Ready to Cross!

This morning we slept until about 6:30, then we went to McDonald’s for breakfast (what can I say, we’re on a budget). Then we started to get our papers together for the crossing. Last night we had gone to Staples to get photocopies of our vehicle papers because we heard that this was faster when you got to the border. So when we went to find our originals this morning, they were missing! Oh no! We were gravely worried, and we searched the van inside and out and couldn’t find them. We drove back to the hotel and looked in the parking lot thinking maybe they fell out of the car, then we drove to the movie theatre where I parked last night to look there, then we tried the IHOP where we had dinner last night. Nothing. By this time, we were so stressed out and worried that we couldn’t even speak. We didn’t know what to do. Then I thought we should try Staples, maybe I left them there? So we went there, and as I walked over to the photocopier I used, I saw the papers sitting there on the ledge behind the photocopier where they had apparently fallen off of the top. Phew!!! We were very, very happy to find them! So we got in the van, breathed a breaths of relief, kissed and made up, then went to the border.

We approached what we thought was the border, and it turned out just to be a toll booth. (a toll booth LEAVING America?? C’mon!!)

We laughed, because JOhn was real nervous and thought this was it, and he got all nervous for a toll booth! He always gets nervous crossing a border, like he’s guilty of something even though he’s not! =) So we paid the two dollar toll, and crossed the bridge, and right on the other side of the bridge we approached the Mexican border.

We were really unsure about what to do, and we just drove up, and we saw the red light/green light stations and we got a green light and drove on through! No line up, no guard to talk to, nothing. We were speechless, like, “that’s it??!!” wow. So we pulled ahead and just as we passed the sign for the car permits we were already past it. so we just turned around up the road and came back to the parking lot and went in.

Don’t the kids look excited to be here?

First we went to immigration, which was relatively painless. The woman working there was very nice, and she was surprised we were driving to Cancun, and even more surprised we had already driven from Canada. She gave us 180 days on our FMT’s, warned us about not losing them, and then we went next door to the Banjercito for our car permit. They were a little reluctant to accept our auto paperwork, John had to convince them that in BC, Canada our certificate of title, registration and insurance are all on one document. After a deep conversation between two of them, they finally accepted it. Within about 20 minutes we were out of there with our permit. We stopped and bought a map of Mexico on the way out, since we still only had a vague idea of the route we had to take to get to Tampico. Turns out this map isn’t that great either, and my mapping software doesn’t jive with the map, so we don’t know who to believe!

We got into the car, and started heading through Matamoros.

Here’s a guy who tried to cut us off:

LOL! I think he would have lost this one. What a busy town this is. People and cars everywhere. We saw a sign to turn to get onto the 180 which is what we wanted, and when we were about to turn there was this Mexican gentelman on the corner in an official looking uniform, with a hat and everything, asking us where we were going. When we told him, he told us that the whole centre of town was closed off because of the parade that was happening today as a result of the weekends elections, and that we had to go all the way around to get to the highway. In hindsight, I can see now how he started speaking really rapidly telling us which way we had to go to get around and back onto the highway we needed to be on. Then he offers to come into our van and take us that way for a small fee, not much at all, whatever we feel like giving him. Well, after the morning’s events, John and I were already stressed, now we were in a lot of traffic, in a town we didn’t know, not knowing which way to go, and we didn’t know whether to trust this guy or not, at first we said no, then he tries again, so John is getting a little stressed and says, “fine whatever, just tell him yes and get in and lets get the heck out of here.” So the guy gets in, and proceeds to guide John around town, avoiding the centre of town. He seemed like a nice enough older man, and he tried to give us a few tips on our drive ahead, but nothing I hadn’t already gotten from Michael, an online pal. Then when he gets us to the destination, he asks for 200 pesos, 120 for his cab fare back, (yah, like he was going to take a cab) and the rest for himself!! I”m like, 200 pesos!! But at this point, there’s traffic behind us, the light is green, and John just wants to go, so he gives the guy his money, and off we go. Well, that guy really took us for a ride! (or, I guess we took him for one!). Afterward, John and I had quite a good laugh about it, and about how stupid we are, that there probably was no parade, he probably just took us around the town for no reason at all! Well, we swore that was our obligatory Mexican rip-off, and we’d make sure we’re smarter and more on our guard from here on out! =)

So we headed out of Matamoros on the 180, and just headed straight. Right away we noticed that you need to drive kind of on the shoulder by the dotted white line so that people who want to go faster can pass you. Also, the maps all call this highway the 180, but the roadsigns all call it the 101.

