7 posts tagged “mexico”

A couple things that made us laugh.

The following was taken at Xcaret, an eco-amusement park. I'm glad to know the good ol' greased pole is still providing hours of fun!

Here's the pole itself:

 

Alas, I did not try it. (I really didn't want to wash the grease off the entire front half of my body...)

You know, one thing you notice when visiting other countries is that they're not nearly as lawsuit-happy as we are here in the U.S. (and especially California). So Mexicans don't dumb everything down for you. When you're walking around, you're expected to look where you're going. No need to add unecessary banisters on 3 stories of steps that lead up to a bar.

 

Or rope off constructions sites, for that matter. Construction sites seemed to be a little, uh, iffy...

 

Who needs a dust mask?

This underground river was one of the most amazing things I've seen in my life... ranks right up there near El Templo de la Sagrada Familia!

There's still a ton of unexplored jungle all over the Yucatan peninsula. The flora is so thick that you couldn't even try to walk through it. Even with a machete, it would take a long time. Yet every once in a while, someone does explore, and finds a little cenote (a sinkhole) - they are all over the place. The cenotes are these beautiful caves filled with fresh water. It's so clear you can see really deep down.

Rio Secreto was discovered two years ago, by the landowner who was hunting an iguana. He was chasing it through the jungle, when it went into a hole in the ground. He looked down into the hole, and lo and behold, there was some water. He widened the hole, started exploring... and discovered a big underground river. Rio Secreto has been open to public tours for the last five months, so we felt pretty lucky to experience it.

Here we were, on a semi-trecherous jeep ride on our way to the entrance of the underground river:

So, the Yucatan peninsula used to be underwater... it was the sea floor back when Pangea was separating, I guess. It's all limestone, which is pretty brittle, and it collapses a lot, which is how they often find these cenotes.

Here's the honey and I, fully donned in our spelunking gear:

Our route along Rio Secreto was 600 meters long, but they are still exploring the river, so it's probably much longer. The cave has more formations, and more types of formations, than nearly any cave in the world!

 

It was pretty dark throughout most of the cave, but they added lighting in select spots.

 

Here I am, squeezing through a narrow passageway in the cave...

The company that runs the tour (AllTourNative), I am happy to say, is very intent on being an ecologically responsible company. They only take small groups through the river, which makes for a better tour anyway. You're not supposed to touch anything inside the cave, because the oils from your skin inhibit the formation of stalactites and stalagmites. I am, however, afraid that even small groups are bound to effect the cave. Anywho, here's our little group staring in amazement at the formations of the cave:

This picture gives you an idea of how totally clear the water is.

 

Here are a couple of the creatures that find a way to live in the near-total darkness of the cave:

 

As you can see, tree roots find their way into the cave and ultimately reach water. Eventually, the tree roots sometimes get covered by minerals and form their own stalactites.

 

Rio Secreto was a spectacularly beautiful and not overly-touristy tour. Our guide, Christian, was really friendly and super-knowledgable about speliology (that is, cave studies) and geology. Plus, he spoke probably 7 languages. You could tell he just loved his job, which made it fun for everyone.

 

The day in general was the most perfect day of the vacation, and probably one of the best days of my life. After the tour, we had a leisurely afternoon, then went to a really good yoga class held in a palapa in a jungle-like garden right across from our hotel. It was seriously idyllic. The honey and I were the only people in the class, and it was just wonderful and deeply re-centering. Afterwards, we had the best dinner of the trip, too, at a place called Yaxche... more to come on that in the food post.

We left for Mexico October 30. I forgot that we'd miss Halloween at home (darn - one of my favorite holidays!), but I was consoled by the fact that that meant we'd get to celebrate El Dia de los Muertos in Mexico.  I just love the concept of this holiday. First, it's about honoring your ancestors. In many ways it reminded me of my own family's celebration of Chinese New Year. Second, I appreciate the fact that it doesn't make death a scary thing -- rather, the holiday treats death as part of the cycle of life.

Here's a photo of our waiter dressed up for the occasion. He's making us a Maya coffee -- a flaming concoction of coffee, chocolate, and several liquers. (Overall, waaaay too sweet for my taste, but it was a cool demonstration).

 

The restaurant, La Cueva del Alux (The Cave of the Gnome, roughly), was really cool. It's inside a cave and they had a really good guitar performance and a belly dancer. More to come in the food post later.

