Today we decided to splurge a little and have breakfast at a local restaurant called La Cueva del Chango. The reason for this was two-fold. First, in all of my trip research I have read over and over again that La Cueva del Chango is a MUST-VISIT place for breakfast. Even our cooking teachers said so. AND the restaurant is a block from our hotel. Secondly, we were a little tired of the breakfast choices at our hotel, so we thought it would be fun to try someplace different for a change of pace. 
La Cueva del Chango is an outdoor restaurant that has a jungle vibe to it. Lots and lots of tropical plants as well as ponds and trees. Everything is made fresh to order. Our cooking teachers recommended we try a popular dish called chilaquiles which they described as eggs over tortillas with delicious sauce. Sounded good to us so that's what we ordered.
The chilaquiles that I ordered came with a chipotle (red) sauce, and Mr. Sassy's came with a green chili sauce. They also served some additional sauces on the side. We also ordered some empenadas (which are like Mexican "hot pockets"). I figured they would be really good there, since everything is homemade on the spot. We ordered 3 mushroom and 3 chaya (a vegetable related to spinach), but we were given mushroom and cheese. No problema (cheese is always a welcome mistake in my book). The empandas were good but not the best we have ever had. (The best we have ever had were at Del Sur in Cozumel a couple years ago). The chilaquiles were very good - and I can see why people recommend this place. We also got fresh squeezed juice. I got pineapple/melon and Mr. Sass got Kiwi/Lemon.
We stayed around the hotel day all day. It turned out to be a magnificent beach day. We spent a lot of time on the beach - early in the day and then late in the day when the sun was lower (my favorite time to swim when I don't burn so much). It was really breezy and sunny, the ocean was warm and the waves were big, but not rough (no undertow). The waves were my favorite kind - the big, rolling kind that are fun to ride, but don't crash on your head or knock you down. I had a wacky noodle and had fun sailing over the waves with that. The ocean temperature had to be up around 85 - 90 degrees. Almost like bath water. 
We could not keep our eyes open on the beach! Both of us fell asleep repeatedly. The soft breeze blowing over us was just intoxicating. 
For lunch today, Mr. Sassy got something different - vegetarian flautas. They were essentially soft tortillas that were rolled around sauteed veggies and then deep fried. They were served with a red sauce and guacamole. I also wanted something different and was feeling a little tired of Mexican food. What I really wanted was a plain grilled cheese sandwich and fries, so I ordered the closest thing...cheese quesadillas with a side of curly fries. Nice plain American-ish food. Both dishes were good.
We saw Mr. Iguana at lunch AND his lovely wife, who was a bit smaller than him. They were walking all around the pool area. We even saw Mrs. Iguana walking around the hot tub.
We also spent a lot of time at the pools today which were as beautiful as ever - warm and inviting. There were, however, many more people at the bar pool today - a lot of Europeans who appeared to be almost as obnoxious as American tourists tend to be - talking really loudly, letting their kids scream and yell, and worst of all, smoking like fiends. That is one thing we have noticed about Europeans - they are big smokers. I don't see as many Americans smoking these days.Speaking of Europeans, the cool thing about Playa del Carmen is that it is a very international tourist destination. You get to interact with people from all over the world and we Americans are the minority, which feels pretty cool. We met (or saw) people from everywhere - Italy, Brazil, Chile, Russia, France, and other countries. Most people speak some English, so we were able to converse with the other tourists.
At happy hour, we got two Miami Vice cocktails (which is half pina colada and half strawberry daquiri). Mr. Sassy said they were weak (not for me, the lightweight).
We saw Miguel (a.k.a. Gato Boy) at the pool. He was lying around under the guest's chairs and generally upsetting all the birds in the area who were swooping down trying to dive bomb him.
After happy hour, we went back to the beautiful beach and stayed there pretty late, until about 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. We just didn't want to leave! Eventually our stomach clocks started telling us it was time for dinner, so we went back to our room to clean up for dinner. I thought the towel art that greeted us today was especially cute!
Speaking of CUTE - to our delight, the ducky family has remained in and around the decorative pool outside our hotel room since they arrived and it is such a treat to see them and the cute things they do. Today, we got an especially adorable video of the mom duck teaching her babies how to jump off the wall. We saw her do this a couple times before I filmed it. If you watch closely, you can see how she is waiting for them to do as she showed them. Have you ever seen anything so cute?
Because it was getting toward the end of our vacation, I started thinking ahead about traveling home. So I had a goal tonight to walk down to the bus station to purchase our bus tickets for departure day (the bus from Playa to the Cancun airport). I wanted to buy them early so that we could make sure there was a bus that ran early enough on departure day and if not, we would know to make taxi arrangements through the hotel. So after we showered up, we walked all the way down to the bus station (which was about a 20 minute walk) and as luck would have it, we were able to purchase bus ticket for a time that perfectly suited our schedule on departure day.
After that, the goal was to walk to a restaurant on the must-visit list, called Util Pasta Factory. I had read great things about this place - that they make all of their pasta homemade and it's delicious and their dinners are also reasonable. As I mentioned above, by this point I was starting to tire of Mexican food, so a nice pasta meal was welcome.
Util was a long walk from the bus station and it was very hot and humid. Mr. Sassy was sweating like a pig and was getting really cranky because it was taking us forever to find the place. When we finally found Util Pasta Factory, it didn't look very inviting. It was a little place off the main drag away from the nice sea breeze, and it was really hot there. The only seating area was in a muggy garden and Mr. Sass was turned off by the fact that there was discarded toilet filled with junk sitting outside the property right near the seating area! I didn't see this (otherwise I would have taken a picture of course) but we had a good laugh about it later.
Needless to say, Util Pasta was out.
At this point we were both ravenous, hot, sweaty, worn out from walking and cranky - not a good combination. I had to think quick on my feet about where we could eat that was NOT Mexican food, was close by and on the way TOWARD our hotel, not in the opposite direction. After looking over my restaurant map, we decided to go back to Piola, the pizza place. Yes, the dinner would be something of a repeat, but we love the place, it was on the way to our hotel, AND it was Italian food.
At Piola, we ordered was called the Parma. It was topped with roasted eggplant, mozzarella and parmesan cheese. To to say it was delicious would be an understatement. Will you just look at this thing?
Mr. Sassy got a couple mojitos, I got a Coke and I also got dessert...chocolate mousse, which came in an edible ice cream cone-type shell. It was creamy and delicious.
The service at Piola is the low point. We would describe the service as friendly, but minimalist - i.e. if you need something, you have to flag them down because they won't check on you proactively. The place is manned by attractive young hipsters who are more interested in flirting with each other than attending to their customers. No problema. As you can see from this photo, I was not very upset.
After dinner, we decided to go back and get to bed fairly early because we had a morning excursion planned for the next day and had to be up somewhat early. All in all a great day, especially because it was the greatest beach day so far! _____________________________________
What We Spent Today (in USD)
Tip Maid: $3
Breakfast @ La Cueva del Chango: $28
OXXO Store - Bottled Water: $2
Bar @ Mahekal: $7
Tip Lunch: $2
Bus Tickets: $18
Dinner @ Piola: $27
TOTAL: $87
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