Mexico Day 6 evening.

Rather than stay at the resort for dinner, we decided to take a taxi into Playa del Carmen for dinner at a restaurant that our concierge had recommended. We didn't have one of the 'theme' restaurant dinners for tonight, so it just would have been the buffet, which was a pretty decent buffet, but nothing amazing, and we wanted to try a good local place.

It's like he bit the snake and all the guts are pouring out of his mouth.

Christmas decorations were tucked into all sorts of nooks & crannies.

Steven & I felt very old compared to the kids.



What a great building!

 We walked down the street about 8 or 10 blocks looking for the restaurant, and we browsed through the shops on our way. Lots of jewellery and cigar places. I guess a lot of Americans like to buy Cubans while they're here, and  Steven must have looked like a cigar smoker, every 2 steps we'd hear: "Meeeester Wheeeskers! Hey...Mr. Whiskers...Cubans? Cubans?". Shane and Scott and Linnea were offered weed quite often, and I was a little sad that I didn't look like the kind of person who might smoke weed anymore. I mean, I don't smoke it, but I might have like to have been offered.....instead I got the polite "Senora" (not even "senorita" anymore) and they tried to sell me silver jewellery.  So just a note to anyone who might be selling weed on the streets of any small Caribbean tourist area...offer it to the middle aged women you see, chances are, you'll make their day. Just sayin'

The restaurant, La Parrilla was on the second floor of a building, our table was overlooking the street, so as we ate we watched the flow of tourists and locals, the weather was warm and the food was fantastic. It was a wonderful meal...one of the best I've ever had, not just in Mexico, but anywhere. And lovely, large, icy-cold drinks as well.

The food was fantastic, as was the service and the presentation. And the bathroom had a sink that I wanted to remove and take home.

After dinner we walked through the streets some more and I found a shop that sold all manner of ceramic sinks. If I would have known, I'd have brought a bigger suitcase. I wanted all of them...they were just gorgeous.

I'd happily have a dozen bathrooms if I could have sinks like this.

We picked up a few souvenirs, no cigars and no weed, just your "regular" tourist items and then as we were waiting for out taxi to return, we, or I should say Steven, spotted a casino, and he does love a casino, so we just stepped inside for a minute, he signed up for their "club", and played a slot machine for 5 or 6 minutes. He won a dollar or two, lost a dollar or two, and he left happy, knowing that he had gambled in a Mexican casino.

And that was the end of day 6.

Mexico day 6?

I do like the arrogant looking iguanas.



An amazing view from the ruins, and just look at the colour of the water.



The Temple of the Descending Gods

The Temple of the Frescos.

Today we did a tour of the ruins at Tulum. A small van picked us up at about 8:30 AM and it was a short drive, just over half an hour. I don't have a whole lot to say about the ruins, I think the photos speak for themselves. It was a beautiful day, not too hot, and the older man who guided us through was extremely knowledgeable, his father is Spanish, but his mother is Mayan, and he's been doing these tours for over thirty (30!) years.

The ruins are perched on a cliff, overlooking the sea, and the view is marvellous. Tulum was the only significant Mayan city overlooking the water, and was an important trading post. The beach is at the bottom of the 40 ft cliff, and traders could land there with their canoes. You can swim at the beach now, there is a long wooden stairway leading down to the water, but it was really crowded with people, and it didn't appeal to any of us. (what is with those Europeans and their tiny Speedo's? I know, I know, I shouldn't make fun of other cultures, but I mean, really? Men that are very overweight and 65 years old just should not be in Speedo's. That's all I'm saying....)

I preferred to wander through the "city" and try to imagine it as it was in the 1400's.

After we finished looking around, we walked back through the walls that still surround the city.

The wall averages 7 meters in thickness and 3-5 meters high, and surrounded the city on three sides, the fourth side being the ocean, so it was easy to defend.  This entrance was narrower, but it would have been guarded at all times.

