ALL INCLUSIVE!!

Oh yeah - Jeff and I lived it up Spring Break 2009 style for our last few nights in Latin America.  We stayed at an All Inclusive resort in Cancun and had a great time (even though we're not the best at taking advantage of all of the all inclusiveness - we tried!).  It was still great and a nice way to finish off the first leg of our trip. 

 

Way too many lizards in Cancun - and I'm not talking small ones - I'm talking 3 foot long big boys who just sit there on the sidewalk while you walk.  When you finally see them at 10 feet away and squeal like a scared piggy (not that I did the, but I did) they just slither on under the sidewalk so now you can't even see them but you know they are there.  Creepy!!  None on the resort, thank goodness.

 

After those two fantastic days we flew to Florida and are helping Jeff's friends Jake and Karin get ready for their wedding tomorrow.  First things first - we went to Chipoodles last night right after getting in and yes - it is still the most glorious of burritos.  Don't say "how can you say that when you were just in Mexico having authentic food" because it's different.  Chipoodles isn't about Mexican food.  Chipoodles is about the yumminess that is Chipoo-poo.  Plain and deliciously simple. 

 

I heart America and am glad to be back but also excited about our next adventure to South America.  First, however, we must visit with some friends in Florida and then part ways - Me to Arizona&Vegas and Jeff to Puerto Rico.  After that we'll meet up in Peru and start again.  Wish me luck in Vegas - I'm not exactly the stay out late type.

Cenote of SACRIFICE!!

We´re still in Merida and took a trip yesterday to the nearby Chichen Itza! The most visited Mayan ruins in Central America. And yes, there were thousands of people there - blah. Lots of hippies too because this is the Equinox time which is when the shadow on the main temple creates the body portion of the snake which connects to the head at the foot of the stairs. Very interesting. Actually it was neat looking but not worth all the clapping and rushing forward the New Age people kept doing - it´s just a nifty shadow.

But the site itself was amazing. It´s a younger site than the others we´ve visited like Tikal and Copan so the carvings are still preserved and we could actually make out a lot of them. They are big on skulls here - walls upon walls of them. They also have the Cenote of Sacrifice! AH!!! It´s a cenote (not one I would swim in like the last time) where they dredged it and found a bunch of sacrificial remains. Gross.

They also had a really nice ball court where the Maya used to play whatever that ball game is (this one is different from the other sites as the hoops are too small to fit a ball through just using your hips). But they did show a carving of a ball with a skull in it and archaeologists believe they may have actually used rubber balls with skulls in them. COOL. Just like that one movie Mystery Men. Except way cooler. Of course, like Anna said, archaeologists just make stuff up so who knows. Hahahaha, I keeed. Kind of.

Tomorrow we´re really hitting up Uxmal (ooosh mall). Unlike last time we were in Merida when we got lazy and decided not to - we´re really going there this time. You´ll see!

Tortugas!

Jeff and I went diving together today for the first time - SO FUN!  Actually, our instructor mentioned that we sure looked like we were having a good time together and I'm not sure if she was chiding us or not.  We did silly things like underwater kiss and cupcake and tried to use sign language to communicate but mostly just swam around like goons.  We got to see a bunch of sea turtles!  They were beautiful and big.  We also saw some big old grouper fish (just really big fish) and supposedly an eel but the current was whisking me along too fast for me to stop and see that one.

 

What I really wanted was a harpoon gun.  Just in case - you know?  What if sharks attacked?  One of the instructors (the not fun one) cut her finger right before we got in the water.  Thanks alot - why don't you bleed everywhere and attrack predators!?  See?  She was not fun.  But if I had a harpoon gun then all would be well.  No one seems to sell them here but I'll keep trying.  It would go nicely with my machete - if I ever get one of those either.

 

So we haven't had a lot to update about since we've been just relaxing, going to the beach and reading a lot.  I'm all different shades of pale right now from extremely pale to really pale to almost pigmented - and I'm working on evening it all out.  A few fun things we have encountered on our relaxing days are:

 

1. The best idea for dishes EVER.  They wrap the dishes (at oh so awesome restaurants) in plastic bags - like mini trash bags - that way your food doesn't actually touch the plate and presto!  No dishes to be done.  Genius.  Or genious as some would say.  You know who you are.

 

2. Starbucks.  It's great for many reasons (the obvouis being that it's yummy and has chai tea - mmmm) but also because they have soap in the bathrooms and the Xcelorator!  That is the coolest freaking hand drying device on the PLANET.  I'm easily amused.

