really great place for a really great price at the last minute in high season. For example, Los Arroyos Verdes, in Bucerias, where we spent December through February this winter, is booked 2-3 years in advance. We have already booked there through April 2020.

So, understanding that, I booked our month in Playa del Carmen, where we are now, almost a year ago. Well this blog post is about all the reasons why booking in advance is a bad idea…(unless of course you have already been to that place)

Playa del Carmen is known for its amazing beaches: White sand, crystal clear turquoise water.

Who does not want that?

Well here is what it looks like this year. I pity the poor souls who booked their one week winter get away a year ago, because this what they will see all along the Mayan Riviera this winter: A plague of seaweed. Saragassum to be specific.

Saragassum is a seaweed that is not uncommon in the Caribbean sea in the spring, but for some reason it has been particularity bad the past few years. Previously gorgeous white sand beaches have been turned into pretty gross piles of brown black decaying ick that smells like – well – brown black decaying gick. And the normally clear water is, well, a nice shade of, um, brown black…with a hint of reddy brown. Here is an old picture of the lovely beach near the Tulum ruins.

And here is the picture we took today.


Anyway, we booked our month here in Playa a year ago, and not only have we arrived to see mounds - and I mean MOUNDS of seaweed

We also arrived to find out our cute little condo is – well – in a part of town that is - um – interesting – to say the least. Here is the view from our very nice roof top deck:

The listing read: Beautiful ocean view from rooftop terrace. Yes, that VERY thin line of blue is the ocean.
The listing said we had a "full kitchen." Actually we have a total of 3 steak knives, four spoons, and a pot. That’s it.


We have 3 towels, one with a large hole in it, and our bedroom has a ceiling height of 4 feet. Seriously…check it out:

The ladder going into the “loft” is so steep I have to decide whether or not risking my life to pee in the night is worth it. I am considering a plastic cup...it is THAT steep…

So, here we are for a month…Steph is not too pleased, and I am trying to laugh about it, and remind myself that most of the world lives in far less...

Unfortunately, there is no real way to know in advance what you are getting. Pictures can be deceiving…

So, we have no choice but to embrace our reality and make the best of it. Tonight, as we sat on our beautiful roof top deck (the only redeeming feature of the place) we got to enjoy a lovely sunset and the music - very LOUD music - of the neighborhoods birthday party, only instead of the usual tubas and karaoke, tonight the party was, I am pretty sure, a rented electronic keyboard where the preset demo songs were being used as “live” music.

Looking forward to going to Utila on April 19th.

Fear of Forums

Some people might think that because I like skydiving and storm chasing that I am a risk taker. I am not at all. I am actually a very cautious person. I never do anything without analyzing and carefully weighing the risks. For example, before I jumped out of the plane I knew that I was less likely to die doing that than on the drive to the airstrip to so it. Adventure Travel is no different. Before I travel anywhere I do research: I want to know what risks there are in an area before I go. I monitor news daily, have an earthquake app on my phone, check out airline safety records before I fly, get my shots, and I always register my travel plans with the government of Canada. This is encouraged by the government so that if there is a natural disaster and they have to evacuate Canadians, they know where you are.

This morning I received an email from the Canadian Government notifying me of a travel warning for Playa del Carmen, where we are headed on March 17. Playa is a favored tourist location – loved for its beautiful beaches. (It is also a place my husband and I wanted to spend some time in to check out as a possible place to live.) Interestingly, the government notice was not that they (the Canadian government) had issued an advisory for Playa del Carmen, but that the United States had. So, I checked out the American advisory, and discovered that not only did they issue a travel advisory for Playa del Carmen, stating that no American government employee is allowed to travel there, but they also made the extraordinary move of shutting down the consul in Playa del Carmen. So, what is going on?

Well, as I have mentioned in a previous post, there are drug wars going on all over Mexico right now, and the Cancun/Playa/Tulum areas are currently being fought over between the Jalisco New Generation cartel and the Gulf cartel. Sadly, on Feb 21 there was a bombing on a tourist ferry here (the one that goes between Cozumel and Play del Carmen), and then on Mar 01, they found another bomb on another ferry of the same company. The cartels are not targeting tourists – it just turns out the ferry company is owned by someone the cartel is targeting. Shortly after these events, the American government issued an advisory restricting government employees from using the tourist ferries in Playa del Carmen. That advisory was understandable, but this new one issued today struck me as odd. It cannot just be about cartel violence because there were 60 cartel murders this week alone in Guadalajara and the consular office there is still open. And it cannot be just because of the ferry bombings, because that advisory was already in place. So why did the US government suddenly shut down the consul in Playa today and make the entire city off limits? That’s the sort of thing they do in Yemen, or Syria – but Playa del Carmen? Really? It’s got my spidy sense going…

So I did a little research, and it turns out the warning is because yesterday, on March 7th, information was received by the US embassy in Mexico City that there was a “credible threat” in Playa. This warning has nothing to do with the ferry bombings. There is a new threat, one big enough to shut down the consul there. (By the way, in the last hour, the Canadian and Australian governments also issued warnings for Playa del Carmen.) At any rate, the email I got from the government of Canada stated, “Please share the following important information with other Canadian nationals in your area.” So, I immediately posted a copy of the government advisory on the Playa del Carmen expat forum, and asked for people’s thoughts. Well, what I got was certainly not expected.

Over the course of the next few hours, hundreds of people commented on my post – and most were not very nice. In fact many were hostile. I was called a “fear monger” by the xpats living in Playa and accused of “fake news.” It was bizarre and left me feeling like I must be missing something. Maybe we will never know what the threat was, but this experience has been fruitful because I now know that Playa del Carmen is definitely not the place I want to live. Strangely, this is not because I fear increasing violence and cartel crime, but because I fear a community of people that is clearly more interested in sticking their heads in the sand about what is going on here than they are about public safety.