As we left the city, we walked to the present day village of Tulum. You can take a tram, but it's literally a 4 or 5 minute walk, so we simply walked. It's a great place, basically a very large area filled with shops, souvenir stalls, hand crafts and restaurants. You can get anything from carvings to Mexican wrestling masks to delectable pizza, as well as watch the "voladeros".

The voladores are a group of 5 men dressed in brilliantly coloured traditional costumes who recreate a ceremonial ritual. They climb a 100-150 ft pole and four of them  tie a rope to their ankles (in some cases they just slip their foot through a loop...do not try that at home!) and then launch themselves to the ground,twirling around until they land,  while the fifth man stands on top and dances and plays the flute, with no safety ropes at all.

And that was the end of our day in Tulum. We headed back to the resort, met up with Shane and Linnea (who had opted out of today's excursion to have some massages and relax) and instead of dinner at the resort, we decided to take a taxi and head into Playa del Carmen for the evening. I'll write about that tomorrow.

Mexico Day 5

Shane spotted what he thought was a raccoon in the hallway one night, and when I came out to look at it, I thought it was too, but as we watched it  wander down the hallway and slowly go down the stairs, not in the least concerned about the fact that we were staring at it,  and saunter over the garbage can down below and peek inside  for goodies, we realized it wasn't a raccoon, but rather a coatimundi. I guess they are basically the Mexican version of a raccoon, a bit of a scavenger and also an explanation to the scattered dishes and food in the hallway each morning. I thought that the folks who were leaving their room service plates outside their door were just tossing them or tripping over them or something equally careless. Instead, I guess these little fellows were coming around to help themselves to leftovers. One morning there was a scattering of butterfly wings and parts, and one tiny bloody footprint. I wish I had taken a picture of it...did a butterfly really fight to the death and injure a coatimundi?

Mexico day 4

Today was a lazy day.The kids had all booked massages for themselves, and Steven and I decided to hit up the lazy river, and to go for a swim in the ocean, and to walk to the little store that was just outside the security gates.  The main beach, with all the little huts, was sandy and beautiful, but you could walk a little way to the left and the beach there was rocky and fairly windy. I thought it was quite spectacular. 

    We had a pina colada and lazed in the sun for while and wandered through the beach area which had a small bar/snack hut that had a great selection of nachos, fajitas, salads and fruit, and also nearby was a juice bar that served no alcohol at all, but had a great menu of healthy fruit and veggie smoothies and juices. If you click on this to enlarge it, the hut on the left is where you can rent sea-doo's and snorkel items, and the one on the right is the little snack bar. Right beside the snack bar was a small hut (I hate to keep using the word "hut", but that's what they were, and I can't think of a better description) where it looked like people were doing ceramics. I wandered over for a closer look, and sure enough, they were painting all sorts of clay ornaments; birds, turtles, masks etc, it looked like a Kindergarten class filled with adults, everyone was concentrating so hard with their little paintbrushes and pots of colours. I don't know how (or if) they glazed and fired them, but everyone was very serious about their work and I didn't feel like I should interrupt.
      However, in the same hut was a young fellow who had stacks and stacks of tattoo books and he was doing extremely detailed henna designs. I was really impressed, and I wanted one for my very own, I love tattoos and henna is perfect since it doesn't last. This wasn't the intricate lacy designs that you see being done in India, this was actual tattoo designs. I asked him how much and I've already forgotten what it was in pesos, but the equivalent in US $ was $50...which is ridiculous, you can get a tiny real one for that price.

     However, Steven wanted one too, and he loves to haggle, so the bargaining was on! As it turned out, the fellow was hungry and the staff (or this fellow and the ceramic fellow beside him) were not allowed to eat from the food areas here, so he looked around furtively and said that he would do it for free if we went and got him and his amigo 6 chicken and 6 beef fajitas from the beach hut beside him. So while he did mine, Steven went and got 6, and then while he did Steven's, I went and got 6. As it's free for us, it was no big deal. He tucked them in a little cupboard and sent us happily on our way.
    So if you look closely at Stevens you can see that it looks "crusty", and that's because it is. The apply a lot of henna and it sort of soaks into the skin and when you wash it the next day, all the crusty stuff (ewww...sounds revolting) washes off and you are left with a lovely, albeit temporary, tatt. (the cool folks say "tatt" and not "tattoo") What they neglected to tell us was that you shouldn't sleep on white sheets with fresh henna. Ooops.

