Every place and every person has their secrets, right? Well, there are certain aspects of life here both for those of us who live here as well as for the tourists that people would rather not talk about because they’re not terribly flattering. In our efforts to be transparent and professional, and let our clients know the inside scoop before making any decisions, we’re writing this post about what’s really happening here in this part of Mexico. Despite these realities, we don’t think any of them will seriously affect you or is so bad to avoid being/coming here—it’s just good to know.
In our efforts to be transparent and professional, and let our clients know the inside scoop before making any decisions, we’re writing this post about what’s really happening here.
No sunsets in the wedding photos. You’ll never see it in the travel brochures or the destination wedding pages, but there’s one huge factor about Cancun and the Riviera Maya that you’ll need to know. The sun sets to the west! (and the water is to the east!) So you can have photos with the sun setting behind you or with the water behind you, but not both. If you want both in the same photo, check out the islands off the coast like Isla Mujeres, Holbox, or Cozumel.
“Protection” and “mordidas“ (little bites). Corruption is alive and well here, just like everywhere else. Mexico is a wonderful country, but the huge disparity in wealth here makes corruption and impunity easy and very hard to root out. If a policeman is struggling to feed his family on the poor salary he receives from the government, he is that much more susceptible to a bribe from a narco to look the other way instead of reporting a crime or enforcing a law. Without that strong enforcement, then other things become more possible, and harder to do anything about. Thus, business owners of high-profile and relatively profitable businesses like nightclubs or restaurants are almost always subject to paying for “protection” both from the local police AND many times from representatives from the cartel in force in the area, just as another cost of doing business. It is also relatively common practice for highway patrolmen to stop motorists especially driving rental cars for minor infractions and then threaten them with enormous fines for those infractions from their “official” list. Impounding the car and threatening to confiscate the driver’s passport are common tactics, but if you just pay “this much” of the fine right here in person–the mordida, we can just forget about the other more drastic consequences and you can go on your merry way.
Violence only exists in Spanish. The daily newspapers do report the serious and not-so-serious crimes that occur here in Quintana Roo, and people manage to still kill each other here just like in other countries even though guns are very rare here. Traffic accidents can be horrific and drunk tourists do manage to fall off upper-floor balconies from time to time, or drown in scuba accidents. Very rarely do those stories get translated from Spanish into English, so if you don’t speak Spanish, you might never know that anything bad ever happened here! It works like magic!
Environmental problems. The main beach in Playa del Carmen has eroded away in many places and now is very narrow. While it’s a seasonal occurrence, there are now times of the year when it’s impossible to walk from one end of the town to the other on the beach without getting your feet wet multiple times. Several inadvisable piers have been built that interrupt the natural flow of sand along the beach, choking off the natural replenishment process. As well, the water right in front of the main section of the city once was completely crystalline just like it is pretty much everywhere else in Quintana Roo, but now is cloudy. Government officials say that it still meets health requirements, but I have too many friends here who remember how it used to be and now will not set foot in the water for whatever may now be lurking in it. Landfill problems, leaky sewer pipes, explosive urban growth with inadequate enforcement of zoning laws, not enough municipal money to build adequate infrastructure, all contribute to dirty water seeping into the water table and eventually flowing out to sea.
Prices are much higher on Fifth Avenue in Playa and in Cancun’s Hotel Zone or on Tulum beach than in town. Well, obviously! There is one tip that I give to any visitor to Playa del Carmen. Catching a taxi on Fifth Avenue will always cost you 3-4 times what it would if you would just walk one block away from the water to Tenth Avenue and catch that same taxi. It’s legal locally for them to charge you more for the convenience of getting picked up right there. Drives me CRAZY! Another example of price gouging the tourists is in pharmacies. Here it is a little less obvious: if you as an American buy a name-brand drug, let’s say Viagra, let’s say for instance that you would pay $400 pesos or approximately $25 for a quantity of pills at one of the many pharmacies on Fifth Avenue. There they speak English to you and are only happy to take your money, and you think it’s a relatively good deal because the drugs are so much more expensive at home. However, three blocks away I could walk into any Mexican pharmacy and order the same exact drug and pay around $100 pesos. The trick is that a) I speak Spanish and b) I know the generic or chemical name for the drug in Spanish to know what to ask for.
This same process takes place in the Hotel Zone in Cancun, the beach in Tulum, and the touristy areas of Cozumel in a process of self-segregation that mystifies and amazes me, but that I realize takes place in touristy areas all over the world. In our own ignorance of how things are in other places, and of the relative strength of local currencies, we never know how much others are paying for exactly the same things.
The point in writing this article isn’t to scare you off from coming here or planning your destination wedding here—it is simply to reinforce the point that you and everyone else should use a local expert to plan your event and help you navigate the real-world opportunities and challenges that exist here. Yes, it is Paradise and a dream-come-true for most people who visit here. But yes, it is a foreign country and they do things differently here. It may be different, but it’s not so scary that you have to hole yourselves up in a fancy (and “secure”) all-inclusive resort the whole time you’re here—you just need to ally yourselves with people here in-the-know! Us! We can let you know the best beaches to go to, we can arrange transport for you so you never have to drive unless you want to, and we can get you and yours to the best shopping deals around here, including the pharmacies! We will HOOK YOU UP!