Shock and Awe
Tacos al Pastor in Playa del Carmen, MX Nothing is more awkward, frightening, and fun at the same time like your first few days in a different country. People usually don't like to admit this, but it happens to everyone. Sometimes you don't even have to leave your home country to feel it. Even in the extremely touristy Playa Del Carmen, it happened to me. In spite of all the time I've spent living in Latin America, that uncomfortable sense of foreignness still tugs at me whenever I clear customs. It's a familiar sense of awkwardness that I've come to embrace while traveling. Mexico in particular likes to slap you right in the face. It's walking out of the bus station onto the jam packed pedestrian Quinta Avenida in Playa to be greeted by a welcome party comprised of tour operators, restaurant greeters, oblivious tourists, "massage" ladies, and drug dealers. It's loud. Muffler-less cars with tinted windshields blasting " Mi Gente &