We strolled through the ground to the little store as we air-dried our henna tatts and I ended up buying a few souviners there, the same things that were for sale in the markets, but much cheaper. Scott bought a few t-shirts there as well, and Steven got some aqua-sox so that he could stroll about on the rocky beach area, and I picked up a couple of Christmas ornaments, lovely handmade ones. It was a great little shop filled with everything from Cuban cigars to Pringles as well as handcraft/artisan items.

And that pretty much took up Day 4. Supper was at the Mexican restaurant, which was amazing...I mean, it only makes sense to eat the local food, we found the other places to only be "ok". This one...ohhh....the salsa, the guacamole, the rice &bean dishes...I've been trying to replicate it all since I came home, with no success, but half the time it's because of the ambiance of where you are when you eat.

After dinner we walked around a bit more, watched a bit of the Vegas review, had a drink in the lobby lounge and headed off to bed. Tomorrow is Tulum and we had to get up a bit early. ("early" being about 7:30...but I am getting used to sleeping in and being lazy.)

Mexico Still day 3.5

I just can't seem to get in the blogging mode, perhaps I'm just bored of this particular day. We finished it off by landing in the water (bum first remember!) and snorkeling through this cave. Well, I didn't snorkel, I just swam. I get in a panic when I put that tube in my mouth and the face mask on, besides that, I had forgotten to take my glasses off and I just knew I'd drop them and never see them (and never see) for the duration of the trip. And it was only day 3 after all....

So we doddled our way through the cave, dodging stalactites with our heads, and stalagmites with our legs, and small black bats with our wildly waving hands. It was very beautiful, and the water was just so clear, I really enjoyed just slowly paddling my way around. It was very dark and every now and then Daisy would turn on her flashlight to show us little swarms (herds? flocks?) of bats clinging to the roof with their little bat-bodies trembling with what I hoped was either fear or cold, and not anger or blood-lust. They were sort of cute, but also a bit creepy. We eventually emerged at the far end, dried off and then took a small walk to this old Mercedes Benz 4x4 army truck and took a 10 minute Wild Ride through the bush. It was incredibly bumpy and we came close to tipping over, it was the oddest thing, I have no idea what it was supposed to prove, tourist-wise, it's not like Mexico is known for "bush-honking" as we call it, and it nearly shook my spine into total disalignment.

We look like we were having fun, but that's just the Polite Canadian Look, because really, we were not. This last picture makes me dizzy and sea-sick when I look at it, and that's how we all felt when we shakily tottered out of the truck.

We took a small hike through the jungle, and ended up back where we started, more or less, but the good thing was, there were people there waiting for us with ice cold margaritas. I'm not really a drinker, but boy, did that go down good!

Mexico Day 3.5 More Jungle day.

The zip line was OH! SO! FUN! This is something I have always wanted to try, and it lived up to my expectations, plus some. There were actually three, the first one was a bit short, but it let us know how to hang on (hands not in front of your face or the sudden stop will have you giving yourself a bloody nose/black eye and/or a toothless grin.) The braver ones held their hands out into the air, not me. Steven covered his blind eye, which was a useless gesture, but funny none-the-less.

You can see in Scott's picture (the second one) how long the line was, the tree hut where we started from is waaay back there. The hardest part was climbing up the rickety ramp to get to the hut where we were attached to the actual line. You were already in your harness and you had to attach yourself to the handrail on the way up...attach and undo, move a few steps, reattach and undo...this was in case you fell or slipped, you wouldn't fall all the way down, plus you wouldn't take others with you. I am very uncoordinated at this type of thing and I was attaching in the wrong places and using the wrong hand, and just hoping that I wouldn't fall and tumble down to the jungle floor.