Just outside of Matamoros they are repaving the highway which makes for slow going for a short while. After that the highway is quite nice.

After a while you come to a Y in the road at the top of a hill, and this is where you have to keep left to go towards Tampico. If you take the other fork you will head in the wrong direction.

After this junction, we stopped at a little roadside restaurant/store to use the restroom and I grabbed a couple of bottles of coke and two bags of chips for the kids. It came to 22 pesos, that’s about $2 US!! You have to like those prices. And coke does taste way better in a glass bottle.

John took all of five minutes to become acclimated to crazy mexican driving. Within an hour he was passing in the middle of the road between oncoming traffic, giving me a heart attack. We soon approached a military checkpoint, but they just waved us right through.

The road to Tampico was just two lanes, and wasn’t the best in parts, but wasnt’ so bad either. No complaints. We were able to keep our speed at about 100 Kph most of the way. At one point we had a car in front of us with Ontario plates, another Canadian!

We were feeling much better today about the driving, perhaps it was that we had a much better sleep, or that we were finally in Mexico, or the beautiful scenery. The scenery here was absolutely stunning. The photos don’t even do it justice. It was not al all like I had imagined, it was so green and lush.

We reached Tampico around 3pm and decided we’d just keep driving to Veracruz, even thought it meant we’d probably not arrive there until about 9 or 10 at night. Night driving, yikes! We really don’t want to end our driving day so early. And if we get up early from Veracruz, then we can probably make it to Palenque in time to do a tour of the ruins before dark, then get a hotel for the night. Here’s Tampico:

We stopped at a store for refreshments and these for the kids:

So we kept going, and we saw some really poor pueblos along the side of the highway along the way outside of Tampico.

It was good for the kids to see, an eye opener for them after the indulgence of Disney, to see how lucky they really are to have what they have and to get to do the things that they do. This is part of what we wanted to get out of this trip, was this type of education for our children and a better understanding in them and appreciation. They were quite saddened when we had to travel slowly through some of the towns, to imagine that these children didn’t have skateboards, BMX bikes, computers, Playstations, digital cameras, See-doos, etc. etc. and they were really sad about the stray animals they saw!

There was a Best Western hotel about 15 Kilometres before Tampico that looked pretty newish. There was also a nice looking hotel closer to the actual town. Also, if you take the exit for the highway going towards Poza Rica before you actually enter the town of Tampico, then you go a about ten minutes, you will find another courtyard hotel that is pink that looks fairly nice. We just chose to keep driving, though.

We were stopped at one point by some kind of Veracruz security, but they weren’t Policia. They told us to pull over to the side of the road, so I immediately used friends’ tips and pretended I knew absolutely no spanish at all. He kept trying to speak to me in Spanish and asked where we were going, and I just kept saying I didn’t understand. Then I just said “Cancun.” Finally he just told us to go ahead. I don’t know what that was about, but none of the other cars were pulled over.

We also went through another military checkpoint, where four armed guards tried to talk to John. John just said, “‘we’re going to Cancun, no comprendo Spanish.” The guard was smiling and asking us in Spanish if we understood even a little bit of Spanish, even a small bit at all? And I just didn’t feel like getting into it either, so I just smiled and said “no entiendo.” He laughed again and said, “no pequeno?” and then his partner who wasn’t smiling calls out in broken english, “okay, have a good-a trip.” and waves us off, like ‘just go away you’re causing a traffic jam’. Kinda funny.

We stopped at a Pemex to go to the restroom and grab some snacks and drinks, and make some peanut butter sandwiches. What a dinner, eh? Wow, some people must be thinking what deadbeat parents we are feeding our kids PB&J sandwiches for dinner, but we were on the road, and it’s not like there were restaurants in sight! We thought they’d live for a day or two of crappy eating.

After that, we were driving down the road and we saw the Ontario car pulled over by the Policia. yikes! We felt bad for him. That sucks, wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.

Driving at night at first was white-knuckling it definately! The buses and semi trucks come roaring at you, and the road from Tampico to Poza Rica is just one lane each way, and very windy, and it’s not like there are any streetlights. It took a few hours to get used to, that’s for sure. But we did get used to it, (well, I should say JOHN got used to it, I didn’t do any night driving!) and it was a very interesting drive! When you’d come through the little towns and pueblos, you’d have to slow right down, both for the sudden topes that would appear and for the people that would all just suddenly run across the road in front of you. There would be dogs, donkeys, chickens everywhere…quite neat. In one town we went through it was just this strip of about 30 stands on either side of the street just selling these like 20 pound bags of oranges and enormous hanging bunches of bananas. It was amazing to see all those oranges, all in a row like that! I wish I had gotten a picture.

