Xel-Ha

Out on the Yucatan there are an array of Xparks (pronounced shparks) to entertain tourists.  There's Xcaret, which is some kind of jungle adventure, Xplor which is an alleged underground cave wonderland and Xel-Ha, the "world's largest aquarium."  We are not normally tourist park connoisseurs, but the website for Xel-Ha, and it's reviews online made it look pretty fun, so we set off for a day of being tourist park people.

Xel-Ha is a gorgeous water park (not the kind with water slides) set on the Caribbean Sea.  It photographed very nicely.

Here we are, ready for a day of Xfun!

However, it soon became very apparent that Xel-Ha was the safest place on Earth.  Too safe.  Way too safe.  Life jackets were required everywhere!  Trying to ride an innertube down a fake river while wearing a giant life jacket is not fun.  We ditched our tubes at the earliest possible opportunity, but even swimming in a giant life jacket is not easy.  We spent the morning displeased to say the least...

The sea, where no one is allowed to swim, life jacket or not.

One of the major draws of Xel-Ha was its alleged awesome snorkeling.  These were all the fish we saw all day.  ALL DAY.

We swam into this cave, still no fish.  By this time I was very frustrated and disappointed.  Stupid Xel-Ha....

So we put our snorkels away, and decided to give up on seeing fish.  That turned out to be the best decision we made all day, because then the day got more fun.

We encountered these rather territorial little animals while walking on a wild jungle path!

A cenote, crystal clear and calm.  Que pretty!

Then we found this poorly placed rope swing (look at Eric nearly hitting the wall!).  There were no life jackets sitting around, and no Xel-Ha enforcers to make us wear them, so we got to swing and swim freely for a little bit.

*heart*

Such a lovely house, but no one is home!

More jungle beauty.

Hola senor!  It seems he may have the best seat in the house!

More life jacket required fun!  I stopped fighting it, and bobbed along the river.  Still would have been better with no life jacket though.

Here we have the cliff of courage.  We both jumped off, though I defied authority and removed my life jacket.  I did not see how landing in the water after a 5 second free-fall with a life jacket choking me could possibly end well.

Then we did the tight rope walk.  Still had to wear a life jacket.  I promptly fell off this, but Eric made it all the way across!  Wow, so balanced!!

Then we did the zip line!  It was really fun, and very safe with the life jacket on.  We went on it a bunch of times...maybe I'll try a real zip line in a jungle next.  !!

Finally the time came to ditch our life jackets and head back out into the extremely dangerous real world.  Goodbye Xel-Ha!

We continued south to yet another awesome Loco Gringo find, Casa Canciones on beautiful Soliman Bay, just outside of Tulum.  We rented this house, so the beach, its palapa and all visible hammocks belonged to us and only us!  Muahaha!

For dinner we headed down Tulum's beach road to Posada Margherita, a recommendation from a friend at work.  It was so good...they make the pasta fresh to order...each order.  Yum.  While we were dining we realized that we were seated next to minor celebrity Busy Philipps, of TV, having dinner with her family.  We played it cool, don't worry, and did not disturb her.  I've never seen a celebrity out in public in the US, but apparently they're down here in Mexico just having dinner at the next table!

Playa del Carmen, Day 2

So the original plan was to catch the ferry to Cozumel today, and spend the day on the island.  We decided to veto that plan in favor of spending another day in Playa del Carmen.  Cozumel will have to be another trip for another time.  Not a lot of pictures today...it was mainly a redo of yesterday...eat, shop, swim, repeat!

Starting the day off right with smoothies at 100% Natural.  There was this lady in there who spoke no Spanish and was trying to get butter from the waiter.  She kept screaming "butter"  "but-ter" at him.  He would say, "Mantequilla?" (Spanish for butter) and she would yell, "No, BUTTER!".  This went on for awhile until I could stand it no more, so I said, "Si senor, ella quiere mantequilla."  And off he went, and much relief was had by all.  On my way out she stopped me and said "How do I say butter again?"  She must really like butter....

Breakfast DQ Blizzards, served upside down and delicious!

In the shopping madness we found this awesome pop-art Lucha Libre mirror.  I can't wait to hang it up at my house!

For dinner we went to a Mayan restaurant, and were not disappointed!  Cochinita Pibil, with spooky lighting and all!  After dinner I ordered a flavored tequila "por las rocas" (on the rocks) which is how one orders such a drink in Mexico City.  Not so in the Yucatan.  The waiter started laughing and said "con piedras?!" (with stones) and thought it was the funniest thing he had ever heard.  He in fact laughed about it until we left.  Oy.

This restaurant is most famous for its desert, a white chocolate Chichen Itza filled with cocoa mousse.  We had to have it. 

It felt kind of weird devouring an important pre-Hispanic landmark, but boy was it delicious!

Playa Del Carmen, Day 1

After our fun outing to Chichen Itza yesterday we were off to Playa del Carmen!  And we fell in love :)  Playa del Carmen was so fun, clean and nice...finally the vacation good luck was kicking in!

Fun with our waterproof camera!  The water was super warm and clear.  It was hard to get out.

We got to stay in this super nice condo, thanks to our friend's recommendation of using Loco Gringo to locate excellent beach accommodations.  After Cancun, it felt like a palace of niceness.  *swoon*

The view from our deck.  Pool...sea...other pool...so many choices...life's tough!

