Since we arrived here in Playa del Carmen in November, we've gradually built a list of favorite restaurants. Recently we tried two different places, both of which proved worthy of adding to our "list". PapaCharly Pasta FactoryThis small, unassuming place is just a short walk from our rental. It's well-loved by visitors and Playa residents, and we could see why. Although its name sounds like something you might find in a shopping mall in the US, don't let the name fool you. The food is authentic Italian, prices are reasonable, and the rustic setting is simple and charming. PapaCharly (their Facebook page) is the real deal! To start, the house vino blanco and vino tinto were very nice. Lovely fresh-baked bread accompanied our meal. We normally prefer to avoid white bread, but this was so good that we succumbed to its charms. Mmmmmm.... The menu includes a variety of pastas that you can customize from a long list of fillings and sauces. If you order cannelloni, as I did, you can order two different fillings. I chose one with spinach and cheese and the other with mushroom filling. My sauce choice was pesto. The bubbling hot dish was absolutely HUGE, and I was able to take home half of it for another dinner, making the price I paid even more reasonable. Barry tried the ravioli with spinach & cheese filling and a spicy Arrabbiata sauce. It tasted as good as it looked! To finish off our Italian feast, we just had to stop at Amo Gelato (which I introduced in this blog post) on the way back; it's right around the corner! La Cueva del ChangoI had to put the name of this charming place into the Spanish to English language translator to find that it means "Cave Monkey". Their logo includes an adorable spider monkey. The restaurant (their web page) is hidden among the jungly (a word?) trees, providing the perfect intimate setting. I'd read such good reviews I was excited to try it, and it didn't disappoint. The homemade salsas were all incredibly good. The red and green salsas were mild but with great depth of flavor, and a tiny bit of the brilliant orange habanero salsa went a long way! Barry started with this gorgeous salad, which I think was my very favorite thing we tried; yes, he shared some! Chopped salad greens were topped with goat cheese, pecans, and a balsamic vinaigrette, and the entire salad was ringed with the sweetest little grapefruit sections I'd ever tasted. YUM! I will definitely be ordering this next time. For our entrees, I tried a shrimp/chile dish served with fried plantain chips and a small salad. It was all very good, though I would have liked a few more shrimp. That was my only slight complaint about this very good meal. Barry had the chicken breast mole with stewed beans and rice and seemed to like it very much. Prices were quite reasonable for what we got, and the setting and service were both perfect. Chiltepin MarisquillosAlthough we've been to this casual Mexican seafood place quite a few times now, we've been pretty much stuck on getting the delicious shrimp tostadas every single time. The tostadas are really, really good, but wanting a change of pace, I decided to try the seafood "cazuela" this time. It wasn't like a typical US-style casserole, but more of a seafood soup. Served in a traditional Mexican cazuela (I wondered a little about lead), the flavor was very rich, and it was packed with all kinds of seafood -- shrimp, fish, crab, and even octopus! Some was in the shell, though, which made it a bit challenging to eat. I sprinkled it liberally with the fresh cilantro and chopped onions that accompanied it. It was a nice choice for a cool night! So, our restaurant list continues to grow; Playa del Carmen is a foodie haven, and we are loving all the excellent eating!
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Yes, it's true! Way back in the spring in Prairie Village, Kansas, we hatched a plan to spend the winter somewhere warm. Warmer than Tucson, warmer than Florida, warmer than southern California. We settled on Playa del Carmen, in Quintana Roo, Mexico, often referred to as "Playa"; however, playa is actually the generic term for beach in Spanish. Although we'd never visited Playa del Carmen, we'd thoroughly enjoyed our time in this part of Mexico (Tulum and Mérida) when we visited in 2012, so we thought we'd give it a try. It would be a quicker trip from the US with Paisley (flight time to Cancun is only 2 hours, 6 minutes from Atlanta), and an air-conditioned van would drive us all down to our rental rather than having to take a second flight. It's all about Paisley, after all! Here she is riding under the seat on our flight down on November 1. She is a great little traveler. Since we are aware that lots of travelers do it, we challenged ourselves to travel light for this trip and bring only what we really needed. We'd not check baggage, and we'd buy inexpensive bikes once we got here. My personal item was my small pack (instead of a purse) with both our little travel laptops, plus our digital cameras, cords, and chargers. Barry's personal item was Paisley in her travel kennel. I did wish I'd brought a rolling suitcase rather than a large backpack, though. My shoulders were killing me by the time we'd gone through immigration and Sargapa (the entity that approves pets for entry into Mexico). The lines for immigration and customs were long as throngs of travelers arrived in Cancun -- it was a Saturday, after all. But we made it, tired but happy. I don't think Barry's bag was quite as full as mine -- or perhaps it just looks smaller because he's bigger than I am! We knew that Playa del Carmen might be a bit busy and touristy for our tastes, but we found a rental outside the tourist district, since we do enjoy "the real Mexico" and experiencing the local culture. Although we do miss the oceanfront living we enjoyed on Ambergris Caye, Belize, there is something special about the vibrancy of a city locale. There's a school across the street from us where we can hear the cheerful voices of children singing in the morning, and we can walk to multiple grocery stores, restaurants, and other businesses in a few block radius. There are people on the street at all times of day and into the evening: walking, riding bicycles, and talking. Vendors ride by on bicycles selling "agua" (drinking water) and other items. And there are children laughing and playing in the afternoons over at the school. Their voices filter through the screened windows and doors of our rental and remind us that we're not in the USA any longer! There's a lovely fruit and veggie stand, DAC, just a couple of blocks down, along with the huge "Mega" grocery store -- we've been frequenting that a lot in our first few days here as we stock the kitchen with foods and beverages we enjoy. And we discovered a close by open-air restaurant serving incredibly healthy meals on our first night in the city. Here we are having packed-with-veggie burritos and delicious freshly squeezed juices -- carrot for me and a blend of carrot, tomato, cucumber, celery, and lime for Barry. Prices in this part of town are much lower than on 5th Avenue, the main tourist "drag", so we can afford to eat out more often. We haven't done much at the beach yet and aren't the "laying out" types, but we have walked down a couple of times to take a look. We're several blocks away, but it's a nice walk and lovely, of course, though it's not as wide and luscious as the beach in Tulum or else we have always hit it at high tide. Very possible. We feel so incredibly lucky to be able to pass the winter in such an amazing place and to have a lifestyle that allows us to do so. It was cold and windy the morning we flew out of Atlanta, with temperatures in the 30s and a chilling northwest breeze, and that made landing here all the sweeter. We will try very hard not to take this place for granted, even when the inevitable difficulties and frustrations crop up.