Shortly after the orange stands, we came around a corner and saw a big tanker truck was way off the road in the trees. As we continued up the road, we saw the front half of it on it’s side at the side of the road. Sure hope no-one was injured. It was proving to be an exciting night, as we soon saw another mishap! When we got near to Tuxpan, this newish white truck went screaming past us and the car in front of us, and we were commenting on what a crazy driver he was. A couple of minutes later we passed him as he was front end first in the ditch! Guess he WAS going a little too fast!

Near Tuxpan we hit a fork in the road where you could either go right to Alamo or straight to Tuxpan. According to my map, both ways would eventually meet in Poza Rica, whre we figured we would stop for the night. We first just went straight towards Tuxpan, but soon decided that perhaps this was a bad decision, since the road was worse, and no other cars or trucks came this way. So we turned around and went back to go the other way, but we missed the turn. On the way by, we saw noticed another Veracruz Security truck parked facing the exit to Alamo, probably watching us drive by back and forth like fools. We turned around and again and came back, and as we approached the righ turn towards Alamo, the Security truck turned on it’s lights and shone them right down the road we had to turn on. How nice! Thanks!

Once tip for Poza Rica is that you have to just keep going straight through town the whole way. No signs will guide you for awhile, but it you just continue straight you’ll eventually see the signs again for Veracruz.

Our only regret about driving at night was that we didn’t get to see a lot of that scenery, including the Costa Esmerelda. We drove until about midnight, and then we just couldn’t drive anymore and the kids were really complaining that they wanted to lie down. At that point we didn’t know how far the next hotel would be, so we parked at the side of the road by a Pemex, and cleared the two bench seats for the kids to sleep on, and John and I just put both our seats back and went to sleep in them. Well, I couldn’t sleep at all because it was too hot, and all the trucks were roaring by and I didn’t have my earplugs handy! Everyone else slept great, I think I may have gotten two hours if I was lucky. At about 4:30, John woke up and decided to start driving, and so we got going and within five minutes we saw the strip of hotels along Costa Esmerelda! doh! Oh well.

The kids kept sleeping and we drove in the dark again. About 50 kilometres before Veracruz there was a lot of roadwork and the road veers in and out which was hard to negotiate in the dark, but we just followed a semi truck and made out okay. Then closer to Veracruz the road gets really nice and turns into a new 4 lane highway. The sun coming up looked really nice.

We got lost in Veracruz trying to find the highway to Villahermosa. We had decided not to spend anytime there as we had originally planned, as by now we just wanted to get to Playa. Veracruz looked like a really nice place to spend some time, though.

We finally stopped at a large hotel and I asked for directions. A nice desk clerk told me that my map I had bought in Matamoros was actually very old, and didn’t have the new routes. So he proceeded to give me proper directions out of town and to the toll highway to Villahermosa. I thanked him profusely, and on we went. The traffic in Veracruz was crazy, it was about 7am, so everyone was heading to work.

John’s getting the hang of it, though, and already cutting everyone off to get where he has to go!! =)

So we got out of dodge, got onto the 145D out of town towards Cordobas. We took this highway for about 15-20 minutes, then exited onto the 145D towards Coatzacoalcoz and Villahermosa, just as the gentleman told us. Phew.

The highway here was wonderful! A great four lane highway, we were able to go 110 Kph, so we figured we’d be in Palenque by about 4pm, perhaps we could see the ruins before dark, and head off towards Playa in the morning. Maybe we’d even hit Tulum tomorrow and get a room there for the night.

Again, there was some beautiful scenery along the way.

and a couple of cool bridges that we crossed:

We stopped after on of the incessant toll-booths to bbq some hot dogs with our portable bbq we brought, then we were back on the road.