When you stepped off the ramp, you went so fast that you actually zoomed upwards at the end, in order to get to the next (and higher) hut.

The second line was higher and further and more exciting, and the third one was shorter and downhill and splashed us down into water, the beginning of an underground cavern that we snorkeled through.

We were told to make sure that we kept our legs straight in front of us as we hit the water, we were to hit "bum first". We were going at a fair clip, and I don't know if any of you waterski, but it's quite a fact that beginner waterskiers often get, ummmm, how can I say this delicately? An enema, if you fall wrong while skiing at a good speed. In the waterski world, you don't want to land "bum first", so I was a bit concerned about this landing, but it all seemed to be ok, well, for me anyhow, I certainly wasn't going to query the others about the state of their bowels. And on that note, I'll let you contemplate a zip line trip of your own.

Mexico Day 3. Jungle Day!

Today was the first day of our Jungle tour. We were picked up by a shuttle van and a guide that I'll call "Daisy" because that was her name, although she probably doesn't spell it with quotation marks. There was only the five of us, plus another family of four and one other young couple. We drove for about a half an hour and turned off the highway to pass through a small village (where we could "see a local village"...I have to say, I guess we did see a local village, but they could have either picked up some of the local garbage, or driven us another way. There were open areas that were apparently just the local dumping grounds for local bags of trash.

We were given a spiel about how the tourism helped the locals, gave them jobs (we were to have a lunch prepared by local women part way through the tour) and there were photographers scattered throughout the jungle who were prone to leaping out and snapping photos at unexpected times and places, as well as little buildings with locally made crafts. And all our money went to these people.

The photographers had very expensive looking cameras, and a "hut" at the end of the tour with about 16 computers where you could get your pictures as they were quickly downloaded. And the craft area, while it was indeed filled with really nice items, they were the same items that we saw at every market and every hotel lobby.  And they were not cheap...the ones in the hotel gift shop were half the price, although I guess the idea is, you can say things like "Yes, I bought this obsidian mask off a "real" Mexican, in a small village in the jungle" and feel good about yourself. I don't mean to sound negative, but it's all a ploy to get tourists to spend money.

Of course now I feel like that was all mean-spirited, and I'm sorry I talked like that, but not sorry enough to remove the post. Because that is indeed the way I saw it. And the fact that they drove us by piles of garbage didn't make me feel like my money was going to help any locals whatsoever, or, more to the point I guess, that they money I spent did indeed go to the locals, but they used it for something other than the care of their village.

But, having said that, the day was really a lot of fun and I did some things that I have always wanted to try.

Our first stop was into a cave, lit with candles, where a Shaman waited to bless us. The cavern was pretty cool, we walked around this little lake, on a narrow path lit with candles (I kept thinking how there would be warning signs and ropes and railings if this were in Canada or the USA...we are both such babied countries, no one ever wants to take responsibility for themselves and we all sue at the drop of a hat, or, at the slip of a foot.)

So the Shaman blessed us and gave us handfuls of some powder which he blew into the air and threw into the fire, and he wished us good luck and safe travels. He was speaking a  dialect that had Mayan roots,  so even a fluent Spanish speaking person couldn't understand, I hate to be cynical (really, I do hate that about me) but I wonder if he was saying things like: "I wish you all would slip into this slimy lake on your way out of my cavern, and hurry up about it because I want to go for lunch and I could use a good laugh before my next break." But maybe not, maybe he was a real Shaman and it was a real blessing. I mean, none of us got hurt at all, and we all did things that were a bit out of our comfort zone...who am I to be so negative about someone elses religious ceremony? Shame on me.

