Barbacoa (Head Meat) Tacos

Thursday, May 26, 2011--Tulum to Playa del Carmen, Mexico

We were up early today to go to the Tulum Ruins, the Mayan settlement beside the Caribbean Sea.  Before going to bed last night, we made arrangements to take the bicycles from our hotel.  We rode the 6 km out there arriving by opening time at 8:00.  We had the ruins mostly to ourselves for almost an hour.  Then by 9:00, it was one tour group after another entering.  The ruins themselves are not very impressive.  They are small, rather crude buildings.  But the setting is fantastic with the turquoise sea just behind them.

Back at our hotel by 9:30, we showered, checked out, and made it to the bus station in time to catch the 10:08 bus to Playa del Carmen an hour away.  I was in Playa del Carmen once before about 1975 or '76.  At that time, there was one palapa-style restaurant on the beach near the ferry to Cozumel.  Whatever there was of a town could not be seen from the beach.  I remember that the bus let me off there at the beach and I waited for the ferry.  Today, it is a major tourist resort with more hotels than Cancun (but probably no as many mega hotels as Cancun).

We are staying at the Aventura Mexicana Hotel.  As usual, our room was not ready when we arrived.  We left our luggage and went in search of a place to eat.  We took the easy way out when we saw a Mega Supermarket.  We got a couple of dishes from the deli (spaghetti with cream, ham, and pineapple and a spicy chicken dish with peppers and carrots in a broth.  We got a diet cola and sat at a table inside the store to eat.

The room was ready when we returned.  It is nice with a balcony, flat panel TV, refrigerator, a/c, etc.  The hotel is very nice overall.  Since it was after 14:00, we stayed inside and watched a film during the heat of the day.

When we eventually went out at 16:30, it was still 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees F).  We explored Avenida 5 which is a long pedestrian street which serves as the spine of the tourist district.  It's long enough that it has 3 Starbucks, 4 Haagen Daz ice cream stores, and gobs of restaurants and bars.  A couple of times, we went out to the beach to see the white sands and the turquoise water.  It's a gorgeous setting.

As the evening came, we saw a crowd at a small mobile cart.  They were selling tacos made from barbacoa--the cooked meat from the head of the calf.  In fact, as we walked up, the man was holding a head picking the meat off it.  His fingers were going into and out of the eye holes, along the cheeks, etc.  Two others were chopping up the meat for making the tacos.  We asked the price of a man standing there.  He seemed excited that we were interested.  At only 10 pesos each, we ordered two tacos each.  There was a nice condiment bar with pico de gallo, green salsa, red salsa, etc.  We added our toppings and sat on the sidewalk to eat them.  They were great and just what we needed for our appetites.

Returning to Avenida 5, we walked part of the way down the street watching people.  Then we sat on a bench and continued to watch people, listen to mariachis, etc.  It was fun just to see the various types of people, see how they were dressed, listen for the different languages, etc.  Eventually, we returned to our hotel around 22:00.