We finally hit Villahermosa, and our afternoon nightmare began. We got completely lost in Villahermosa!! We tried to make a stop at an ATM machine to grab some more cash for the tolls and some more snacks for the road, and we made a wrong turn. Well this town is just full of one way streets that go on and on and you can’t get off of them, and then by the time you can, you are so turned around you don’t know where you are. We kept getting ourselves lost in these small back neighbourhoods, and my limited spanish didn’t help. I could tell people I was lost and ask for directions to the autopista to Palenque just fine, but I couldn’t understand their explanation to me of how to get there! We asked directions about 8 different times, and we were lost for a total of about an hour and a half to two hours. At this point John and I were deeply ingrained in argument over who had forgotten the compass, among other things (Dr. Phil would have been very disappointed in us! =) and the kids were quietly listening in the back seat and softly chuckling to themselves. “We’re lost in Mexico! Holy cow!” They thought it was quite humorous, we did not. I was just about to pay a cabbie to just lead us to the way we had to go, when we finally came upon a sign which displayed some information which helped me navigate the way we needed to go. Phew! SOOO…..if you ever do this, when you get lost in Villahermosa, just find your way to the Aeropuerto, go that way, and you’ll find your way to the highway 186 towards Escarcega and Chetumal.

The highway leaving Villahermosa was all under construction, so it was slow going, which was crappy, because it was now 2pm, and we really had wanted to make it to Palenque when it was light to see the ruins, then get a hotel so we could leave early and head for Tulum. The highway was so slow going that we didn’t make it. We did see some more great scenery, though. We got to Palenque and the ruins at quarter to five, and they close at 5. So we found a Best Western, and grabbed a room for $695 pesos. It has a nice pool, secured parking, nice rooms, and wow, a good bed for sleeping after the horror night in the van last night. We’ll sleep in tomorrow and be at the ruins when they open at 8am. We all are very relieved to be in a hotel room, we’ve basically been in that van for 36 hours since we slept in it last night. I tell you, these kids are real troopers! Hardly even a complaint comes out of them, even after 12 or 14 hours on the road. They play games, listen to walkmans, read books, and only occasionally peave us off. They really are great, and really are made for this kind of treking! But after the past few days, we all deserve a little break in the hotel, and right now as I sit by the pool typing this up, they are enjoying themselves swimming and working off some steam.

I was able to “borrow” a wifi signal at the hotel to upload this content, hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to update as well. Today after dinner John and I just looked at each other and said, “oh my gosh, we’re in Mexico!”. It’s really surreal, and hard to believe that we’re actually here, and driving through Mexico with our children. It’s really been a great experience so far, and we really are enjoying every minute of it. No matter what it’s costing us, we wouldn’t trade it in for anything!

November 17th

We all slept in this morning to 7am, (except Kelsey, she never gets up early, we have wake her up andl listen to her complain about it for an hour). We had showers, brushed our teeth (I again showed the kids how to do this with bottled water, and not tap water reminding them that they’ll regret it if they use the tap water – of course giving them the graphic explanation that they thought was hilarious).

We packed everything up and checked out. I wasn’t able to borrow the WiFi signal again this morning, too bad as I had wanted to check my email before I left, and see if I could perhaps secure a room in Playa or the 18th. Oh well, I figured if I couldn’t get another Internet connection before we got there, I’m sure we’ll be able to find a room when we arrived in Playa anyway.

One thing we’ve found is that the language barrier is proving to be a bit more of a problem while travelling through Mexico than it has ever been on our many trips to Playa, Cancun or Cozumel, which is a given since these a major resort and tourist destinations. But we were managing okay with my limited Spanish skills and 2 translation books. My main problem is that I can read and write Spanish quite well, and I can speak it okay, but understanding it is a whole other concept. Perhaps that’s because I took it in a university classroom, instead of learning it in an immersion atmosphere. Perhaps living here awhile will change that, I hope so.

We drove into town and found a restaurant open by the Zocala (town square).

We ordered scrambled eggs with ham and hot cakes for the kids to share, John ordered a ham omelette and I ordered a fresh fruit plate. Surprise, surprise, Kelsey wouldn’t eat. She said the scrambled eggs tasted weird because they were touching the refried beans on the side of the plate, and she said the refried beans looked like – well – poo. (to be honest, they actually did!) Then she wouldn’t eat the hotcakes because she didn’t have syrup, they just gave her honey. Well, I gave her the lecture I had given her long before we came to Mexico about how the food was going to be much different, and that she would have to try new things and have an open mind, yadda yadda yadda. So, I thought I’d set a good example, and try the poo, er, I mean, refried beans. I thought I didn’t like refried beans, and now I know I do. I liked them ALOT actually. Kelsey still wasn’t convinced, so she ate some of my fruit plate instead. Then the waiter brought some bread and different salsas, and Kelsey decided she’d eat that. We warned her that they would probably be very hot, and John tried the red one first, and he was breathing fire. Well, Kelsey does tend to like hot food, and within a few minutes she was dipping her bread in a spoon of it, soaking it up into the bread and eating the bread. Man, and she wouldn’t eat the eggs???!!! John gave me the “just take a deep breath, ignore it and don’t say anything” look, and I just shook my head in exasperation.

