We set our alarms for 8am since we could sleep in today. Woke up naturally around 7 anyway.

Got up and walked down to the unnaturally quiet 5th Ave for breakfast. We’ve been making breakfast most every day because it’s easy, relaxing and we don’t have to start our day by finding a place to eat (occasionally stressful), but today we wanted to out. We went to a bar/restaurant place called Pea Vela, mainly because it was one of the only places open. I had a tasty chicken/chorizo burrito and Miranda had…vinegar, egg and cheese soup with green peppers. It was a little potent, but better once you strained the liquid down and put it toast!

Our plan for the day was to go to Xcaret. There are 3 super “eco parks” in the area that dominate most of the business and advertising. They are so prominent that they have road signs on the highway that look like regular highway signs taking you to a town or city, and more frequently displayed too. Every tour agent in the town aggressively wants to sell you a trip here. We had to pick one and go, because it’s just so in your face.

Afterwards, I would categorize Xcaret as a zoo. A zoo with dolphins, sharks and manatees you can swim with. A zoo that’s blasted out part of the land underground to create a river you can snorkel in (not that there’s anything to see…not much life in a man made river). A zoo that has 5 buffet restaurants in it and a night show that makes the price of entry worth it. If you were really into it, you would need least two days too see the entire place. Holy crap.

We’re both glad that this place wasn’t the highlight of our trip though – it’s just to much, and being here makes your North American guilt flare up pretty bad. You know, if you have such a thing.

Hooooowever. We paid extra to swim with the dolphins. They have a number of optional extra activities and choose to do this one. Then we choose to upgrade to the dolphin “Primax” package for a special, for you only price of $30 USD. We upgraded mainly because the group size went from 12 to 4 (but there is a few other perks as well), definitely a worthwhile upgrade. They give you a 15 minute intro and then in Primax you have 45 minutes of playing with a few dolphins along with a dolphin trainer. I don’t know our guys name, but he was amazing and full of energy. I believed that he loved his job, particularly since he put all that energy in, and we were no where near our wallets to tip. 🙂 (which is commonly expected every where you go here).

We had already decided beforehand to pay any price for the photos of this event. You aren’t allowed to bring your own camera in, but they have a few guys taking pictures and video. We hadn’t expected to be asked to (almost) buy our experience again for those photos. Ouch. Obviously we don’t have their statistics, but it reminded us of the toll highway – half your prices and maybe you’ll get more than double the number of customers. Anyway, we bought the photos, averaging out to $3.50 per photo, and I’m not saying how many photos there are. They’re brilliant, they’re amazing and when you see them you will enjoy them, damn you! 🙂

This place has a few well thought out organizational systems in place. They have people with cameras all over and when they take your photo they also scan your wristband. At the end of the day, you can scan your band at nearby kiosks to see and buy all your photos for the day. They have buses after the night show to take you home, and because of the bands they know how many buses they’ll need to bring everyone home. Not their first rodeo, this place is very well orchestrated.

Today was our last full day in Playa. Tomorrow we gather our things and bus up to Cancun for a day of relaxing.

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