Since leaving Canada in early December we’ve been hanging out in the warm weather of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. For the majority of the time we’ve been in fun and busy Playa del Carmen, but we also had a nice stint in Merida over the Christmas Holidays.
In the past few months we’ve enjoyed gorgeous beaches, interesting ruins, fabulous meals, snorkeling with turtles, hanging out in ecoparks, lounging in swimming pools, riding on buses plus pretty much everything else you would get to do living at home. It’s actually been low key compared to our previous trip, but we knew that coming in.
Playa has become our adopted second home and although there are a few things about the area we could live without, it has a lot of the things we enjoy. It also has one of the most important things going for it, nice weather! Without that we’d be neck deep in snow back home and wishing we were somewhere else.
This trip has also taught us some things about ourselves. For one, working remotely from home in a warm, tropical kind of place is harder than it sounds. We’ve discovered that being surrounded by gorgeous beaches and an inviting pool just a few feet from our patio isn’t conducive to working full time. Secondly, getting Cole to sit down and do schoolwork, for the same reason, isn’t any easier.
One thing we also never considered was not having a dedicated work desk on this trip. That means a constant juggle of laptops, electronics and papers. Going from counter to kitchen table to bedroom night stand to living room table and back again gets old after a while and neither of us are looking forward to working when we’re constantly on the move. Our bed is also the only place that’s comfortable enough to get any work done when the kids are around. What I wouldn’t give for a bed tray table!
Besides that, it’s actually been kind of nice staying still this past month. We purposely rented a condo outside of the tourist zone to help give us better focus on getting some work done and getting Cole used to a somewhat regular school schedule. School’s going decently except for the week he was sick. Seems you can’t escape the flu regardless of what latitude you find yourself in. Besides for the one day of projectile vomiting and, well, lower orifice explosions I suppose it could have been worse, but don’t say that to Micki, I think she’s still having nightmares about it. 😉
Micki’s note: Thanks for the reminder, Charles, it’ll take an hour of YouTube kitten videos to suppress that image again. 😉
We rented a vehicle twice the last few weeks and got the chance to explore some of the areas around Playa del Carmen. We enjoy taking collectivos and the occasional taxi, however they always seem to require a little more time and forward planning. With a car, we were able to throw a few things in the trunk and see where the road took us. As luck would have it we saw rain for the first time a day after we got the car and didn’t get everywhere we hoped to go, but we did check out some cool places that we’ll be posting about in the coming weeks. The weather has been great since then so we had plenty of good days as well.
We’ve also gotten the chance to meet up with three different traveling families in the past two months and the kids loved hanging out with kids they could easily play and talk to. We thoroughly enjoyed being able to swap stories with others in similar situations to ourselves. We love meeting locals and getting to know them, but getting over the language barrier sometimes limits our topics of discussion. Hanging out with these other families just seemed so ridiculously easy and carefree that we’ll definitely be doing it more going forward.
In terms of future travels, we’re only a few days from our flight to Spain. Micki and I are starting to put all our focus on that. With the weather cooler there than what we’re now used to it will be a wake up call once we set foot on the ground.
We don’t have a lot planned so far, however I’m expecting we’ll spend a few days to a week checking out Madrid before heading south to warmer weather or maybe even west to Portugal. It should be a fun time regardless of where we end up and we’re looking forward to traveling Europe with our little ones.
So that’s all for now people! I hope you’re all doing well in your area of the world and that the weather hasn’t been keeping you down.
Unti next time, The Barefoot Nomads