Laundry day

OK, the one big complaint I have about the resort is the laundry facilities. There are none. Instead, they have a laundry service where they'll wash a shirt for you for five bucks. Five bucks! Not five pesos -- which is still highway robbery -- but five bucks! It's a wonder people don't smell worse there.

We could've just washed our clothes in the sink, but we're not supposed to hang stuff to dry on the patio banister and there's just a thin laundry line for bathing suits in the shower. Anyway, it would take like a week for something to dry inside with all the humidity.

One of the friendly staff at the resort agreed it was outrageous and recommended we go down to Avenida 30 in Playa del Carmen, which is where the locals do their shopping and business. It's well out of the touristy section, and we were told we could find lavenderias (laundromats) there. So we packed all the dirty clothes into a couple of bags and took a cab downtown.

We did find a lavenderia where it cost something like 30 pesos for them to wash and dry a kilogram of laundry for you. The only problem was the laundry wouldn't be done until Friday when we were leaving for the next resort. The guy said we could wash and dry the laundry ourselves but all the machines were tied up and we should come back in an hour. His English was perfect.

So we decided to walk down to Avenida 10 where our grumpy cab driver had actually driven right by a lavenderia without stopping. Avenida 10 is right by the touristy area -- where I left the family as I continued on with two big bags of dirty clothes -- so the laundry here cost twice as much as at the place on Avenida 30. Still a great deal, though. The woman here didn't speak much English so we had a bit of trouble understanding each other. She just talked louder to me. Still in a friendly way, though. I eventually figured out that I could come back the next day at 2:00 in the afternoon to pick up my laundry. Great!