This morning, I watched the fascist police ride their motorcycles up and down the main street of Playa del Carmen, stopping every so often to rough up the citizenry. A little skinny guy with a badge and M-16 can throw a lot of weight around, and never get sand kicked in his face.

A few days ago, one of my travel mates saw two military police walking the beach, at about 6am, complete with armored vests and fully automatic weapons. In addition, in Cancun, at the local, Americanized mall, we came across two MPs walking the mall in camouflage gear, carrying fully automatic weapons. The show of force in Mexico is alive and well. So I stopped to ask them if I could take a photo. They proudly posed, in a very macho stance, holding up their weaponry, not quite zeroing in on the significance of the moment to an anti-State libertarian such as myself. I'll post the photo when I get home.

The one thing I love here is the abundance of Internet cafes (with high speed modem), and mostly, the large number of farmacias everywhere. Even small grocery stores have small pharmacy sections, selling everything from viagra to amoxycillin to flexoril, at a very cheap price. Like small-town America had neighborhood bars and churches on every corner, Mexico has farmacias.

And, oh yeah, Kahlua is $8.50 a bottle here, whereas it's $20 a bottle at home. My carry-on will accomodate a bottle or two.