 

3. Store clerks.  Or really, the guys trying to get you to come into their tiny booths/shops/tiendas.  Some are funny - like when they say "i have what you neeeeeed", "almost free", "no cover charge today" and "duuuude".  But some are just plain obnoxious and rude - one of which I almost pummeled yesterday but Jeff held me back as I glared at him and he said "yeah - you!"  Oh a harpoon gun would be nice.

 

4.  Pizza and Champagne.  Is that not a combination to die for?  This restaurant posts ads everywhere but for a while all I could find was the promise of said pizza and champagne and no address.  But we finally found it and oh yes - it was glorious.

 

Tonight we are off to a restaurant called "Karen's" which is sure to be the best food in town.  For the next few days I'm going to focus all my efforts on figuring out how to have the best darn St. Patty's Day while down here.  I don't know what they do to celebrate it here but I'm sure going to find out.  I'll need to buy something green to wear for starters.  Hooray for shopping!

 

 

DiveMaster KO

Ok, I'm not a divemaster - but I am now certified as an Open Water Scuba Diver. FUN! I've gotten to see a barracuda, a blow fish, and a HUGE sting ray. My instructor didn't see him at first and I let out a little underwater yelp and then the thing went gliding away. Neat but I like it better when I see them on the discovery channel and there's no chance I'll get Steve Irwined.

I also had to do an awesome swim test where I went out into the ocean and was supposed to swim back and forth between two ropes that lead out into the ocean. It didn't work so hot because in my swimming from the first to the second I didn't notice that I overshot the second one by FAR and just kept swimming. Took me a while to figure it out and by the time I did I was exhausted and thought I'd fail at the swim test - but it turns out I did more than needed so I'm good to go.

We're in Playa del Carmen and Jeff and I are going to do a fun dive together in a few days when his cold is gone. For now, I'm working on getting pigment and I treated myself to a DQ Blizzard (oh yeah they have that!) for passing my scuba exam. Go me. I'm tempted to get an underwater camera to capture all the fishies and us diving, but it probably wouldn't work as well as Banana's camera did in Merida and certainly not in the dark depths we'll be going to. Oh well, surface pics are fun too.

They sell loads of Luchador masks here which makes me think of Nacho Libre. Love it. They also seem to only sell one size fits all outfits for women. I'm not sure why people say America is so tubby - people here are packing on the pounds, just in shorter stature. But maybe when they say "America" they mean all of it. McDonald's is a bargain deal here. Value meals are like 2 bucks - not that we would know anything about that (double cheese burger Wednesdays, mmmmm).

It's not our fault. We can't go outside much in the hot heat during the hours where my fragile skin will likely melt right off of me so we've become quite the mall rats and go see movies when it's too hot out. We do a lot of walking to find these malls (even though everyone seems to want us to take taxis to them - and I thought WE were the lazy ones) and other interesting places and luckily I haven't gotten burnt to a crisp yet! Hooray!

I like it here but I'm not sure how long we'll stay. They have funny places like a smoothy place called Fruti Yogurth - and I have a few challenges (given to me by Pau) that I must accomplish before we move on. Wish me luck! I'll keep you posted on how I do.

Here's to bad Mexican Beer!

We are having a blast with Banana here in Merida - and lots of bad Mexican beer. Sometimes we don't even know what we've ordered but the most popular for me is XX Lager. We tried to order "yardas" of beer thinking yards (and the guys at the table next to us had really tall yard glasses) but it turns out that just means really big margarita glasses of beer. Those guys must have gotten theirs from the Carnival(e).

Surprisingly we haven't seen all that much of Carnival(e) but we did catch some concerts (where we got free bandanas) and everyone is dressed up - for adults (women, anyway) they look like showgirls and for kids it's like Halloween. For some reason a ton of little boys are wearing outfits I thought only dragqueens wore - long sleeve, shiny tops that stop just below their pecks - open tummy - and shiny bell bottom pants. Very strange. Tonight we're going to the parade, so that should be fun. More pictures to come.

What we do have pictures of (on photobucket as of today) is our trip with Banana to the Cenotes! Cenotes are like sink holes or caves full of water and are beautiful - but kinda scary in that the water gets dark and there are little fishes I don't want to touch me. However, they were a blast to swim in and Banana has an underwater camera so the pictures are hysterical.

In order to get to the Cenotes we took a bus and then had to take a bicycle rick-shaw. THEN you had to take these cart things that use the old mining tracks. The carts are pulled by horses and there's only one track so whenever we run into a cart headed towards us one of us has to get off the tracks and let the other pass. Not sure how they decide who, but it ran pretty smoothly. We visited 3 different Cenotes on the tracks and each one was different but fun. The first Cenote was beautiful but the moment we got there everyone left so it was a tad creepy - the back part of the cave was really dark so we didn't swim all the way back.

