Life's a Beach | Expat Life in Playa del Carmen

After Rob left to return to Playa, we moved from Casa Palomita to a suite in a popular bed and breakfast in town, Casa de las Bugambilias, which happened to be home to one of our new favorite restaurants, La Olla. I'm generally not a fan of B&B stays as I tend to be not that social on vacation and meeting up for breakfast with fellow travelers is just not really my thing. A few hours of morning quiet time in my room with a pot of coffee and my computer is more my style. In this case however, I think I really lucked out. The room we selected was not actually in the B&B area, but rather just outside the upstairs dining room and above the kitchen. While I later read several criticisms of the location of this room on TA and similar travel review sites, it was perfect for me. This was the first time that Rob has ever left us alone to vacation alone and we were having a hard time adjusting. Waking up to the sounds of the kitchen staff and servers getting set up for the day was actually strangely comforting and made me feel not quite so lonely. The kids could wander over to the dining room at anytime and order up a snack...or a bottle of wine for Mommy...and the rooftop bar was just a few steps above which, until dinner time, was ours to enjoy alone. The staff was so nice and accommodating, especially to the kids who settled in quickly and made friends with all the waiters and bartenders straight away.

So of course, after a few days of chilling out and essentially doing not much of anything, I was itching to get back out and explore. One one of our meander days, I wandered into a local tour operator's shop and got some info on what regional tours were available, locations and prices. I booked us on an all day tour that would take us to Mont Alban, San Antonia Arrazola and San Bartolo. While we had already made our pilgrimage to find barro negro in San Bartolo, this tour offered us the best opportunity to easily visit some of the locations we had on our (my) wishlist.

Our first stop was to see the archaeological site of Mont Alban. Inhabited over a period of 1,500 years by a succession of peoples...Olmecs, Zapotecs and Mixtecs..the terraces, dams, canals, pyramids and artificial mounds of Monte Albán were literally carved out of the mountain and are the symbols of a sacred topography. Located in the center of the Valley of Oaxaca, Monte Alban exercised political, economic and ideological control over other communities in the valley and surrounding mountains.

The site's main geographic features and structures include La Gran Plaza, Juego de Pelota, Sistema II, Los Danzantes, Edificio J, Edificios Centrales GHI, El Palacio, Plataforma Sur, Sistema 7 Venado and Tumba No. 7. We were in a mainly English speaking group and our bilingual guide managed to move us through the site at a reasonable pace, giving plenty of time to discuss the history of the site, its occupants and the significance of the various structures and stelae. Once the structured tour was over, we had time to wander on our own, climb some of the pyramids and visit the museum. It was pretty hot and dry up there and with little shade or cover, I was glad for the vendors just outside the site selling ice cream and aguas frescas to cool us down when we were done. I also hit up the very reasonable hat salesmen to find a much-needed wide-brimmed hat for future site-seeing.

Next up on the tour is a visit to the village of San Antonio Arrazola famous for its fantastic alebrijes!