Old Mexico

Our trip to Mexico really had two parts. The first part was the cultural/historical part and the second part was the relaxation/touristy part. We told the little boys that we were going to Old Mexico so they wouldn't confuse it with New Mexico, where Jeff goes every month.

We flew into Cancun on Saturday night and got our rental car. Instead of driving to Merida that night, we decided to spend a night at the Comfort Inn and drive on Sunday. We got up early Sunday morning and started the long drive. Our first stop was Chichen Itza, which is probably the most well-known of the Mayan ruins. We got there before the crowds, which was nice, and we had plenty of time to wander around and see all the ruins. It was partly cloudy, which helped with the heat. We had a pretty clear shot (no people in it), but it was the back side, which isn't as restored.

Human sacrifices were common to the Mayan people, and one ruin documented all those who had been sacrificed with carvings of skulls all the way around. Some were pretty cool.

Here's a better shot of the famous ruin from the "good side." Jeff is planning on editing his photos, but I wasn't willing to wait for them to be finished, so here's one of the unedited ones.

Chichen Itza has become a huge tourist destination. It's about 90 minutes from Cancun, and buses roll in by the dozens. There are vendors everywhere, all over the property, trying to sell cheap trinkets. We were talking about how different things would be run in the United States, and that is one of the main things that would be different. 

We took the back road (free road) the rest of the way to Merida, through all these small towns. We pulled in late afternoon and checked into our hotel. Merida is a rather large city (we heard there are over a million people that live there), and the downtown is super crowded, especially on Sunday when the people are out socializing (we couldn't get over how social the Mexican people are). 

We visited a Mayan museum in a cool old colonial building and stopped by the temple for some pics, but the gates were locked. 

We also got acquainted with the downtown and its' unique feel. On this building you can see the architecture paying homage to the Conquistadors who conquered the Mayan people. If you look closely (maybe blow the picture up), you can see the Conquistadors standing on the heads of some disturbed people. Interesting to say the least.

Sunday night was filled with more culture with the people of Merida. Really cool city that is unlike anything I had ever seen before.

Monday morning started a little weird. I have a history of occasionally doing funny things while sleeping (changing clothes, unscrewing light fixtures, etc), although I haven't done anything in a while. But for some reason, the hotel room in Merida brought it out in me again. Jeff and I were in separate beds (full beds just aren't going to cut it for two people who need a little space to sleep) and there was a painting above my bed. I can kind of remember something like I thought the painting was moving and going to fall on me, and next thing I knew, Jeff was standing next to my bed, taking the painting from my hands, and tucking me into bed. Apparently, I had gotten on the bed and removed the painting from the wall and was muttering incoherent musings that woke Jeff up. All we could do was laugh about it, although Jeff reiterated his concern that I will one day do something really crazy in my sleep. 

The offensive painting

We got up and drove down to Uxmal, another famous ruin that is farther away from Cancun, and thus less touristy. Jeff enjoyed heading off the beaten path to find all the ruins that aren't completely restored (or even excavated much at all).

Uxmal was a city where the people actually lived, not just a place of religious worship like Chichen Itza. It was also very cool, and we got to walk on a lot of the ruins there, including the tall temple with 65 steep stairs. The view from on top was really neat.

Again, the clouds provided some relief from the sun. It is hot in the Yucatan!

After we left Uxmal, we started the drive to Homun, where we heard there were some good cenotes to visit (cenotes are sink holes filled with fresh water that are popular places to swim). We found a little guide, Francisco, with his scooter cab outside the city and he took us to three cenotes. The first was pretty big, with a rope swing. We stayed for a while and then headed to one that hasn't been open for long (only seeing visitors for six weeks now). It was really neat. We climbed through tight openings in a cave with amazing formations down to the water.

The last cenote we visited was behind a barbed wire fence that was locked. Francisco just raised the fence for us and under we went. It had a high point that Jeff jumped off of, then we both jumped off the rock together. It was so fun and such a cool experience.

Francisco was a very good tour guide, and when he took us back to our car and I took this pic of him and Jeff, I realized why he was able to slip through the caves so easily. He's tiny!

Probably our best adventure happened on this day. As we were driving around through all these small Mexican towns, we came across David's Guayabera shop. Guayabera's are shirts popular in Mexico, and we had been looking for some for the boys since we arrived in Merida. Some were reasonably priced, but they didn't have the sizes we needed for the boys, and others were not so reasonably priced, so we hadn't bought anything yet. But when Jeff spotted David's shop, he was excited.

We parked the car and went inside this tiny little shop where the shirts were being made right before our eyes. There were fabric, patterns, scissors and finished shirts everywhere. Jeff asked about the shirts and found out that they were only 80 pesos (less than $7), instead of the 120 or 180 they were selling for in the city. David told us (well, he told Jeff, since I didn't understand anything) that his father had been making the shirts for 50 years and he had taken over 15 years ago. They sell all over the Yucatan, and we happened upon them in the tiny town of Mama, Mexico. After a while, we ended up with four shirts--one for all the boys in our family. What a wacky experience that we never would have dreamed would happen.

