Mexico Trip

Our first night in Mexico--after two plane delays--we went out to eat at our hotel, jumped in the pool for a minute, and then went to bed, but we got to try two things on the top 10 Yucatan foods list. This one is mole, a spicy chocolate sauce over chicken. Neither of us cared for it much. The one below is sopa de lima (lime soup) and I loved it! But it was soup and it was pretty hot outside, too, so I can see how some people (Michael) might not have thought it was as appetizing.

The next day we went to Playa del Carmen, a smaller town south of Cancun. (Our hotel was in the middle of those two places.) Here's the beach at Playa--"so pretty."

From Playa, we took a ferry to Cozumel and went snorkeling. This is just after we got off the ferry in Cozumel. These are all of the snorkeling places lined up to get you to go.

Cozumel is known for its snorkeling and scuba diving.

Back in Playa.

Back in Playa, we found an awesome restaraunt on the beach called "Fusion." They had live reggae music, mostly Bob Marley covers, and the vibe was sweet. I got a limonada (limeade). They don't do lemonade so much. It's more lime.

At Fusion.

Street Performers on Quinta Avenida. Everybody would do anything for a tip. Still fun, though.

Mariachi!

A palm tree at our hotel. There were TONS. And there was a lot of jungle vegetation, too. There were even crocodiles at our hotel by the golf course. They were all fenced in, but yeah--kind of crazy.

I got my hair braided in Playa. Fun! :)

The Cenote Azul

Jumping in--there were black fishes in it all over and apparently they were blind fishes. The water went down like 100 feet or something like that. It was a blast!

At Chichen Itza, these carvings show different head dresses to represent gathering of different tribes. In the carving, they are all headed towards Quezaquatal (sp?), the white-bearded god. Interesting, huh?

The main building of Chichen Itza--check out the clouds. It POURED on us for about 30 minutes and there was absolutely no where to take any shelter, so we just stood in it while our tour guide gave us the tour. Guess it made it memorable, right? :)

Where all the wealthy people watched the game in the ball court.

The ball court after the rain--see how drenched he is?

The observatory--it was HUGE!

On the way home, two hours, soaked, on a tour bus. Glad I brought my sweatshirt.

So, when we got to the blue cenote on the way to Chichen Itza, one of the tour people took our picture, even though we said we didn't want to, because he said it was for the company. So we did it and then went about our day. On the way home on the bus, they were trying to sell bottles of tequila with that picture literally cut and taped onto the bottle. Ha! Kind of made me laugh. Made me laugh even more when the guy next to us actually bought it. Who knows, maybe it was a good price for tequila, but it seemed kind of ridiculous.

At the beach at our hotel after going snorkeling there. We saw sea urchins and lots of cool fish just off the shore. Snorkeling is the bomb! :)

Playing cards with friends. Thanks, Mel and Andrew! :)

Our room had some interesting wall art.

Back in Playa with a mango concoction, on the way to Tulum. This is our last full day, and we barely found out about the bus system. It's pretty good and if you're trying to be cheap, it's WAY better than a taxi. We're glad we found out before we went to Tulum--it's kind of a long way.

Tulum! This building kind of acted as a lighthouse to help the trade boats know where to come.

Tulum is more of an ancient Mayan city, and Chichen Itza had more of the HUGE buildings and religious significance. We're really glad we got to do both.

The wall around Tulum--they built their rock walls with no mortar in between! (This one has some now in some places.)

The beach at Tulum--absolutely beautiful!

Fat Iguanas were everywhere!

Back at Fusion--we loved it so much we went again!

Does this drink look appealing to you? It is a mint-lime smoothie type of concoction. It wasn't terrible, but I have liked other things more. A little nasty looking, though, don't you think? :)

Look closely, bottom left of the thermostat. These small errors were frequent--kinda made me chuckle. I was making MUCH more significant errors in my Spanish. I would try to speak and I would say all the right words, but my accent was so weird that they would look at me like, "Huh? You're white. Just speak English." Ha. :)

Our last day, on the beach at sunrise.