Even the beaches that don’t have the whitest sand and the bluest seas are still a piece of paradise that makes you smile.

Playa del Carmen was the little bit of heaven that introduced me to life in Mexico.

Though it did take me a few days to realise that.

From the moment I stepped off the plane in Cancun and hit that invisible wall of heat that every tourist does, I couldn’t stop grinning. I was actually here in Mexico. I’d done it. I said I was going to do it. And I’d actually gone through with it.

After going through passport control, collecting my bags and passing through one more stage of security, I finally reached that exit sign that would introduce me to my new world.

And that’s when I started to panic.

The moment I began to separate myself from my fellow passengers, as they began to board the coaches to their four-and-five-star hotels, and head towards the bus and taxi terminal, an alarm went off to the locals that fresh meat had arrived and it took them less than 30 seconds to dive in for the kill.

Suddenly I was surrounded by dozens of men – drivers of taxis, private vans, small cars – all trying to offer me the best deal if I were to let them take me to Playa del Carmen.

I was afraid. 

I’d read nightmare stories about taxis in Latin America; How a single female traveller could get robbed and attacked in one ride. I was determined to stick to my guns and get the cheaper option of waiting for the bus.

Luckily it wasn’t long before I was joined by an Israeli traveller who’d just arrived from Cuba. He was also waiting for the bus into Playa del Carmen so we sat and talked for half an hour in the blistering hot sun. He laughed at how pale I was and how I attempted to fan myself with my sweat-laden hands.

Eventually we were told that the bus wouldn’t be coming because there simply wasn’t enough passengers (I have since learned that this is bullshit) and were forced to take a 45-minute taxi for a very expensive price.

Surrounded by foliage that had been hacked back to make way for the highway years ago, I listened to the soft music coming from the car stereo and tried to comprehend what I was really doing. I regretted not taking Spanish lessons and clasped my Spanish dictionary close to me as the taxi driver let me out outside my hostel.

It was only 3.30pm but I was already exhausted. I greeted the only other person in my dorm (a guy I was to become good friends with over the next two months), sent my parents a quick email to let them know I was alive, and promptly fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke up, showered, got dressed and went for a stroll towards the beach. It was only 7am and I got my first taste of being greeted on the street by men wiggling their eyebrows and crooning, ‘Hola, chica!’

I was still a little nervous about being in such a foreign land but all of that changed when I finally reached the beach and was greeted with this:

It hit me that this was the place I’d been dreaming of starting my adventures off in for the last nine months. And here I was.

I no longer had any responsibilities and was nothing but a wanderer, running wild and free, wherever I wanted to go. I was about to experience things a lot of people could only dream of.

My first ever plane ride had brought me to my first stop in a phenomenal journey I was calling life.

Post-First dip in the ocean - Ahh, this is the life!

It took me another few days to finally work up the courage to actually do anything, though. I was scared of walking into small shops to buy a bottle of water just in case anyone actually spoke to me. My very basic Spanish was something I was ashamed of and terrified to have exposed.

Luckily, most Mexicans living on the Caribbean coast can speak English. Not that they have a choice: I mean, their livelihoods rely on the tourists. But I soon discovered how friendly the locals were. If you attempted to speak Spanish to them – even if it was to say, ‘Perdón. Mi Español es muy mal’ (Sorry. My Spanish is very bad), they’d be happy to help you in any way.

While a lot of people turn their noses up at places like Playa del Carmen for being ‘too Western’ and ‘not the real Mexico’, they have to realise that those excuses are bull and that this is the real Mexico. Yes, it’s filled to the brim with Starbucks, McDonalds and Burger Kings but that’s, unfortunately, the modern world now.

Quinto Avenida

The people living here work 18-hour days for very little wage and without the tourists they’d have nothing to bring back home. There’s still a huge sense of history from the people who come from indigenous cultures here and, while a lot of it is exaggerated for the tourists, they’re still representing a different way of life that they’re proud of.

Whether it’s watching a fire show along the beach at midnight or tasting the local Mayan hot chocolate (Oh baby, I would crawl back to Playa for one of those bad boys), the Mexican people in Quintana Roo still have a very strong sense of their backgrounds and identity. So what if they learn English and put themselves out there to cater to the tourists? Compared to some of the things I’ve seen in this country, it’s a decent living. They’re not pretending to be anything but themselves.

On the other hand, we do have to consider how the tourist industry is affecting the environment. Not to mention some of the horrific things I saw along Quinto Avenida – like drugged tiger and lion cubs being forced to pose for pictures with tourists. The first time I saw that, it looked like the tiger had come out of his drug-fueled haze and was doing all it could to try and escape from its captors while making an awful wailing sound (Probably screaming, ‘Why the FFFFFUDGE am I in Mexico?!’)

I wish I’d taken more photos of Playa del Carmen during the five weeks I was there but, unfortunately I had my camera stolen on the second day (more on that later). For now I just have my memories of a place that was golden and filled with happy, smiling faces; A place that was relaxed and laid-back during the day and a hectic party town by night; A place I made some lifelong friends and learned so much about myself.

Just another day ...

I miss my life there because it really was a home away from home. You start the day by heading to the beach for a quick swim as the sun comes up. Then head to one of the local cafés for some traditional Mexican chilaquiles for breakfast. School fills most of the day … but then as you walk home as the sun sets, you begin to hear the sounds of exotic creatures you’ve only read about in books fill the air and are wished a good evening by your warmhearted neighbours. Even the church bells across the road that go off every fifteen minutes start to become quite endearing. Heading out of the tourist hotspots and into the neighbourhoods where the locals live, you grab some good homemade, hearty meals from a small restaurant in the evening before heading out on the town for a night of tequila and daiquiris.