Travel Tips

Send Photo to a Friend

Papaya Playa - (2005)

Little By Little, Things Change

I was surprised to see a different entrance sign at Papaya Playa. I don’t really know why, I’d been there a few years ago and with the heat and salt air, everything probably needs to be repainted or changed often. Maybe it was because things are so laid back and move at such a slow pace in Tulum that when stuff changes, it takes you aback for a second. It feels like visiting your cottage and being met with a different front door.

Send Photo to a Friend

Papaya Playa - (2005)

Our Cabana #34

This time at Papaya Playa I opted to pay the extra $10 and get a cabana with a concrete floor instead of sand. After my previous stay, I knew how fine the Tulum sand was, how it sticks to everything, how it gets in your bed.
The concrete cabanas are set a little further back under the jungle capopy. About 100 feet behind and above the sand floor ones. This was fanastic.
Laying in bed at night with the crashing of the waves at your feet and rustle of the leaves all around is the quietest loudness ever; it will lull you to sleep in minutes.
I woke up in the middle of the night and was convinced it was raining out.--but found out in the morning it hadn't, it was just the amazing sound of the palms in the wind.

Send Photo to a Friend

Papaya Playa - (2005)

The cabana in Tulum was great--beautifully clean, nice blankets, mosquito net, concerete floor. It's such a strange surreal atmosphere--these torches and swinging lamps in the wind lining sandy pathways through the jungle to a restaurant where a dozen people are lounging around in candleight while they play ambient trance music on big speakers. Salt air is so thick that you can taste it on your lips and feel it in your hair and every object begins to get damp as it get later into the night. A hermit crab walks up onto the patio and the bar cat dashes over to play with it. It's so quiet.

Send Photo to a Friend

Papaya Playa - (2005)

Nothing To Do?

There's no electricty to boom music, nor organized dancing by the pool. You wake up, go outside, have a swim, lay on the beach, read, go for a swim, have a coffee, and it's still not even noon.

The sun, sand, and sea, without any distractions, will open your mind up. You will start thinking clearly, easily, and happily, and like a little kid again. Your pace will slow down. With nothing to do, people start building little things like these here and there on the beach. Some people shed their bathing suits after awhile. I really can't describe it. There is a great deal of heaven in Tulum. I would hate to see massive devlopment destroy any of this.

Send Photo to a Friend

Papaya Playa - Beach and Cabanas at Dawn (2005)

At Dawn

A few weeks after we got back I wondered why I had a series of Tulum photos that seemed to have an orange tint. It didn't make any sense, because the sand at Tulum is very white, I thought it must have been a photo lab developing error. But I figured out the explanation for this later.
They were photos of the beach as the sun came up. That's why this photo is orange.