jeff_simpson (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jeff_simpson) wrote,@ 2008-05-18 09:49:00 |
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Hola! I'm back from Mexico
And wow, what a trip. I'll start with a trip summary, and some photos, and then post details later.
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Here's the Best-Of photo album with a few selected shots that I've taken the time to add comments to. The rest of the photos are here, but I should warn you, there are a lot.
And wow, what a trip. I'll start with a trip summary, and some photos, and then post details later.
Saturday
- Flew in and rented cars. Driving in Mexico is exciting. The signs are all in spanish, of course. But also, highways have SPEED BUMPS that are not very well marked. Also, people like to drive with their hazard lights on in situations that are not particularly hazardous (for example, slowing down, turning left, turning right, stopping, etc).
- We checked in at the resort and had dinner at one of the restaurants there, Balche. We did some late-night grocery shopping at Walmart (which was really interesting. Some stuff was the same, some was different. Did you know walmart sells liquor in Mexico?)
Sunday
- Sunday morning we opted to take a time share presentation breakfast. We got a free buffer breakfast, a tour of the resort, and 10% off all the things charged to the room. We had to listen to about an hour and a half of presentation about time shares. It was actually really interesting, and I can see that not all of them are scams, now. Some of them actually make financial sense for people who vacation a lot.
- Spent the evening in Playa Del Carmen walking and shopping on 5th avenue
Monday
- We drove down to Tulum to see the seaside Mayan ruins. Stopped at a great little roadside taco stand on the way. Tulum ruins were spectacular, and it was nice to take a dip in the ocean after getting sweaty walking around.
- On the way home we stopped at an adventure park of sorts. For $10, we went down a zipline in the woods, which was less exciting than I thought it would be. Still very fun. For $20 we explored a few Cenotes (underground caves with water). We got to swim in the water and look underneat with goggles. One of the caves had no lighting apart from the flashlights they gave us, and it was a swim-through kind of cave. It was very neat, but a bit scary to be in the water, in a small cave, in the dark. Pretty much awesome.
- We got scammed getting gas. Very touristy of us, too. So we got the car filled from 3/4 tank for $137 Pesos. We gave them a 200. They come back and are speaking in Spanish, and all we can get from it is that we handed them a 20 instead of a 200. I hadn't even looked at the money I was handed, so I believed it and we gave them a 200. We realized afterwards - why would they leave and come back if we had only given them a 20 peso ($2 USD)? It was a pretty good scam. Also, they didn't give us change. We had pulled off to the side and sent somebody back to get change. They gave us like 10 pesos change instead of 60. After awhile, they sent over a police looking person with a 50 Peso bill. We were freaking out. Angel speaks spanish luckily, so we had him come over from the other car. End result was that he didn't see it, and there was really nothing we could do but be more careful the next time. So we were much more careful and only gave exact change or close-to-exact change when possible.
Tuesday
- We drove up to Cancun and enjoyed the public market. Great food from street vendors and a small bakery. We stopped at two beaches: Delphine was a very calm water beach that looked like it would be a spring break hot spot (but it was offseason). Del Ray was very rough waters, but with a rocky coast, so it was a bit dangerous getting into the water. We went back to the Havannah grill on the resort and enjoyed a BBQ on the beach.
Wednesday
- Drove to Playa Del Carmen and took the ferry over to Cozumel. Place del Toros for lunch - very cheap local fare, but a bit touristy. Best shrimp tacos I've ever had. Some of us took a snorkeling trip out to the reefs. It was a lot of fun just floating on the surface looking down at the fish swimming all around you. I touched some.
Thursday
- We had a long drive inland to get to Chichen-Itza, which is a very large Mayan ruin. The photos speak for themselves. It was very hot out. We stopped in Valladolid at a cute little restaurant for dinner.
Friday
- Friday was the last full day at the resort. I got up relatively early and spent some time relaxing in a hammock on the beach and in the pool. Margaret was also up early so we got some breakfast at the Havanna Moon. We hung around in various pools most of the day, got drinks from both pool bars. This was when I got my sunburn. We went down to Playa Del Carmen again to actually go to the beach there (which was fantastic!) Went to the Lago buffet back at the resort for dinner. Caught the end of a Limbo contest and dancing which I can only describe as the Fantanas.
Here's the Best-Of photo album with a few selected shots that I've taken the time to add comments to. The rest of the photos are here, but I should warn you, there are a lot.