Ok! First stop....rappelling down a cenote. (pronounced "senOtay") It wasn't deep, so they said, only 10 metres. But 10 metres is just over 30 feet, and 30 feet is almost 3 stories high (or, in this case, 3 stories deep). And standing there, harnessed in to this contraption, being held on to by a tiny little girl who didn't weigh 100 pounds, and leaning backwards into this cenote was a bit nerve-wracking. No one wanted to go first. There was a little boy in our group, Ethan, who was 7 or 8 who hollered: "I wanna go first, I wanna go first, can I go first?" When he got up there and looked down, he quickly decided to go "the other first, after this first".

Shane and Linnea ended up going first...Shane zipped down like he'd done it before, which, he later informed me, he had. On bigger cliffs, with no water at the bottom. On days when he skipped school, in our mountains.  I could hear the echo of their "Whooo! It's cold" shouts as they splashed down into the clear, clear water in an underground cave, filled with stalactites and stalagmites.

Great photo! Looking pretty confident!

Then came Steven and I. That initial drop backwards, where you trust that things will hold you, was scary, but after that it was fun! You control how fast you drop, and I was concerned that my arms wouldn't be strong enough to hold my weight, but all went well and I didn't plunge screaming down to the bottom.

Great photo, but not quite as confident!

And then came Scott. I think that he was the most out of his comfort zone of any of us on this particular event because he both hates heights and isn't fond of water.

Scott, looking like he's done this a thousand times.

Once we were all down there, we got to swim around in the cavern for a while. The water was just so clear. I think it must have been 10-20 feet deep and you could see the bottom as if you were looking through a glass of water. Ethan, the "me first!" kid, ended up having to be walked to the exit of the cave by a staff member as he just couldn't muster up the courage to rappell.

The beautiful cave. Not my photo as I didn't have my camera with me, the tour provided photos for us.

After we swam and frolicked a bit, it was time to head off to the Zip Lines, something I have wanted to try for a long, long time. Yeeehaw!

Mexico Day 2.5

Our resort,  the Grand Sirenis, was pretty nice but  I'm always surprised at how different things look in real life, as opposed to what you see in pictures, even if it's 'the same' as the photo, it's always not quite the same. That's the difference between 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional I suppose.

4-way stop in the middle of the grounds...in the 'jungle' with no signs!

The grounds were huge and confusing at first. It always takes a few days to find your way around, to discover short cuts, and come upon little nooks and crannies that quickly become your favorite spot. When standing on our balcony we could see a path to the pool, hardly a stones throw away, yet it took us almost 3 days to figure out how to find it when we left our building. Up until then we had to walk through 2 buildings and down a set of stairs and then follow a winding path to the pool area.

Standing on our deck...I can see the huts around the pool!

The finding of the restaurants was harder , although at least all of them were in the same area. We figured we should figure out how to get there a day or two ahead of our dinner reservations, so we took our map and set off.  It wasn't bad actually, a bit longer of a walk that we had anticipated and when we found them (remember, it's about 30 degrees Celcuis and the humidity turned my hair into a ball of friz within seconds of stepping off the plane) we were exhausted, but thrilled! "Look!" I shrieked, happy albeit somewhat hysterical, "There they are! The Mexican, the French, the Mediterranean, oh...the Italian and Brazilian that we won't be eating at...there they all are, all in a row." I felt like I had discovered a lost Mayan ruin. There they sat...except wait, where's the Cajun? I looked again, read the names out loud again...nope, no Cajun. Check the trusty map, and sure as God made green apples, the Cajun is the only one that isn't near the others.

So, off we headed again, further into the depths of the resort grounds. We crossed a bridge, passed a pool, wandered down a path, came across another pool  (was it another? Isn't that the same swim-up bar? Are there 2 swim-up bars? Are those the same iguanas lurking at every corner? What do they want? Are they waiting for me to fall in a humid heap on the ground and sob with frustration?. Finally, finally, there it is. And what's more...it's beside an ice-cream parlour! Oh, I sent thanks to the Mayan Resort Gods, and we quickly took note of where the Cajun restaurant was (but who really cares at this point? Not I.) and ran into the ice-cream store.