David totalling our bill

 

Jeff holding the shirts

Me with the giant scissors. Look at that cool shop, with Jesus watching over everything. :)

We ate at La Chaya Maya (again), which served authentic Yucatecan food, and it was so good. Really good. We talked about it the rest of the trip, how nothing else could compare. 

Tuesday was our last morning in Merida, and we stopped by the temple for a quick pic. It's so funny to see the temple, with the beautiful grounds, in the middle of a crowded city where space is at a premium. We didn't get to go inside (the limited operating time just didn't work with our schedule), but we enjoyed seeing it. 

We headed back to Cancun on the back roads with a couple of stops along the way. The first was a hacienda south of Merida. When hemp was a hot commodity in the 1800's, haciendas popped up all over the  Yucatan. They are the Mexican version of the plantations in the southern US, and many have been restored. The one we went to was pretty much left as it was, and was really cool to see. These arches are the entrance, and this pic made us laugh (the bikers were the perfect inadvertent photo bombers).

We also stopped at a little Mercado for a refresca and some butter (for the bread we had bought at Walmart). I had to get a Cristal, because it was made for me.

We drove to Valladolid and stopped to see yet another cool cathedral and plaza (this was probably the nicest one we saw on our trip, and there is one in every town). I also got a pair of leather flip flops, which are the hot item in Valladolid (there are a lot of leather goods produced there). Because it's fairly close to Cancun, Valladolid was full of tourists. Funny how that happens the closer you get to Cancun.

Finally, by evening, we made it to our hotel in Cancun. Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday were pretty much the same every day. We would get up, eat a quick breakfast (from the food we bought at the grocery store and kept in our room), and head down to the beach. We'd sit there for a couple hours, until we started to feel burned, then go to the gym for a workout. Then we'd go back to our room for our homemade lunch--chips and guacamole. Avocados are super cheap in Mexico, and so we bought a bunch, along with a couple boxes of salsa, and we'd make guac every afternoon. It was so great. Then we'd shower and go back outside or hang out on our amazing balcony (we upgraded to an ocean front room for $100 more for the week, and it was totally worth it! We spent so much time out on our balcony and loved sleeping with the door cracked open so we could hear the waves crashing all night long).

Marriott Casamagna--our room was on the fifth floor right on the end

Sandcrab I nearly stepped on during one of our morning beach walks

Robe selfie

The ocean and the sand were simply breathtaking. We loved every minute of the time we spent at the resort, even though we got a little more sun than we really hoped for. Jeff had some weird sun rash, where he got red and splotchy the first day and never really recovered. By Saturday, he was spending most of his time in the shade.

Friday was different. We took a day trip to Tulum, which was the "visually stimulating" part of the trip (according to Jeff). The ruins were pretty cool right on the beach.

My hair was sure a lot of fun--frizzy and in the way all the time, so it spent a lot of time in a ponytail

Tulum selfie

We also went to Akumal, because we knew that we could snorkel and see a lot of turtles. But we didn't end up staying, because it is a total tourist trip. The worst of anything we saw on our trip. Although the beach is public, you are charged for parking, charged for a life jacket (which is "mandatory"), and you can't even go out and see the turtles unless you pay for a guide and go with 7 other people. Ugh. So annoying, and so not our style. So we bailed (I grudgingly paid the 50 peso toll to use the bathroom, because I had no other option), but they didn't get any other money from us (we parked a ways a way and walked, so we could avoid the parking cost). Win for us!

We stopped at a cenote called Jardin del Eden, which was awesome. We snorkeled (the only time) and saw a bunch of tropical fish (in the mostly fresh water) and had a really fun time people watching and hanging out. That was actually the perfect place--enough tourists come that they keep it up nice, but it's not overrun with people, and it's not so regulated. Awesome.

We also went to Playa del Carmen, which wasn't all that impressive. I know there are nice resorts down that way, but the main beach area was not very nice. Small hotels, small beach, tons of people...not our scene, either. The main street downtown was cool, though, and I'm sure if you are looking for a party, it would be awesome. We just got spoiled at our resort, which was not crowded at all. We loved it so much!

Getting Jeff to take a pic was not an easy task, but I'm really happy about the way it turned out. 

A panoramic view of the hotels to the north of us. So pretty it looks fake.

Last night at another Yucatecan place in Cancun, Labna. Not quite as good as Chaya Maya, but still pretty good. And way better than any of the Tex Mex places in the hotel zone.

Before we even knew it, it was time to go home. We had an early flight, so we had to get up at 4:30 to get ready. That wasn't a lot of fun. We flew to San Francisco, where we had a marathon layover. We tried to get on an earlier flight, but there was nothing available,

 so we decided to extend our vacation by taking a day trip to San Fran. We took a train downtown and then got off and walked. We stopped in Chinatown for some yummy food and cool sight seeing. We walked around Fisherman's Wharf and really got a cool mini tour of the city. We walked up Hyde to Lombard St (the crookedest street in the world), which was a lot harder than I expected. It was a long way up and you climbed! It was cool to walk down Lombard St, though. 

Chinatown selfie

After a fun day exploring, we got back to the airport and found that our flight was delayed an hour. Of course. As if the day wasn't long enough...we did eventually make it home, though, and got to bed by 1:00 am. Which meant that we had been up for almost 22 hours. Totally worth it, and I already miss it!