Please stay tuned...we'll be bringing you a lot more from our new locale (for now)! Making our way south from Durango, we spent four days and five nights in one of our favorite US cities, Albuquerque, New Mexico. We love the bicycling there, but this time we were also excited to be there during the International Balloon Fiesta. We'd never seen anything like it and had heard how great it was supposed to be. But before we show you photos of all the dazzling balloons, we thought we'd show you some of the other things we saw and did during our stay and save balloons for the next post or two. Okay? Okay! On our very first ride on the Paseo del Bosque Trail, a real gem of a paved trail that is one of the reasons we love riding in this city so much, I heard a rustling in the brush right as I entered the trail from the road. I looked over, and what did I see but two coyotes, very close and seemingly unfazed by me. Woah! I've never seen them so close before. They wandered off, but not until Barry had snapped a couple of photos. Here's some more wildlife we saw while pedaling the trail. This is either a Cooper's or a Sharp-Shinned Hawk; they look very similar. We always see a Roadrunner -- or two -- while riding the trail. One one of our days in town, after viewing balloons in the morning, we headed south on a couple of different paved trails and checked out the University of New Mexico; the first time we'd seen that. Here's one of the trails we rode on to get there. The campus is large and fun to ride around in. Here's some colorful art we ran across while riding around campus. And a fountain.... This mural was not on campus but right outside it. Also right outside campus boundaries is the Frontier Restaurant, an Albuquerque tradition we just found out about on this trip from our farmer friend Jennifer from Walla Walla! She highly recommended we check it out, and we are so glad we did. We didn't have a bike lock so had to settle for a couple of their world-famous cinnamon rolls to go. Cinnamon rolls in tow, we headed back across the street to campus, where we devoured them. They were so amazingly yummy! Here's another of the trails we rode, right along I-40. Fall foliage just starting to show up here alongside the Paseo del Bosque. And a cool bike sculpture along the Paseo del Bosque in memory of an Albuquerque cyclist. As you probably noticed from the photos above, we didn't have the typical bright blue skies and sunshine Albuquerque is known for. The remnants of a Pacific tropical storm were passing through, bringing us mostly overcast skies and some rain while we were in the city. That was too bad, but we still had off and on sunshine peeking through, including one time when we rode into Old Town. Here are some of the many sculptures outside the Albuquerque Museum. I'm always up for a little silliness! More sculptures outside the museum.... I love the beautiful tile mosaic art on this entrance to Old Town. And the dried chile peppers are cool too! We stopped in at "La Choco" for a sweet treat -- toffee and Green Chile fudge! It was delicious but pricey. Old Town is very tourist-oriented and prices reflect that. The fudge actually tasted kind of like gingerbread -- yum. This tiny cottage right by Old Town really caught my eye. It's amazing how the colors perfectly echo those in the morning glories. I think they planted the flowers first, then painted the cottage trim to match, don't you? To get to and from Old Town, we took this "Bicycle Boulevard" right off of the Paseo del Bosque. Its low speed limit and lighter traffic makes it a good connector road for cyclists going to and from the bike path. Of course a trip to Albuquerque wouldn't be complete without a visit to our favorite restaurant, the Range Cafe. I still owe my friend Becky back in North Carolina for telling us about this place a couple of visits back. We haven't missed it since! This timeI had some really delicious salmon served with a potato puff and snow peas. I also had a cup of butternut squash soup, while Barry started with a bowl of the same. Mmmmmm.... Barry kept his dinner light with a green and fruit salad topped with chicken breast -- he was saving room for dessert! They are known for their desserts and have a huge case that makes it nearly impossible to choose. Here's what he saved room for -- this amazing warm brownie sundae topped with lovely homemade ice creams, chocolate and caramel sauces, and nuts on top. Crazy decadent, no?! I went "light" with Key Lime Pie...so good. I was already full when it came, so Barry got some too! Despite less than perfect weather, we surely had a great time in Albuquerque once again...and you know what comes along after the rain, don't you? A double rainbow, that's right! Stay tuned for balloons, balloons, balloons!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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