I don't quite know how to describe Playa del Carmen. It is a total assault on the senses - sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. Young, old, beautiful, wizzened - bums, hippies, cosmopolitans, hipsters, retirees - it's a microcosm of many of the great, but much larger cities of the world - teeming with life - and that's just during the day - I haven't made it there after dark yet.
The Papantla Flyers is a group of five men who perform a traditional ritual meant as a prayer for good harvest and fertility. I think now it is for tourism but that's certainly okay, too. This man will stand atop a 90-foot high pole on a small platform playing his flute and drum while his partners throw themselves backwards off the pole while tethered by a rope to their ankles.
This tourist was overcome with the urge to dance along with a roving street band.
Many folks just wander the avenue, shopping, eating, looking, seeing or being seen.
Partially clad but unabashed granpas stroll with their grandkids.
Four beers for 100 pesos is about $1.90 USD each. Not sure why the place is called "Le Petit Paris" except that Playa del Carmen has a significant number of European visitors. Maybe it's a touch of home for them.
You can stay in a top notch hotel like this one for hundreds of dollars a night.
You can buy a sombrero - and people must do that fairly often or they wouldn't keep making them for tourists.
You can enjoy the towering artful statue near the beach just off the avenue.
You can bring your stuff and just hang out at the beach.
And always, it is nearby, the unending blue-green Caribbean Sea.
You can visit the very small chapel if the spirit so moves you.
It seems that "Playa" has something for everyone.
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