During El Dia de los Muertos, people put up little altars to their ancestors. They put up photos of the ancestor, candles, tequila, some food, and lots of yellow flowers. They put petals on the ground in the direction of the cemetery where the ancestor is buried, to help the ancestor find his/her way home.

 

On El dia de los Muertos, it is (or was) believed that people can actually speak with their ancestors on this particular day. It seems to make the concept of death a little easier, since you at least get to visit with your loved ones once a year. Not a bad deal.

 

The eco-park Xcaret had a huge (fake) beautiful cemetery set on a mountain.

 

 

 

Being in Mexico for this holiday was a really cool cultural experience.

Hey neighbors,

I'm officially caught up with 430+ post-vacation emails.... yesssss. Now I can get to fun stuff: reliving my vacation via blog. I'm going to do this topically rather than chronologically.

Here's a preview of upcoming posts:

• Rio Secreto
• Dia de los Muertos
• Food (you didn't think I'd leave that out, did you?)
• Funny things you see in Mexico
• El mar

But now, I'll start with Playa del Carmen. We stayed in Playa 5 1/2 days, and in Cancun for 3 1/2. Playa del Carmen was my favorite of the two; it's still fairly small, although I heard it's the most rapidly growing city in the world... so enjoy it now while it lasts, I guess. Cancun tends to be the spring breaker destination, whereas Playa is a more chill destination popular with Europeans. The main reason I liked it more is because there, the locals mix with the tourists. You feel like you're in a real city (even though it has a main tourist thoroughfare). Cancun is kind of like tropical Vegas.

We stayed at the Shangri-La Caribe resort. It's an older hotel, but had the best stretch of beach in Playa:

 

Here's what the hotel looks like:

 

And here's the view from our balcony:

 

I spent several mornings laying in my hammock on the balcony, reading. And it felt. so. good.

Look, they even made little animals out of our towels (yes, I get very excited by these types of things, what can I say):

 

 

On our first day of vacation, we just bumped around town. I slept for about 10 hours and it was the first night of good sleep I had gotten in a while. We had a great breakfast, then walked around 5th avenue, the main touristy area. I've seen enough cheap Mexican souveniers to last a lifetime, so we mainly just walked and got some food. We got stuck in a little 15-minute rainstorm, it was kinda romantic.

The next day we went to Xcaret, an eco-park. Kind of like a cross between Disneyland, a zoo, and the beach.

 

It was a fun day! At the end, of course, we had to take a little siesta:

More to come soon!

The honey and I have been trying to plan our 2008 vacation for some time. The current plan for our week-long trip is Playa del Carmen! I've read that it's a lot less commercial than Cancun, and I've always wanted to visit the Mayan ruins, since I studied them in college as an anthropology major. Here are the things that sound really fun:

• Mayan ruins - I read that Chichen Itza is a better visit than Tulum if you only have time for 1
• cavern diving
• trip to an eco-park (Xcaret or Xel Ha?)
• swim with dolphins
• nightlife - I read about some nightclub in a cavern in Playa del Carmen, that sound cool
• and plenty of beach-lounging

Based on a Frommer's guide, we're thinking about staying at the Shangri-La Caribe. We're planning on going in November for 7-8 days.

So, neighbors, have any of you been to Playa del Carmen or Cancun?  Do you have any recommendations, must-sees, "don't"s, etc.?  Thanks in advance!

P.S. I am hoping my work sends me to Tokyo in July and Amsterdam in September (and the honey and I are dying to visit Tokyo and some friends in Okinawa)... more on this later!

The weekend before last, the honey and I went to Mexico (and I'm just getting around to blogging about it now).  Our friend's dad, known affectionately as Ronbo, recently bought a condo in Rosarito and graciously invited us to stay the weekend with him.

Rosarito is getting peppered with more condos, and they're getting nicer -- although I suspect that construction will slow over the next few years, due to the U.S. housing slump. Donald Trump had a building going up in northern Rosarito but a few years after all the advertising started, it's still just a pile of dirt... too bad for those investors.

Anyway, there's a different pace to Mexico that makes it a really nice getaway. Of course, if you're the type of person that doesn't like to see any ugliness on your vacation, northern baja California is not for you. There is a lot of beautiful coastline, but it's peppered with shanty towns and poverty.

On Saturday, after Ronbo cooked a nice breakfast, we drove to the Guadalupe Valley -- just about 15-20 minutes east of Ensenada (which is about 30 minutes south of Rosarito).  Guadalupe Valley was a beautiful change of scenery from Ensenada. You go from beach to rolling green hills studded with boulders. It reminded me of Ventura County, where I grew up. There were several ranches and lots of wineries -- Guadalupe Valley is known as the wine country of Mexico.

