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I woke up this morning before Caitlin and Marie (although I did sleep in later than I ever do at home – 8AM!!) and headed out to see if I could find a fruit market that Mikko had pointed out to us on our tour of the town last night. It took me a bit but I was eventually able to find it (I had walked past it earlier without seeing the small sign) but it was closed so I headed back to the apartment empty handed.
When I got back, Marie was conscious and Caitlin was stirring so I risked putting on a pot of coffee (Caitlin is not a morning person) and started pulling breakfast together – yogurt, granola, pastries and juice (our typical traveling breakfast whenever we have a fridge in our accommodation). We sort of lazed through our morning and then headed over to the Abbey del Sol office to see if we could borrow their bikes – we couldn’t – but the helpful woman at the front desk called Ana from Green Bikes and we quickly arranged for her to deliver 3 bikes (at $10USD per day per bike… a bit steep but not out of line for other rentals in town) to our apartment. Ana showed up shortly after and we took delivery of 3 one speed cruiser style bicycles… it’s taken Marie and I a bit to remember how to use back pedal brakes! We did a couple of spins around the neighbourhood and then headed into Puerto Morelos proper to do some exploring.
It did not take long. We stopped first at one of the many beach access points to check out the beach – very nice with soft white sand and clear blue waters but the wind and generally cooler (around 25 degrees celsius) weather didn’t make Caitlin and Marie too keen on jumping in. From the beach we continued down the main boulevard-ed street to the town centre where we did a couple of laps around the surrounding blocks to re-orient ourselves and to see the town in the daylight. By this point we were starting to feel a bit peckish so we decided to grab a bite to eat at a place called tacos.com. The tacos were delicious – although we did start to wonder whether they were growing the corn to make the tortillas before serving them to us (service was a bit slow). But the beers were cheap and very cold and we didn’t really have anything else to do so we were happy to just relax and watch people.
After eating lunch, we cycled about 200 metres back to the main square and checked out the church (it is very small) and kind of poked around a bit more before heading to a place called Pangaea that was right on the beach where we had a couple more cold drinks and played a round of rummy (Marie won as usual). After cards and beers we cycled the 1km back to the apartment… I might have had a nap when we got back… Marie and Caitlin sort of hung out while I was napping and then we all changed into our evening clothes (translation: pulled on long pants and warmer shirts because the wind definitely makes PM a bit cool-ish when the sun goes down) and headed back into town to get dinner. We settled on a place called Cantina Habanero (recommended to us by our shuttle driver from last night). It seemed to have a regular following of ex-pats and seemed very popular with the tourists. They had a live band doing covers of rock classics (they weren’t bad at all) and the food was pretty good (enchiladas for me, chicken burritos for Caitlin and Marie). After dinner we headed back to the apartment and Caitlin and I grabbed a couple of beers and headed down to the beach for a nightcap (for me at least – Caitlin headed back to Habanero’s for a couple more beers).
So our first full day in Puerto Morelos consisted of a little bike riding, some eating and a fair amount of beer… Pretty much a perfect way to start a relaxing holiday in a pretty laid back little Mexican town.