It was small, with maybe 4 or 5 tables inside (ahhhhh...air conditioned) and a few more tables outside. There was perhaps 8 types of ice cream and you could have a small dish, or a cone. The few people in front of us were all having coconut for one scoop, and mango-chocolate chip for the other. Who am I to buck a popular trend? We asked for the same, and it was so tasty that Steven got in line for a second.

As we were sitting there, a group of kids came in, I think they were with the resorts Kids Club. There were about 12 of them, and 4 adults, the kids were all in the  4-8 year old range and apparently they had already had more than enough sugary ice-cream. They were bouncing off the walls, hollering and screaming for more. (now I understand "I scream, you scream, we all scream for I scream. Translation: Ice cream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!)

One little boy pointed at a flavour and screamed: "I want THAT, I want THAT!" and his keeper said: "Nathan, that's cappuccino, it's coffee, you don't like coffee." and he wildly screeched back at her: "I love cappuchino...I don't care what  it is, I love it, I want it!"

I am so glad my children are grown....

We then wandered off to find the Lazy River. I've never been on (or in) one before, I wasn't even sure what it was. It turns out to be a long and winding "river" with a current that moves you along. You hop on a tube at one end, and just relax and "go with the flow", so to speak, until you come out at the other end. We couldn't seem to find it, no surprise there, but a golf cart came by and we hailed it down and asked for a ride to the start of the Lazy River.

These carts cruise the property and you can just hop on/hop off as you please, a marvelous idea. He took us for what seemed to be a long ride (is the Lazy River at a sister resort? We seemed to be going down some  dark and gloomy jungle-type areas.) and he finally stopped and pointed to the end of a path. We were reluctant to go that way, thinking: "How do we get back? What if there are no more carts? Can we curl up with an iguana for the night?" Do the carts cruise the resort during the evening, looking for sobbing lost souls?.

As it turned out, he had taken us on the golf cart route, and by looking at the "You are Here" sign, we discovered we could take a short cut and walk to our building in a manner of minutes. Hooray for shortcuts!

This was a fun, fun thing. As you rounded the corners, iguanas would balefully glare at you for disturbing them. It was about 3 feet deep, so you could get off your tube and refresh yourself by dunking under.

So far today we had booked all our dinners, adventures, spa treatments, we had explored the resort and had managed to find the restaurants, pools, and the towel place. Yes...the towels. A towel story is come come later. Damn towels.

We checked out the schedule for tonight's entertainment, which was Mama Mia (eeek! One of my favourite soundtracks!) There is a large stage area where they perform a different show every night. We went to the ones at our resort in Cuba as well, it's a touristy yet fun thing to do for an hour in the evening. The type of thing that you'd be sad if you'd have paid money for, but you enjoy it and smile a little condescendingly at it when it's free.

Now we had a few hours before dinner so we decided to check out the beach a bit more and to try and get a bit of sun. I quite liked our beach area. It was in a cove and you couldn't see any of the other resorts at all. In Cuba the beach was a massive long, white stretch of sand and you cold stroll from one resort to the other, whereas here it was like we were in our own little world. The water was so warm, and extraordinarily salty, it didn't just sting the eyes, it burned them, but the salt made it easy to float and bob around.

We found a little hut of our own, and just relaxed until the 4:30 wind came up. It got windy every evening at the same time and that was our signal to head back to our room to get ready for dinner. We were always sticky enough and salty enough and sweaty enough that a shower was called for more than once a day.

Tonight's dinner was at the Cajun place, luckily we had not only found it, we had discovered a short cut as well, so we planned to meet the kids in the lobby and head over for some tasty eats. By the time dinner was done, we were tired and ready to hit the sack. Tomorrow is The Jungle Maya day and I was pretty excited about that!

I make a pretty good jambalaya myself, but it's always better when cooked by someone else, AND while on vacation .