Damn, this place is certainly hot enough for us anyway! We've been absolutely knocked for six with the sticky heat since we arrived last Wednesday.

Following all advice, we took the first bus we could out of Cancun and headed to Playa del Carmen. Like Cancun, this is also a bit of a tourist town, except that it has managed to retain a small bit of authenticity and has not yet started to charge extortionate amounts for everything.

Arriving here, just fresh from the States, there was a significant culture shock and we were immediately bombarded with taxi drivers, hagglers and many shop keepers all vying for our dollar. To add to this mayham, the main pedestrian street in the town is a dirt track and added to our "rough and ready" impression of things. We later found out that the dirt track is actually only temporary since they are paving the whole section of road with some nice brick while it is low season. It's funny how first impressions are based on so little... and it turned out later that this town has just about anything you could want! We did learn quickly enough though that there is a huge difference between the tourist zone and the local areas and found that the price of things can almost half if you're willing to go a few blocks down the road.

When we arrived in Playa on Wednsday we hadn't thought to arrange any place to stay, so this was our first pressing issue to organize. The few places that we tried out of our "Footprints Handbook to Central America and Mexico" guidebook were all closed (maybe because of the time of day), so we ended up taking a more local place, called "Posada Concita Maria". Nate did a good job of talking the price down and we ended up getting a reasonable but basic room for about $15 USD a night. Even though this place was perfectly fine, three days later we decided to splash out for a slightly more upmarket lodging (i.e. ~$25 USD a night) called "Casa Tucan" which was recommended by the guidebook. The added bonus of a pool and easy access to laundry services and the bus station has completely paid for itself by this stage.

We've been passing most of the days by going out in short stints (usually to the shops, the beach or a restaurant - and almost inevitably followed by a siesta). After five days in Mexico during the hottest time of the year, we at long last started to acclimatize a bit and we ventured out to see some of the surrounding areas. The Mayan ruins of Tulum are less than an hour away and were without a doubt worth the trip (not only to see the ruins themselves but the iguanas and surrounding wildlife and to also get acquainted with the 'collectivo', which is basically a shared taxi and common mode of transport around plenty of developing countries). Now we're able to handle the heat a wee bit better (admittedly still keeping a cautious distance from the sun), but we're still hiding indoors during those hours around midday as it's unbearable to even contemplate doing anything about this time.

During the time at "Casa Tucan" we also got to meet a really sound pair of Grad school guys, called Cameron and Dave, who are down here from Florida to do research (how cool is that, to land a research trip to the caribbean?). They've been able to give us the inside track on what this town's about and also point us in the direction of some of the best places to grab a bite to eat. It'd be great to catch up with these dudes next month when we'll be in Florida ourselves!

Presently, we're attempting to work out a viable route from here through to Belize and then on to Honduras. We want to reach the Bay Islands in Honduras within the next week hopefully so we can do some diving. Time seems to move at a different pace in this part of the world, so it's difficult to estimate how long it would honestly take. It'll surely be an adventure making the effort to get there so we'll see how we get on over the next few days with that plan.