Tuesday, I didn’t head out until about 10:00 a.m. after doing a couple of small jobs on my iPad and researching breakfast options.

I started by strolling down Playa’s tourist trap, 5th Avenue. It was hilarious, just the same chains and mass market crap repeating themselves ad nauseam.

My destination was yet another restaurant in a cave, la Cueva del Chango. It sounded super touristy and was right off the beach, so the reviews that claimed it’s a local affordable gem needed to be tested.

I was seated under a tent with a tantalising view of the jungle beyond. I’m pretty sure the cave wall behind me was not natural.

The very reasonably priced menu had many salsa options for their chilaquiles, and I chose xcatic chile with tomatillo, to which I added roasted habanero. I also ordered a passionfruit juice and an American coffee, which turned out to be just that, (excellent) drip coffee, and bottomless to boot! Anyone who knows me knows that chilaquiles + good bottomless coffee=favourite breakfast spot. I was a bit nervous when I saw that the chilaquiles come with chunk chicken rather than shredded — that usually means nasty dry chicken that tastes like leftovers, but these were juicy and seemed to have been freshly cooked.

The restaurant was very crowded, so I only got a small taste of the jungle behind the tent.

It was then time to head to the beach down this pretty road.

I seriously want someone to make something like this for my yard.

I got the details for how to rent these beach-front cottages!

The blue sky was a trap!

We were getting into the heat of midday, so I headed back towards the hotel, with the plan to come out again in the late afternoon to find a cold beer. I also had a casual plan to find a juice stand on the way back to the hotel as la Cueva del Chango didn’t have the green juice I’d been craving.

It started to rain a couple blocks from the hotel, just as I saw a sign pointing down the alley to a stand offering juices, breakfasts, and lunches!

I took refuge under an umbrella, that, thankfully was all the shelter I needed.

The green juice was exactly what I was expecting, bit sweeter than I make it, and bursting with orange flavour. So good! It was just about here that I started to ponder how Mérida is a desert of bad food in the ocean of deliciousness that are Campeche, Valladolid, Cancún, and the Mayan Riviera, something I’ll have to explore in a future post. But I’m not crazy that Mérida is not like the rest of Mexico in regard to having a street food culture and an abundance of things like fruit juice stands just where you need them.

A growling stomach had me venturing back out around 3:00 p.m.

I did a giant circle around Romeo’s and ended up at the dodgy shack catty-corner from it. I never did get the name. It’s not on Google, and the September 2024 Streetview photo is of an empty palapa!

They only had three beer options, with thankfully Modelo Negra being one of them. I was feeling snack-ish, pondered the quesadillas, and finally decided to ask for them with shrimp, even if shrimp quesadillas are generally not great out here compared to on the Pacific. At one point, I heard the abuelita cooking ordering the sous-chef to add rice and beans to my plate because I was “nearly a Mexican and would expect them”! So my snack ended up being a giant platter of the best quesadillas I’ve had since I last had some in Mazatlán. :O WHERE did she find such sweet shrimp?! I was just missing pico, but there were plenty of delicious salsas to dress them up. I didn’t care that I paid $350 (including a very generous tip) for these, they were worth it and tasted like Home.

I thought of going to Romeo’s for dinner, but I’d spotted Bangkok Thai Restaurant in my wanderings, so its call was irresistible. I ordered a limonada and a tofu pad thai (no egg). It was excellent, better than any you’d find in Mérida.

I haven’t had good mango sticky rice in Mérida — the coconut milk here is always sour, so restaurants must be sourcing their cans from the same supermarkets I was until I gave up and starting making my own from powder. So when I saw the dessert on the menu, I was confident I’d finally get a chance to see what the dessert is supposed to taste like. Slight hiccup, they didn’t have mango! But as a substitute, they offered lychee. I’m pretty sure I’ve never had lychee before, so I said that would do. YUM. I loved everything about this, from the texture of the rice to the nutty sesame seeds to the (almost too sweet) coconut sauce to the delicately flavoured lychee that were not slimy.

It was well past 9:00 when I rolled out of there, so I headed straight to bed as I didn’t want to head home too late the next day.

This lovely day in Playa del Carmen really makes me eager to return for a longer stretch next spring!