Honeymoon - Isle de Mujeres

Our final trip was to the Isle de Mujeres...a 2 hour trip by katamaran.



Maybe this trip next time



A view of our hotel from the katamaran




About half way to the island the katamaran stopped and we went snorkelling which was a blast. This was the last day before we left and it was the best weather that we had. We have pictures of snorkelling and swimming with the fishes (including a Barracuda - you know you've got the song in your head now)



Our beautiful pedicured feet :)

The Isle de Mujeres was so beautiful and so isolated compared to where we stayed in Cancun. If we come down this way again I think we'd prefer to stay at a place like this.

Another day in paradise...it rained a little bit but we did get a nice picture of a rainbow
The happy couple

We had such a great time, we can't thank my parents enough for sending us down there.


A picture of the pool the morning before we left on the plane. Mexico, we miss you already

Honeymoon - Xcaret (2)

The next part of our day involved a trip in a boat through the jungle and some caves. It was a lot of fun!






and beautiful too!





After that we watched some shows...the first was 5 guys who climbed up a giant pole, tied a rope to their legs and then swung down. It was impressive.

The translator said that the ceremony was to pray for rain...they certainly got it!

Next we went up a giant tower that spun so you could see the entire area. It was really beautiful!

There was colourful wildlife all over the place



The day culminated in a fabulous performance which included the soccer/basketball game i described in one of the posts about Chichen-Itza, "fire hockey" which i tried to post a video of but it didn't work...basically they lit a ball on fire and ran it around in a game that was a cross between hockey and lacrosse. You don't want to be a ball hog in that game! The performance had a little bit of everything...at the beginning they gave all of us candles


There were Mayan performances

Performances almost in the audience

Giant heads...

...and even a mariachi band

we left the hotel at 7:20 in the morning and got home at 10:00pm. between underground caves, jaguars, monkeys, wild boars, flying men, giant heads, fire hockey and jungle tours we were never so happy to see the inside of our room

Honeymoon - Xcaret

The next tour we went on was to Xcaret an eco-theme park. It was a lot of fun too...and unlike Chichen-Itza the batteries didn't run out on the camera :)

The first thing we did was go snorkelling on the underground river. It was truly amazing. We have some pictures on the underwater camera which we will put up here once we get them digitized. There were two options, underground and above ground. If you went above ground you could get a picture with this fellow below...



We had the best buffet lunch of the whole trip here...Jane ordered us some tropical drinks in pineapple heads. I ate pineapple at every meal :)



I was kinda surprised that they had the "Jaguar Island" right beside the buffet. The idea was that they built a moat around these jaguars so they couldn't get off the island and, you know, attack people. Irregardless I still think that the choice of venues could be better





They simulated a barrier reef in their aquarium and it was very neat. It was an eco-park so they grew their own fish and shrimp to feed the bigger fish.




Jane liked the starfish

And the turtles...

I'm still not sure what a "Coati" is...Mexican raccoon?

I liked the monkeys




Neither one of us liked the wild boars (or their smell) as we walked to the next part of the tour.

Honeymoon - Chichen-Itza (2)

This is a picture of the main pyramid at chichen-itza but on the unfinished side. I imagine this is what the other side originally looked like, can you imagine the amount of work that went into restoring it?

Me and Jane on top of the only ruin that you could climb

And one more picture of the two of us before we headed back on the bus. It was a great day and we really enjoyed ourselves.

That was New Year's eve and after all the walking and touring, we fell asleep at about 9pm and were awakened by the sound of the crowd saying "Cuatro...tres...dos...uno...Happy New Year!" Great day nonetheless!

After that it rained and stormed for 2 days. Here is a picture of it one night. It was a lot more impressive in real life.



One of those nights we went to Mexico Lindo one of the "a la carte" restaurants there.