TASTE DE PLAYA

It's now Sunday evening and we are relaxing, and binging on internet, at a Starbucks in the city of Playa del Carmen, about 10 miles from the Iberostar resort. Today has been a relatively calm down after the tequila adventures of Saturday! We woke up this morning, and after spending some time blogging, headed to the breakfast buffet before hitting the beach. I swear on this trip I might die from too high of a chocolate intake. My so far daily chocolate doughnut and churro for breakfast, along with the ice cream available at multiple locations throughout the resort is doing nothing for my bikini body.

Standard breakfast for the week

Anyways, we first stopped by the pool to trade in our towels for new ones. We have managed to make friends with the hotel staff, specifically the "Star friends", or the entertainment staff at the hotel. Well, one of our friends, Yeya, was working the towel booth and at first didn't recognize us. (This was possibly due to our lack of big floppy monogrammed beach hats - RIP beach hats - which were somehow lost last night during the tequila rampage.) When we said hola, she immediately recognized us and started laughing! This couldn't be good - what did we do? She asked us how we were feeling (oops!) and said, "We, girls, call that a Mexicoma!" We stayed by the pool for an hour or so, getting jokes from any of the star friends that were around about how we were feeling, or what time in the afternoon we had called it a night. Thinking we needed some recuperation time away from the jokes, we headed down to the beach for some relaxation by the sound of the breaking waves. 

We found two chairs ocean front and soaked up the sun for a couple hours. Deciding it was pool time, as we needed to redeem ourselves with our friends and soberly participate in these pools games, we headed back to the pool with a quick pit stop at the snack bar for a serving of fries and chips and guacamole. Once again, the pool game looked difficult and involved lots of unflattering positions, so we opted for watching from afar. We then also watched the salsa dance lesson, and couldn't believe we had done that in front of everyone the night before! 

After another hour or so of laying out in the sun, it was time to shower and get ready to head into Playa for the food festival. We pampered, then hit the front desk for exchanging US dollars into pesos - getting a 11.90 pesos to $1 exchange rate, which was later found out was not our best bet. We had the front desk call us a taxi to take us to the food festival. A $25 cab ride, and we're here in Playa. The food festival was awesome. You bought tokens, roughly $1 each and exchanged those for tastes of foods from different restaurants in the city of Playa del Carmen. I ate a shrimp and octopus burrito, a guacamole chicken mini bagel, a fancy grilled cheese, and ended with a glass of sangria and a chocolate brownie from a local bakery. It was all delicious. Here are some awesome pics of the food we tried:  

Cochinita taco, tacos al pastor, spicey pineapple salsa, and a gazpacho / gouda grilled cheese combo!

Pastor carved from the spit and Me holding the best guacamole chicken bagel!

We then walked down 5th avenue - essentially the main strip of Playa - walking in and out of stores along the way. When we saw this Starbucks, we decided internet was exactly what we needed. We had come prepared with a computer, iPad, and both iPhones ready to do everything we could in an hour. It was great to chat with Mom and Dad via FaceTime...miss you guys!

Fully stocked with technology!

Now we are heading to catch the shuttle back to the hotel, and tonight our plan is to hit the town with our friends from the hotel. Let's hope they can show us a good time.

Until next time, we are off to drink more tequila, soak up more sun, and hopefully find out where our floppy hats are!