nature

We spent the morning snorkeling at a place that's just a 15-minute walk up the beach from our hotel. Some of the walk was really gross, through turtle grass and trash, but that was just a bit in the middle. Once we got past that, it was white sandy beach and turquoise water again. We actually snorkeled much longer than I thought we would, because it was so much fun. We saw fish we hadn't seen at the other place, including one fish that's shaped like a triangle, that was eating another fish. Sushi, I guess.

So loads of fun, paddling around and showing each other new fish, bobbing in the water and soaking up the sun for one last day. I put on gobs of intense very water resistant sunblock AND a shirt, trying not to get more burn on my back -- that degree of fortification seemed to do the trick.

We saw some other interesting stuff, like

The base of a coconut palm

These beautiful flowers in the midst of gray devastation:

The ubiquitous palm tree

Sunset(s)

And a few shots of the hotel dining room, where we had nice breakfasts and some really good lunches:

The best part of my breakfast every day

the morning after

Last night after dinner, we took the camera and tripod onto the beach - the night sky is so amazing here, and we thought we could leave the shutter open and get some great star pictures. Capture the Milky Way, even. We took several photos and this one was the best:

Click it to see it bigger. Wish you were there.

Yesterday we snorkeled a little; there's a small bunch of coral a short way out from the shore, so we puttered around and saw dozens of small yellow fish, some large blue ones and a red one. The best thing we saw was a very large red starfish.

Here's the view from our porch:

Our beach:

Marc walking from our room to the dining room:

We're in the one on the right (the best one, of course):

And here's a shot of me, posting on this blog. Every vacation we have a photo of Marc pacing in the airport, and one of me with the computer. That makes me laugh.

Posting:

Sunset:

getting here

No problem getting here, at all - flights on time and easy, no problem of any kind. We flew out of JFK, which was weird for us, but once we were there, we fell into our normal routine:

Marc paces.

I make our nest of Important Travel Stuff.

And I read

We landed in Cancun on time and got our rental car with minimal trouble. So far so good.

We rented a car with air conditioning; either Mexican air conditioning = just a fan, or we didn't get what we are paying for. So the 5+ hour drive was spent with the windows down and my hair blasting me in the face. We stopped in Tulum for gas and to buy water, when we learned the next problem with our car: it won't go into reverse. Marc and I both know how to drive a stick, but neither of us could get it into reverse. So I pushed the car backwards and Marc steered, to get us back on the road.

Shalom, in Tulum? It made me laugh. Our people are everywhere.

This blue was so gorgeous, and the distressed-ness made it even better.
Welcome to Tulum.

Silver, silver everywhere and not an earring purchased!

We got to our hotel well after dark, which was what we expected. The place is so remote, and there's no electricity out here at all, so it was pitch black (which means the stars are amazing - the Milky Way is dazzling), but we made it without problem. When we parked the car in a bank of sand we realized that getting out, without reverse gear, could be a problem. That's one of our missions today, to try to figure out the gear problem.

So we got here and took our stuff to our room, and then it was time for dinner.

It's a kind of B&B, and dinner is the social event....and neither Marc nor I are social. At all. There are two other couples staying here, plus Marcia, who owns the place. One couple is from Minnesota; he's a lawyer and she's a loud mouth. The other couple is from North Carolina, and we think they're father and son but we don't know for sure. The Minnesotans are older than we are, and we think the NC son is around our age. So, dinner.

Marc and I were really dreading having to sit and make small talk with strangers; it's not something either of us is good at, and we were really tired. But the main thing is that we're not good at it, and we find it painful. We sat at the end of the table, across from each other, and hoped we could just talk to each other, but it didn't work that way.

The Minnesotan woman regaled us with tales of China, the way they have people who shovel out the latrines and they use human waste as fertilizer!! Wow, so interesting! We may not be socially graceful, but we'd never talk about that at dinner with strangers.

So we made it through dinner pretty painfully. The meal was good; we started with a small green salad (with goat cheese, which I love but Marc hates), then fish with raspberry chipotle sauce, some kind of cubed baked yucca, we think, and grilled zucchini. Dessert was wonderful -- these little fried pie things full of mango. I loved them; they had a crispy sugar coating, and the mango was truly luscious.

We went to sleep shortly after dinner; even though this is in the Central Time Zone, we're 2 hours earlier than NY instead of one. They must not change the time as we do, I can't figure it out. All the windows were open so there was a very nice breeze through the room all night.

Still, sleeping was hard. It poured rain in the middle of the night, and we're just a few yards from the water's edge so we heard the surf all night....both of which sound great, but somehow they just kept us awake. Maybe it'll shift and we'll be lulled by it, I'm sure we will. The bed is just two twins pushed together, so cuddling is hard. We're either both on one twin, or one of us falls in the crack.

The beach is not pristine, since Hurricane Dean wiped everything out, but the beach right at our place is kept clean. Still, after this morning's walk, our feet have big bunches of tar on the bottom. But we are right on the beach, and I do love walking in the surf.

Marc said the rebuilt cabanas are very different than the old ones, but there's still a nice outside area (now a porch, then a palapa) with a couple of hammocks, and two chairs for watching the ocean. I really love sitting out here; in fact, I'm lying in a hammock as I write this.

See? Nice view from the hammock.

Breakfast was pretty great - I had banana vanilla pancakes, with bananas in the pancakes and on top. Yum. Marc got scrambled eggs that were full of spicy peppers, so much it made him hiccup. Double yum.

Today I think we're going to just hang out around our own place, lie in the hammocks, walk on the beach, rest and relax. We brought all our snorkel gear and we'll do that later, probably not today.

The internet connection is dicey but it works off and on, so I think we'll be able to upload pictures pretty easily.

Off to lie in the sun for now. Adios.

an unusual trip, for us

Time to plan our spring trip, and we want some sunny beach and a good bit of lounging. Good for the wintry spirit. There are a couple of reasons this trip is different: we're returning to a place that's familiar, and we're going to only one place for the whole trip.

Marc took Anna to Mayan Beach Gardens the winter before we met. We both love the Yucatan, and the beaches, and we enjoy snorkeling and piddling around. We also both hate the incredibly touristy Cancun and increasingly touristy Cozumel, and Majahual is still off the beaten path -- especially after Hurricane Dean destroyed the big cruise ship pier that was being developed.

This picture shows the road leading to the small hotel -- Marc took it the last time he went. See how remote it is?


We're going back to Mayan Beach Gardens, and we'll just stay there the whole week. It was devastated by the hurricane, but they've rebuilt and restored half the cabanas. We'll have a little cabana of our own, on the beach, with a straw-topped palapa with hammocks. The generator runs in the morning and late afternoon, so we're on battery power during the evening. Marc's and Anna's palapa:

Lots of laying around in the sun, walking and taking pictures, snorkeling and swimming.

Perhaps a day trip to another town, since we're renting a car and driving from Cancun. We've both been to Tulum, so we probably won't go there again. Come on, Yucatan, take me away.....