After breakfast the kids fed the leftover bread to a dog who watched us eat our breakfast intently. I made them wait until we got to the van to feed him, didn’t want them to do it by the restaurant.

Then we were on our way to the ruins. It was about 5 minutes up the road to the ruins. It cost 20 pesos to get into the park, and then 38 pesos per adult to enter the ruins. The kids were free. When we parked the car, a young guy asked us if we wanted him to wash our van for 40 pesos. Our van WAS absolutely filthy, and hadn’t been washed since we left BC! So we said why not, and told him we’d pay him when we came out.

The ruins were aboslutely amazing, very different from Chichen Itza, they are much more entrenched within the jungle. It was about four years ago when we were in Chichen, so the kids were pretty small then and this time they really enjoyed it. They were very enthralled with the enscryptions, and with the tomb that you can enter within one of the structures. They thought it all was quite amazing and it was nice to see them so interested. Here is a whole bunch of pictures I took:

This is the inside of the tomb:

Here’s the view off of the tallest pyramid/structure there:

Here’s Jorden being Tarzan hanging on an ephiphyte (I only know that word because he’s studying tropical rainforests in his homeschooling):

And of course, try to take a treasured family photo, and no one can just smile nice:

We left Palenque around 11 and decided to try to make it as far as we could and just see what happens. So we drove on.

For interests sake for those deciding to do this, in Escarcega we saw one newer hotel that looked okay to stay in. It was purple and pink, and was on the left side of the road if you follow the highway to Chetumal, don’t go through the town centro. All the other hotels looked pretty shabby, none of them we’d stay in, and we’re not very picky (think Motel 6).

We arrived at the Chetumal junction around 4 or so, and we decided just to keep going north towards Tulum instead of going into Chetumal. The road to Tulum at first is a nice wide highway, like the 307 around the Playa to Tulum corridor. But then it turns into a really narrow two lane highway through the jungle. I was driving now, and it was dark, but I the road was super straight so I was able to keep it at about 100 kph (I was motivated to get somewhere!). We finally reached Tulum around 7pm, and we decided to make our final stretch to Playa. We pulled into the McDonald’s on the 307 in Playa at 8:00. We were here!!! And we were all hungry, as we hadn’t had lunch or dinner yet today, just some snacks in the car. So we ate, then we went to find a hotel room.

I was originally going to find Steve at the Playa Maya, but we were tired, it was dark, and I got tired of driving around Playa trying to find where I was going, so when I saw the sign for the Hacienda Maria Bonita, I pulled the carriage over, and here we are. WE”RE HERE!!!! We all let out a group cheer, and I went inside a secured a room. They only had a room for one night, which was fine. Tomorrow we’ll search down a hotel where we can get a good weekly rate to stay in while we search for a condo. Hopefully it won’t take us too long to find a condo to live in, as we all really just want to get UNPACKED and settled a little. I tell you, you should see the VAN. It’s a mess! Empty water bottles, food packaging, crumbs, papers, books, stuffed animals, pencils, blankets, pillows, underwear….all tossed haphazardly around the van. It’s awful. That’s what happens, though, when you are living in it for 12-18 hours a day. I can’t wait to empty it out!

So for those of you who have been following our trip, I hope you’ve enjoyed our adventures! I’ll still be updating this site now that we have arrived, but it won’t be day by day anymore. It will be weekly or bi-weekly at least. And when we do our return trip home to Canada, I will again go back to the day-by-day account. We are hoping to cross Mexico on the way home and go up the Baja Mexico this time, but we have to consult a few people as to whether that way is as safe as this side of Mexico.

November 19th

Well of course we’re loving it here already. On our first morning we went down and took and early morning stroll along the beach and enjoyed the sand and turquoise waters for the first time in a long time.

It was only about 6am, we were just so used to waking up early now! We came up to fifth and found a little cafe open on Calle 2, I believe, and had some breakfast, Kelsey and I had some fruit salad, Jorden had hot cakes again, and John had Hueves Mexicana.

Playa sleeps late! That’s something we’ve noticed already. And we are generally early risers, since we have kids, but that is fine because it means that is seems like we have the town to ourselves for most of the morning!

We had to find a new hotel as the Maria Bonita had no more rooms available, and we found a room at the Cohiba, which is on Calle 12, I believe, right by the beach near the Blue Parrot. $50 US per night for a double room, TV, A/C, good deal we thought. We could only have the room for two nights though. And because of the location it is incredibly noisy at night in our room as our room faced the street, but with the AC on, it drowns out the noise.