The second Cenote was awesome because it had a platform to jump about 10 feet into the water - so Banana and I swapped spots and kept trying to get pictures of ourselves jumping into the water (but I suck at timing the photos and missed her every time - my bad). The second Cenote also had these tree roots hanging down which I grabbed a hold of until I heard Jeff say he saw big spiders on them - and then I swam away from them for good. We had a picnic lunch and visited the last Cenote, but only Banana swam there since we were running out of time. The underwater pictures of us are hysterical - so check those out. On the way back, Jeff decided to tell the rick-shaw driver that he wanted to try out driving so the driver and I rode in the front while Jeff drove. He did a great job, but I believe it was tiring. We passed some adorable Mexican suburb type houses - just like the USA where each house is exactly the same but in alternating colors. Only difference is that their colors are much more vibrant (see pics).

PS. Don't keep your wallet in your pocket when you jump into a Cenote - because then you have to dry out all of your money while traveling back on the carts. DO, however, keep your watch on - because if you watch happens to be annoyingly broken and won't stop beeping every hour, this will fix it to it no longer beeps every hour (even if you lose the face of your watch...somehow).

Tomorrow we're headed to the ruins of Uxmal (ooosh mall), so more pictures to come. Tooodles!

They were all naked

Well, not all of them, but a lot of them anyway. So, Jeff and I went to the beach yesterday. Very eventful. Most people take a taxi or a collectivo (shared ride) since it´s a few miles to get to the beach - but we didn´t feel like paying and thought the walk would be nice so we found our own way. In order to get to the beach you have to go through one of the hundreds of resorts - so we did. Wrong resort. I guess the private beach we found doubles as a nudey beach - not the pretty kind.

Who cares about naked people since we got to have a corona on the beach! Not in hammocks but in swing chairs - close enough. I´ll get that commercial perfect corona moment soon, I know it!

We´re in Tulum, Mexico - where punch buggies come to die. We´ve been here for a few days relaxing and today we´re on our way to Merida to visit Anna-Banana (my roommate from college). This weekend is Carnival so it should be one heck of a good time.

We´re staying in a nice Cabana with lots of little geckos running around making funny cherping noises. Kinda cute. The huge roach that dropped into the bathroom to keep me company after my shower yesterday was not so cute, but he kept his distance and respected my close personal space so that´s ok.

You may not believe this - but the pastey sticks I call legs got some pigment here in Tulum. And I´m going to try for even more. Can you imagine? Wish me luck!

Tikal!

Finally! It was everything I wanted it to be - and we got to leave right when it started getting blazing hot so it was perfect. Who cares if our camera died near the end - we took plenty of pictures of all the good stuff (they're posted now).

My favorite was Temple V because it was fun to climb (albeit I nearly wet my pants getting up the steep ladder and found out I may be a tad afraid of heights with no safety railings), the views were nice, I was up on it all alone at one point, and the pictures make it look like I was going to slide down it! FUN. I wanted to tumble Domo down the slide part and act like he was a human sacrafice - which I'm sure they did way back when - but Jeff said he may get stuck in the middle and there's no way to get him back of that happens. Not worth the risk, although the photo op would have been awesome.

Only disappointing - though safety conscious - thing was that you can't take the real Mayan stairs on any of the big/major temples. They built modern safe ones instead (but at the top you can sit on the alter/top parts and could easily fall down the old Mayan stairs if you wanted).

There are a bunch of signs when you are first driving up to Tikal - snake crossing, jaguar crossing, deer crossing - but my two favorite, and the two that turned out to be true for us - were:
1 - Ant Eater Crossing (SCARY! Those things could claw you! but it was up in a tree so I was ok) and
2 - Turkey Crossing. I don't want to say the turkeys were pretty - but they were the most colorful turkeys I've ever seen. If a turkey had to be pretty, this would be it. But they were still kinda ugly.

On a separate note, I just want to say this: I am having the time of my life and I heart 1st world countries. I want a bumper sticker that says so (if I ever own a car again) - and then just to show that I've done a decent amount of research to come to this conclusion, I can surround that bumper sticker with the flags of all the non-1st world countries I've been to. I like good plumbing (which includes flushing and hot water), Chipoodles, water you're allowed to drink, toilet paper, fewer bugs, sandwiches, shopping, text messaging, Target, OSHA standards - you name it.

And yet I love this trip and can't wait to see where we go next. Also can't wait to have Chipoodles again. :)