So, a couple months ago we went on a wild goose chase through the city of Cholula with our friends to find Karma Bagels, which we never found.  Turns out, we were looking in the wrong place!  It was here in Playa del Carmen the whole time!

Mmmm...out of this world bagel sandwich...

A shot of some shops on 5th Avenue.  We had dinner up there one night, pretty nice!

So, all over the Mayan Riviera businesses accept US dollars, but they totally rip off tourists.  We stopped here for ice cream, and the total was $170 pesos (roughly $12.50 USD with the current exchange rate) for 2 cones.  Pretty steep, but not nearly as bad as if we were paying with dollars.  The ice cream guy was using an extremely bad  $10 pesos = $1 USD exchange rate, and charging Americans $17 USD!  Outrageous!!  Luckily, we always have pesos, and saved our $5.  Yikes!

Church on 5th Avenue.  A piece of tradition amongst the tourist madness.

The ferry terminal to catch a ride to Cozumel.  It is designed to suck away all your money!  "Hey lady, almost free!  Let me sell you something you don't need!"  Luckily, we are immune to this, having lived in Mexico almost 18 months.

The playa (beach) of Playa del Carmen.  The sand was like powder...just perfect.

Mmm...fajitas...a delicious American Mexican food treat only available in tourist zones heavily visited by Americans. Delicious!

 Goodnight PDC!

Chichen Itza and Cenote Xkeken...

Vacation begin!!  After the nightmare in Cancun, we finally got to leave Cancun, and our real vacation started.  Gas tank full and proper rental car in hand, we headed out for Chichen Itza and a visit to a cenote.  It was a really good thing that we turned back yesterday, because we would have totally ran out of gas and there is no cell phone reception on this highway.  It's just long, straight and desolate.  So we were driving along, and we crossed the state line from Quintana Roo into Yucatan.  Yucatan certainly knows how to suck a tourist dry of cash quickly.  We rolled into the first cuota stand (toll booth) and the toll was $233 pesos ($20 USD)!!  That is the most expensive one time toll I have ever seen.  I am getting my tax back on that one just to spite them!  Then, like an oasis, an Italian Coffee Company appeared in the distance, and all was well again...

This sugar bomb, aka an Oreomoka Frio, is one of my favorite things about Mexico.  :)

Finally we arrive at Chichen Itza-landia.  There were hundreds of tourists everywhere.  It was pretty amazing that none are in this picture, as there were about 50 people standing here.

After experiencing the state of Yucatan special (being forced to pay twice to get into ruins..one ticket sold by the state, one sold by the Federal gov...this happened to us at Uxmal too...I thought I was being ripped off then, this time I was ready), we were finally allowed in!  This is the main temple in the center of the ruin site.

Skulls, skulls everywhere!  This type of motif is common at Aztec sites, but this is the first time we've seen it at a Mayan site.  You can probably guess what kind of activities were going on here...

The sacred cenote on the site of Chichen Itza.  The road to the sacred cenote was literally paved with tourist dollars.  We were walking behind a Japanese tour group, and all the vendors were yelling "Hey lady, ichi dollar!"  Que funny.  One guy even yelled at me, "Hey lady, cheaper than Kmart!"  Haha, that one made me laugh. 

Mayan throne guy.  Don't even think of sitting here.  It is not allowed!

Another shot of the main temple.  Chichen Itza is the most restored of all the Mayan sites, mainly because it is the most visited.  Tourists come in by the bus-load from Cancun and the Mayan Riviera.  It is quite pretty.

Stairs up to the palace.  No climbing allowed!  A surprise, because usually you can climb on anything you want at a Mexican ruins, but a welcome surprise, because we did not have the usually next morning "ruins legs" that we are so used to.

All the columns at the palace had carvings of warriors in them.  They were pretty detailed and well preserved.  Que cool!

Whiskey!  Here I am enjoying the ruins!

This reminded us of Uxmal and all the intricate carvings present there.  It also reminded us of Mayan tic-tac-toe.  Looks like circles won!

Cheese!!  

After we wrapped things up at Chichen Itza, we hopped on the libre (!!) and went in search of Cenote Xkeken.  Our (admittedly questionable) guidebook told us this was one of the coolest cenotes in the whole of the Yucatan.  When we arrived, we realized we had been had by our stupid guidebook again.  This guidebook likes to recommend dumps and crap holes as good places to stay, sleep, eat and play.  They dub anything nice as "pretentious" and "not worth the money."  So anyway, we arrived at this very rustic cenote, changed and headed in.

The first thing we encountered in the cenote cave was this sign.  Good thing we were warned, as I hate it when things are slepering.

Oooohhh, the cenote.  It was actually pretty cool...a very rustic hippie magnet, but if you had your back to the people, the cave itself was interesting.  We could definitely see why the Mayans believed these places were the underworld.

So we jumped in and swam around for a bit.  There were a bunch of fish in the water, and it was crystal clear.  Very refreshing.  Afterwards we got out, changed and headed off to our next destination:  Playa del Carmen!

Question for our readers:  What guidebook do you like?  We have the Rough Guide to Mexico, and it is definitely rough.  We'll be in the market for a comprehensive guide to India soon...what are your suggestions?