These photos are from our trip to the Mexican Yucatan, March 8-18, 2007. I used "JAlbum" to create the slide show. You can fiddle with the controls to adjust the delay. It's set to preload the "next" image, the result being that this will run fairly smoothly in sequence but may be pokey if you move around manually. Hit the PAUSE button to stop the slide show. Then use the arrows or scroll through the thumbnails. The zoom feature is a bit bogus because these images are so dumbed down for the web already you just get a mess of chunky pixels. The original files are crisp and clear, of course. Let me know if you want any. You won't see a guestbook because I turned it off. I also nixed the sound effects.
There are no captions, but here's a breakdown of our 10 days:
First day, March 9, 133 images (largest batch).
I'll omit the lost luggage tale except to say the stuff showed up. Great relief all around.
Photos include mostly our first full day wandering around Chichen Itza and surroundings.
The pyramid is awesome. Also interesting are the stately nearby columns, the gigantic ball court
with its stone rings,where the winners were obliged to become sacrifices. Not many
long sports careers among the Mayans I guess.
Look for the spooky raised burial ground surrounded with skulls.
We came across many more dramatic buildings and
visited the sacred cenote. Stories of what they found down there would raise the hair
on the back of your neck. Later at the Dolores Alba, the local tame duck outside our room
kept politely trying to come in so he too became camera worthy. :-) Followed by dinner at a very nice
restaurant in Piste, the nearest town to the Chichen Itza ruins.
Second day, March 10, 43 images.
Starting with breakfast in Villadolid (an historic old town in the colonial style) and a few shots of the main
square, we head out for Ek Balam, a lesser known ruins still under excavation. We stopped
on the way to replace a missing toothbrush at a tiny farmacia. At Ek Balam, after a long climb up
we saw some beautifully preserved stone carvings that looked almost DaVinci like (wings and all).
I peered toward Chichen Itza less than 20 kilometers away and think I spotted a
tiny blip on the horizon. On the way home we stopped at
a couple of cenotes and took a brief swim at one of them.
Kids in the parking lot say they will watch your car for nothing.
The game is to thank them profusely, then later on hand out a few tips to the
ones who guarded your car the best.
I finally decided that despite the clear water,
it was not as much fun as I anticipated
feeling my way around in a dark undergound hole.
The day ends with us relaxing at the hotel pool with a beer (me, feet only) and a Pina Colada.
Third day, March 11, 27 images (notice the dwindling trend?).
We drive across the Yucatan to the coast and settle into the Cabanas Tulum to swim and
visit the beautiful Tulum ruins on the coast.
This ruin dates from more recent times and has a lot of differences with the previous
places we'd seen. We found a very nice Mexican restaurant in Tulum Pueblo then headed home to
our cabana on the beach.
Fourth day, March 12, 34 images.
First stop is Coba, a sprawling ruins a half hour inland from the coast.
The plan is to trek and explore all day and sustain outselves on water and cheese and peanut butter
crackers. Mom's standard survival fare. It worked out well actually.
Fifth day, March 13, 16 images.
At the beach. The night before we had wandered down the beach to discover an exclusive
Italian place. It was quite the thing. We had no reservations but miraculously
the owner found a table they had been holding long enough. The food,
wine and service were fabulous, with prices to match. As in no prices on the menu!
One trusts them to feed you well, and they do. It was one of those places where the owner actually sits down with you
to chat and pass the time. We described our search for real coffee and he let on
that he makes his own excellent brew each morning at 7 a.m. "But we are not very nice at that time,"
he said quite seriously. We understood. The next morning our 20 minute stroll down the beach
turned out to be as good as promised. Later at a giant "San Francisco"
supermarket we picked up some essentials:
limes, tequila, beer, bread, cheese, etc. then and settled back in at Cabanas Tulum for
some swimming in the surf and an evening on the veranda with wine, beer or shots, or maybe
all three.
Sixth day, March 14, 9 images.
We move on to Casa Cenote, slightly upscale from the first place. Lots of relaxing around the
pool, walking the beaches, reading in the chairs overlooking the calm sea. Snorkeling in
open air cenote across the road, my snorkel fell off and disappeared. My guess is
it was swept by the current into the sea.
This particular cenote is at the end of an underground river disgorging some 100,000 gallons a minute into
the sea right outside the hotel a few meters off the beach. The current in the water over this
area can be tricky. I got exhausted trying to escape it even swimming sideways to it.
Seventh day, March 15, 13 images.
Another day at Casa Cenote, walking the beach, hanging around the pool. Just... nothing. Ahhh.
Eighth day, March 16, 17 images.
On the road again, we swing by the big tourist mecca of Playa Del Carmen. You can't pass it by, right?
Lunch at a bistro, then gaping at the mobs on the beach. Very quickly we drive out of town to look
for our Coco Cabanas. This is really out-of-the-way. After a few wrong forks on bumpy beach roads
surrounded by tall grass and trees, we find Coco Cabanas.
A couple more days to swim, loll around on the hammocks.
The culinary surprise was a large
continental breakfast including bread, cereal, juice, coffee (real!), yogurt, fruit
and some yummy chocolate and fruit spreads.
Not a chili or tortilla in sight. That's ok, we had our own by now.
Ninth day, March 17, 9 images.
Relaxing at the Coca Cabanas beach. How about the amazing swan created by our room
maid? I showed her the photo and asked for a picture to remember her by.
She promptly pulled a cute coquette pose. Snap!
Tenth day, March 18, 14 images.
On the road for the last day, we swing by Porto Moreles, a sleepy coastal village bypassed by mega development.
This is the kind of place you might want to return to stay for a while. Town square surrounded by
shops, restaurants and hotels, people hanging out and enjoying life. Real fishermen at work.
Then before we know it we've turned in the car, hopped a plane and we're gone.
I caught a couple of shots of the island of Cozumel as we turned slowly north.
--andy--