 

The Guadalupe Valley looks like what I would imagine that Napa or Sonoma looked like 50 years ago. The wineries are pretty tiny, and there's just one main two-lane road, with some dirt roads going out to the wineries. Our first stop was Monte Xanic, which we were told is the "fanciest" winery of the Valley.

 

We paid about $8 for a tasting of red and white wines. The white wines were a bit acidic for me, and the reds didn't really sing... they just sort of fell a little flat. However, lots of people seem to like their wines so it's just my personal taste.

The prices in Mexico (at least for non-Mexicans like me) aren't that cheap... they're nearly the same as U.S. prices in places like Rosarito and Ensenada. A bottle of wine at Monte Xanic ran around $18-25. I'll never go back to Porto Nuevo, which turned out to be a high-priced tourist trap (a lobster lunch was over $20, plus they charge for parking and tried to sell me a straw cowboy hat for $30).

On the way back, we visited a tiny winery called La Casa Vieja to see some traditional Mexican dancing that we read about in the local paper.

 

 

This place was a great find. The winery was just started by a father and son, and they have a nice story. The father is Mexican, and married an American woman. They raised their son in Nebraska. The son moved back to Mexico to start this little winery -- throughout the place you'll see references to Nebraska, from the John Deere tractor to the weathervane with the Nebraska rooster. La Casa Vieja is so new that they haven't yet got enough vines to make their own wine. Currently they buy grapes and mix them.

 

They don't even have (or want to produce) labels yet... so they rely on masking tape and permanent markers:

 

I actually enjoyed the cabernet sauvignon here quite a bit (more than Monte Xanic). Maybe it was partly the label that did it for me. We bought a bottle and shared it last week with a friend... I guess it just felt special.

By the end of our tasting at La Casa Vieja, all the wineries were closing, so we headed back -- but I'd love to come to this area again. In fact, I may return with my parents for Father's Day to stay at the Adobe Guadalupe Inn, which looked pretty fantastic.

The next day, we went to Ensenada for brunch at La Fonda -- a fabulous brunch with a ton of Mexican and American food, and a beautiful view, for around $20 per person.

Afterwards, the honey and I bought some patio furniture (which, by the way, was a great investment for our little house-by-the-sea... we've been enjoying the sunset a lot more, sitting outside!).  A nice, relaxing weekend, and I can't wait to go back with the fam!

I haven't yet bitten the bullet and purchased a nice digital camera, so I still take photos with real film. One of the advantages of real film is that it forces you to live in the moment. I take a photo, and hope it turned out. There's no reviewing and re-taking. Kind of like a lot of things in life. And, you get a nice surprise once you finally develop your film. Instead of looking at photos and remembering something that happened 5 minutes ago, you look at your freshly developed photos and remember something that happened a week ago. Or, in my case, 6 months ago.

Why so long? Well, it seems that every time I come back from some trip, I've snapped less than a whole roll of film. So I always wait until I snap the rest of the roll before I go to develop them. This year, that ended up being an ongoing process. On every trip, I'd return with at least 10 photos still to take. So I kept waiting. Finally, last week I developed 5 rolls.

The film went as far back as Chinese New Year (Tet) in February. There were photos of my Grandma, who passed away in May. It was really nice to re-visit the last photos I took of her. She looked thinner than years before, when she was well, but she was grinning and standing before the stove, cooking my honey a special dish. I swear, the sky could be falling but my grandma would still be smiling and just wanting everyone to get along.

The next group of photos was from a trip to San Francisco and Santa Cruz. I played around with picnik, a site that lets you do a lot of Photoshop effects, but in a simpler interface. I found that I prefer using Photoshop for touching up people, but I like picnik for creating effects and using filters.

 

 

In downtown SF, I spotted a man giving away free hugs, so I got one:

After a few days in SF, the honey and I went to Santa Cruz. On the way there -- uh oh! -- we got a flat tire.

 

When we arrived in Santa Cruz, I fell in love with it.

The view in Santa Cruz were stunning, and there was a relaxed vibe and vibrant art community there.

On the way back, we stopped in Half Moon Bay for lunch.

 

The last of my 5 rolls of photos was from a trip to Mexico with 12 of our friends.

It was really nice re-living all those moments when I got my film developed (finally).