Day 2: My First Walk On The Beach
I woke up today and spent the better part of the morning working on projects and business related tasks. I then felt the need to put up a blog. I went over to GoDaddy and bought this domain name and here we are. Now every night, I will be writing about my day in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico and all the adventures that I have here during my stay. I’ll also be posting the pictures that I take each day and attaching them to each post.
Waking up to the birds and animals singing away was very pleasant. This is just one benefit from living in this tree house type complex. As I mentioned earlier, I spent most of the morning working from my desk in my room, patio and hammock. Yes I figured out how to work out of a hammock 🙂
At a certain point when I was lying in my balcony hammock, I was awakened to the sound of someone yelling my name. Standing across on the opposite balcony nearest to me was a man with a strong warrior style built and a powerful presence. He asked me about the key to Maria’s bike and I walked over to my door to talk to him. He introduced himself to me and I was captured by his strong presence. He spoke English very well and mentioned that he was heading out for lunch. I asked him if I could join him and away we went. Along the journey to the local restaurant just up the street, he asked me about the food I ate. I spoke about how my diet is predominately constant of raw foods and that although I am not fully vegetarian, I am predominately vegetarian. “I listen to what my body tells me to eat”, I told him. He looked at me as if he was interested in what I was saying and we proceeded to the restaurant.
We sat down and enjoyed the most delicious and healthy natural meal and shared a lengthy conversation about the ancient Mayan pyramids and healthy foods. The amazing three course meal for two people was only 150 pesos! Almost makes me reconsider cooking or doing any grocery shopping this month. I promise to take some pictures of this little family run gem located outside of tourist knowledge in the near future.
We shared and interesting conversation about Tulum. Tulum has been mentioned to me twice since I came here, on both days. Once by the German woman yesterday who I met on the bus ride to Playa Del Carmen and today by this man. So this week, I will take his advice and take the morning bus over to Tulum. Tulum has ruins which are characteristic of the Post Classic period of ancient Maya civilization. Tulum has many altars, temples and shrines. Tulum was a center for worship and religion and was very important to its people. They worshiped the Descending God, a deity of the Yucatan peninsula, and the Great Palace. The Descending God is associated with the “setting sun”, rain, lightning, and with the planet Venus.
In the evening, I headed down the street and walked past some old men drinking on the side streets until I ended up near a newly built hotel which had a freshly paved path to the beach. It was around 5 pm and the air was a little on the cool side because of the overcast skies. Nevertheless, it was a great view! The smell of the beach and the freshness of the air reminded me of some of the reasons why I came here in the first place.
I walked along the shoreline and continued for a least 1 mile until I saw a reddish blonde, curly haired woman sitting in the sand and reading a book. “Do you speak English?”, I asked her. “Yes”, she replied and what initially started as a small “Hi, how are you”, turned into sitting down and watching the sunset together as I learned about her dancing career in Milan and her plans to become an architect. We talked about the pyramids and exchanged email addresses. We then agreed to meet for lunch at my new favorite traditional Mexican restaurant I discovered today later during the week. I headed back to my place as it was starting to get dark and I worked away on various work projects. It’s amazing how everyone I met so far in Playa Del Carmen is so full of stories and wisdom. One thing I noticed about this place is that people love to take the time, connect and engage. Deep engaging conversations are a way of life here it seems.
It’s now about 11:30pm here and I am about to call it a night. Tomorrow the plan is to wake up early and go for a run on the beach followed by some pushups and a good hearty breakfast. That should start the day right, thanks for reading! Enjoy the few pics I took today.
