This is part two in a series of posts about my recent trip to Puerto Morelos, Mexico. See part 1.
View from the bedroom!
As soon as we walked into the apartment that we were staying in, I immediately knew how amazing it was. We were right on the ocean. Like literally. On. The. Ocean. From the bedroom window, I could see the ocean. In fact, I could probably throw a rock into the ocean from the window. Okay maybe not, but I could hit the beach.
view from the roof.
Everyone I talked to before going on this trip would ask what I was going to do when I went to Mexico. I think they all expected me to say cliff diving or something. Going into the trip, Aaron and I agreed that since it was a vacation, we didn’t want to be following a strict schedule. We didn’t want to be worrying about getting to the next activity, but at the same time would be open to trying new things/going places. Our main focus was relaxation and enjoyment.
This is kind of how all the restaurants look in Puerto Morelos. A small “inside” area and then they put tables and chairs out on the sidewalk and sometimes even in the street. We never ended up at at the restaurant in this photo but we did grab a drink at the bar that’s on top with the string lights.
When we arrived, I realized what I wanted to do was live the lifestyle of Puerto Morelos. And by that I mean, lounge around, swim in the ocean, explore the area, and drink beers with limes in them. Seriously, limes are my new favorite thing. I’ve never been much of a lime person, never felt strongly one way or the other. But now, I crave them. ¡Una mas por favor!
On one of our walks we found a shop a little ways out from the center of town. The man who runs it offered me a shot of tequila at 10 in the morning. I didn’t partake but I did buy some jewelry and a nice, hand-made Mexican blanket that I had been wanting.
One of the things I’m going to miss the most is the food. I definitely could have sought out more authentic Mexican food, and could have been a bit more adventurous with the food I ate but what we did have was pretty delicious overall. We ate a lot of guacamole and pico de gallo. Guacamole is a new food for me because avocados by themselves taste like nothing to me. But, when mashed up with tomatoes, onions, lime and cilantro, it tastes pretty good! We also cooked chorizo for the first time. That involved Googling on my part. “How do you know when chorizo is cooked thoroughly?” Needless to say, we both survived and no one got food poisoning. Also, as you’d expect, there is fresh fruit everywhere. I ate one of the best pineapples I’ve ever had, and I tried a fresh mango for the first time. Plus you can get any kind of fruit juice you’d ever want there. We made our own drink by mixing coconut, mango and pineapple juices together.
We were lucky enough to be staying in a place with a full kitchen so we took a cab ride to this store which was just like a Walmart. Side note: there is a real Walmart in Cancun. However, we never went into Cancun so we didn’t get a chance to check it out. I enjoyed looking at all of the labels on everything in Spanish. And it was like a game to see which labels I could understand, and which ones I couldn’t. It turns out one of the ones I couldn’t figure out was what we thought was some sort of soft cheese, like maybe farmer’s cheese. Nope, it was cream cheese. That was a weird discovery. We were able to find a use for it when we made a sort of taco dip thing with our leftover chorizo! Yum.
One of the many unique homes we saw. This is a fence in front of someone’s home that they painted with very bright colors. This one definitely stood out. They also glued little mirror pieces around the painted flower for an interesting mosaic piece.
We also took daily walks around the town, which is pretty small. It’s probably only a few miles at most to walk down all of the streets! I liked looking at all of the different houses and imagining how the people who live in them go about their daily lives. There’s definitely a big contrast between the hotel/tourism places and the houses owned by locals, which weren’t always the nicest. Some were, some weren’t. I did like how each house was very unique. There weren’t any blocks of homes that look so identical you don’t even know which one is yours.
This house was so different than anything I’ve ever seen! It had a tree-house-like feel to it and was organic looking. Also it’s for sale! Can I buy it please?
I really love the different architectural styles there. Most, if not all, of the buildings there are made out of cement. It’s weird because they don’t really have glass windows. Most places just have a hole in the cement as the window. A lot of the houses use patterns in the cement to act as a fence so you can’t just walk into someone’s house but the owner’s can still have the breeze coming in. It’s such a strange sensation to get used to. Even though I know that there’s no way anyone could fit through those tiny holes in the wall, it still makes you feel so exposed. After spending some time in a building like that, you realize that it’s not so bad. And actually is rather nice. You get this feeling of almost being “in nature” instead of being in a closed off box with climate control.
Here is an example of the patterns used in the walls to create air flow.
I can definitely see myself living the Puerto Morelos lifestyle. It’s so laid back and easy going. I can’t wait to go back.
One of the places we stopped for coffee. I could get used to this.
Be sure to watch for the segment in this story about my time in Mexico.
Thanks for reading!
Amber
