Playa Del Carmen, the city that never sleeps

       First of all, you must remember why we come to Playa Del Carmen:

                              white sand, warm water, no water shoes required!

We did our best to pick a nice quiet condo we could spend a month in.  We viewed many condos while we were here last year, and Palmar Del Sol was our best choice.  Ok, we now realize we did not cover all bases, we let them show us a similar condo to the one we rented, and although it looks the same, the sound proofing is so much different.  

Palmar Del Sol has interior condos that do not face 5th Ave that are very quiet, but ours is not one of those.  We do like it during the day, and early evening, we can sit out here on the balcony and watch and listen to the people go by.  We really like having free access to the Las Palapas beach, lounge chairs and a Palapa whenever we choose, no obligation to buy anything from the bar.  Great swimming beach, nice pool area, clean condo, daily maid service, wifi, 24 hr security, right on 5th Ave so we are surrounded by restaurants, stores, we can walk everywhere.

But what if you can't sleep at night?  

We have done our best to sound proof our bedroom, but even with spare mattresses up against the windows, we can hear the younger crowd on their way home from the bars, at 4 or 5 AM.  We can hear all the music from the stores and restaurants below us.  Which is fine during the day, (but I swear they turn it up at night), the Plaza La Fiesta Mexican Outlet store across from our balcony plays Mexican music until 11PM, the restaurant below us, Chez Celine, is busy all day from 7 AM til 11PM with whatever music they choose to play, and then there are all the bars & restaurants within a 2 block radius that you don't really notice until they turn up the tunes, and the sound carries up to our 3rd floor windows. We can hear music and people talking, kids crying, some yelling on and off til 2 or 3 AM. (maybe 4-5AM after the bars close)

Sometimes we sleep through it all to be woken by the garbage trucks at 5AM or so. Then, at aprox 7:45AM a VW beetle drives by blasting loud rock and roll to wake all those who are sleeping, just some kid on the way to work who doesn't want anyone else to sleep in. 

One sunday morning we were treated to the loud music of AC/DC (which is one of my fav's to dance to at night), it was 7:45AM, I was just getting up, (the VW beetle guy doesn't work on Sunday's) I didn't mind this wake up music, but I bet all those you just got home at 4AM were thinking otherwise.  The music was for a 5km fun run called Coloreate, where they throw coloured powder on the runners as they go by 4 stations.

Honestly, it did not look like they were having that much fun,  they were wiping their eyes and coughing a lot, there were some colorful looking dogs that didn't seem to mind though

Colour'ete 5 Km Sunday morning 8AM

We delayed our morning walk until all the racers had gone by, the color in the streets lasted for a couple days, and for even longer on our balcony, even though we scrubbed it several times.

We now realize we must find a condo out of the city in the future, Playa Del Carmen is a fun city for the weekly tourist.  The new development is geared toward a traveller with money to spend, whereas, we are looking for good value for our money to make it last for several months of travel, not just a week or two.  Then there is the fact that we like to sleep at night.

We have talked about not coming back here again next year, maybe we will try Florida........and then we go for a swim.....

............and we are not sure we want to leave at all.