The Yucatan!

Here are some highlights from my trip to the Yucatan Peninsula.  

Thursday Feb 25:

Flew into Cancun, rented a car and drove down to Playa del Carmen.  We spent the evening exploring the endless souvenir shops and ate at a delicious restaurant which had the BEST salsa that I have ever eaten in my life.  I made sure to inform the guy who seated us that I whole heartedly approved.  I would buy an airline ticket all over again just to go eat that salsa.  I also bought a virgin miami beach - a piña colada and strawberry daquiri mixed.  The restaurant had a live band and salsa dancing soon ensued.  
Our evening ended with a lovely night time walk down the beach. 

Friday Feb 26:

We took a ferry over to Cozumel first thing in the morning.  The boat rocked a lot on the waves and I got sick.  I threw up in a bag.  Awesome. Below is me 5 or 10 minutes before I lost it. 
I hated that ferry with a passion by the time we docked but I had to get directly onto another boat that took us out to the reef where we would be snorkeling at.  I forgot how much I L-O-V-E snorkeling!  While snorkeling I saw a large school of fish about 30 feet below me, came within 7 feet of a baracuda, saw some ridiculously large angel fish, and practiced equalizing the pressure in my ears so I could dive down a bit.  I have never been able to hold my breath very long under water, but it's amazing how easy it is to forget about your desire to breathe when there is abundant sea life to distract you!  I managed to dive down 15 feet.  It'd be awesome to dive down the 30 like my tour guide did. 

After snorkeling, I went shopping.  I walked into a man's store and within 5 seconds of seeing me, he said in Spanish, "Ya'll are Mormon aren't you?"  I was shocked.  I asked how he knew.  He said there was something different about us, we walk differently, we talk differently, there's just something different and it's hard to explain.  That was a cool experience.  He was very helpful in explaining the symoblism on the Mayan masks I was looking at.  I found one I liked and bargained him down from $35 to $25.  But, I hadn't shopped around at all and told him I wanted to look a bit before buying it.  I went into the next store, with the sole intention of figuring out if $25 was a good deal or not. I found a mask similar in size and workmanship and inquired the price.  The sales guy sized me up and said $140.  Confused, I asked him if that was American Dollars or Pesos. American.  I laughed.  I don't even know if I said anything in response, I only remember turning around laughing out loud, genuinely amused, and walked away as he called after me, "Wait!  Señorita, how much do you want to pay?" I went directly back to the first guy and told him I'd give him the extra dollar (he very begrudgingly went down to 25 from 26), because I like his customer service.  Still laughing that the guy tried to get me for $140 I went on my merry way with a beautiful mask to hang on my wall.

Becky flew in and met us at our hotel that evening.  It was a joyous reunion after a 4 month absence.  We celebrated by going out to dinner and sharing a seafood platter of fish, squid, shrimp, and octopus.  It was delicious!

Saturday Feb 27

We drove out to Tulum and marveled at seeing Mayan ruins for the first time.  There is a temple right along the cliffs of the Caribbean and it was incredible.  The water is turqouise and took my breath away.  After thouroughly exploring the ruins, we spent the afternoon lying on the beach and swimming in the warm, crystal clear waters. 

Eventually we booked it on over to Coba to see more ruins, but got there at the exact minute that they stopped letting people enter for the day.  Instead we stopped by the lake that my guidebook advised us not to picnic at because of its large crocodile population.  We spotted a croc and snapped a few pictures before heading off to Valladolid. Along the way we stopped by a cenote along the road.  Cenotes are humongo sink holes that are found throughout the peninsula.  Anciently, many were used to make human sacrifices to various gods.  The cenotes we visited are rather impressive.

Sunday Feb 28

After exploring the colorful colonial town, we headed off to church.  We asked people along the way where the Mormon chapel is located and they consistently pointed us in the same direction.  When we finally came to a street corner in a shady neighborhood, all that was there was the Jehovah's Witnesses church.  4 people in a row were under the impression that Jehovah Wintesses and Mormons are the same thing.  I found it extremely amusing and then proceeded to hail a taxi to take us directly to church, since we were now going to be late.  He drove us across town and took us to the correct building.  The picture on the left shows our feelings upon arriving and finding the gates locked and grounds empty.  After standing around a bit, confused as to what to do and wondering why nobody was at church, a man came up and told us they were all away at conference.  Of course.  Stake Conference, which is in a city hours away.  There was nothing to be done about church and so we went on our way to Chichen Itza and sang hymns in the car to make up for our missed church attendance. 

Chichen Itza was INCREDIBLE. Huge pyramids, observatory, cenote, ball court (think Road to Eldorado) and mayan souvenir venders galore.  Here are some pictures of the highlights: 

Monday March 1

Everyone but Becky and I flew home.  We relocated to The Westin and marveled at our ocean view room with plush white beds.  We spent the afternoon at the beach, experiencing Cancun for the first time.  Cancun beaches get an A++.

All in all, despite getting conned by the Mexican government, I very much enjoyed my trip!  I was most excited about seeing Mayan ruins for the first time but was also blown away by the Caribbean Sea.  Yucatan Vacation = Success.