We went to our room and got ready for the beach. There was also parking right outside the hotel which was great. We decided to take a day at the beach and start looking for housing tomorrow. We walked down to the Playa Maya, grabbed a couple of Steve’s loungers and ordered a couple of really strong margaritas. I went in right away and met Steve, the manager, and his charming wife Delmy. I chatted with them for awhile, and Kelsey and Jorden enjoyed their swing hammocks immensly!

We ordered some nachos and fries for the kids, and the salsa was terrific. We stayed here most of the day, and then decided it was time to get out of the sun for awhile, so we went back to the hotel and got changed.

We went to the Tequila Barrel and met Greco, a former owner and I think he said he was now a consultant or manager there. He was very nice, and we chatted him up for awhile. Then we were hungry for some dinner, so we decided to take Greco’s advice, and take a walk off of fifth, towards the highway in search of some dinner. We ended up finding this small little place and we couldn’t really read the menu much or understand what the heck we were ordering! But we had had a few Sol’s and Marg’s by this time, and so threw caution to the wind and just started ordering whatever. Pollo, Bistek, and a hamberguesa for the kids to share (they weren’t that hungry after the nachos and fries earlier). That was all I understood. Well, it was all delicious, and it came to about $14 US in total for all of it with two sprites and two Sol’s, so can’t complain. And kelsey had to feed the leftover refried beans to the stray cat hanging around, of course.

We went back to the room for awhile, and once I lay down there was no getting back up!!

The next morning we all woke up early again (are we EVER going to sleep in again??) and so we decided to go do some driving around Playa streets and look for some Se Renta signs and take down some numbers. When we went out to the van, the battery was completely dead! Oh crap! Well that sucks. Again, using my limited Spanish I tried to talk to the guys working at the hotel to see if they had a car to jump start us (we had cables of course). We finally managed to communicate, and they grabbed a taxi and brought him to try, but it didn’t work. So we thought we’d just try to find a place that would recharge it for us, and a gentleman told us that these places don’t open until 10am. So we decided to use our feet and just start walking around Playa and looking for signs.

We walked around Playa for about an hour and found about four signs and wrote down the numbers, then we stopped at a place called Bip Bip for some breakfast, it is on Constitutuyentes (<-spelling?) and 5th, and it was an awesome breakfast, and pretty good for the price. For $4 US you get scrambled eggs, refried beans, three pieces of toast and fresh squeezed OJ. And oh, the OJ. I SOOOO missed the OJ here. Nothing like freshly squeezed OJ.

After that we walked around some more, then came back. We decided just to buy a new battery instead, so we went to Sam's Club in a cab, bought a membership, and bought a battery. We went back and put it in the Van and did some more driving around. I called all the numbers, but everything was already rented. It wasn;t looking good! I finally found one lady who said she has a one bedroom down at the end of fifth over by Constitutuyentes but not available until Dec. 14th, I'm going to see her tomorrow.

We went down fifth and I had to find a new hotel for tomorrow, as the Cohiba is full. We stopped at the Pension San Juan, and they had a double room for tomorrow for $450 pesos, so we took it. They also have a suite with kitchen available starting Monday for two weeks for $550 pesos per night, so if we can get the condo I mentioned, then maybe we'll just stay at the Pension until then. We're sure getting a hotel tour of Playa!

We went to the beach for a few hours in the afternoon.

Then we got changed and went to grab some dinner. We went to Pollo Rojo, and bought a bbq chicken with rice and tortillas for $55 pesos. It was absolutely awesome. It’s this older gentelman who cooks it there in this big open bbq. I’ll take a picture next time and post it here. We ate it in the park beside the place, which is around 10th Ave, and 15 street or so.

We then went back to the hotel. First I checked in with the property manager at Pimsa Realty who has found us a condo in Playacar, but it’s not available until Jan 1st. He said he had found another available december 1, but it had not livingroom or diningroom furniture and it was $1200 per month. Well, maybe if it was furnished properly. He said he’d continue to look, and to come back on Tuesday and he’d know for sure, and he’d hold the other condo for us until then.

I talked to a shop worker while John was getting the kids some ice cream, he told me about some furnished apt’s up by the Chedraui that were only $500 pesos per month and were far away from the beach, but were nice and clean. He told me how to find them. I thanked him, maybe we’ll take a drive by tomorrow and see.