Mexico Day 3

We were up very early as we were to catch a van to go to Chichen Itza.  It was a three hour ride to the site, located in the heart of the Yucatan and the jungle.  Our guide Julio, was fantastic in conveying information about the Maya, the flora and fauna of the jungle and the history of the area.  On the way there we stopped at a coop where we bought cartouches with our intials on them in the Mayan language. We had a tour of the ruins and then were left to our devices for a bit of site seeing. It was very, very hot and dry and the paths were lined with vendors who were rather pushy.  They all were selling these clay whistles that sounded like jaguars. We met up with the group to eat lunch at a restaurant on the grounds.  There were men and women who danced with beer and trays on their heads.  Maisie seemed to really get a kick out of this.  Again, like everywhere in Mexico the restaurant was open air and surrounded by exotic birds and lizards.

Once back on the van we made a stop at a cenote, which is a water-filled cave where the roof has collapse.  The one we stopped in was 15 meters deep except where the roof had fallen in the middle so we did not go in because Maisie does not know how to swim yet.  We sat on the edge and had guppies nibble the dead skin off our feet-this is a Mexican spa treatment when getting a pedicure.  there were also some larger algae eating fish in the pool, but they seemed to just be curious and not interactive.  I twas a relief from the heat to be sure.

From here we went to one of the oldest Spanish cities in Mexico, Vallodolid. It was beautiful.  We visited an colonial mission church and some shops.  We bough vanilla and chocolate, two important products for the region.

We arrived back to the hotel around 12 hours after we left.  We had our usual al fresco dining experience, enjoyed the kid's mini disco in the "saloon" and off to bed.  I for one was grateful we had nothing but sun and surf planned for the next day.

Mexico Travelogue Day Two

On the second day, the first full day for us in Mexico, Maisie and I got up with the sun and to the exotic caws and calls of Yucatan grackles and maybe a Spider Monkey or two and headed to the beach.  It was still windy and the surf was big and present, but the air was warm and the sun golden.

  Maisie had found a drink glass on the beach and was entertaining herself with filling it with the white sand and then rinsing it in the Sapphire gin colored sea.

I turned and faced the resort and there were two VERY large birds soaring across the lightening sky- a pelican and a wood stork.  They were striking mostly due to the pterodactyl-like appearance in the cloudless sky.

After a wonderful al fresco breakfast buffet, we were in a taxi and off to Playacar, the town center to catch the ferry to Cozumel and to our planned excursion, the Atlantis Submarine and a look at the MesoAmerican reef and Yucatan Trench.

Some of the crew on Atlantis

On board the sub

Our little Ichtyologist

In town, we saw a lion cub, which was very exciting even while being sad, knowing this was not a natural life for such a majestic creature.

After the submersion on The Atlantis, we had lunch at a restaurant and had time to do a little shopping.

Waiting for the ferry to Cozumel

on the boat to the sub

inside the restaurant

After another lovely dining experience on the veranda, an hour of The Simpson's in Spanish and still feeling the time change and the effects of leaving home at 4 am we were in bed early, leaving the sliders open to the warm night air and jungle sounds.

Travelog Mexico, Day 1

This trip was made possible by my parents who saved and protected their monies so that I would have an inheritance.  Thank you! And a great big thank you to Annette C. who managed the fort while we were gone.

Our adventure began at 3 am Saturday morning when we arose for our 4 am pick up. It was cold.  Winter had settled back into Maine.  Our friend and  my co-worker, Annette, AKA Nonette, had graciously volunteered to take us to the airport at 4 am.  She said it was her way of living vicariously through us.  She was the perfect person for the task.  She is always positive, attentive, and held in very high regard by Miss Maisie.

The flights went off without a hitch-we actually arrived a bit earlier than planned on both legs. We touched down in Cancun around12:45 pm (Mexico time).  The drive to the hotel was about an hour, so we were settled in by 2:30 pm or so.  The first order of business was to trek to the beach and put our feet in the water. I had read earlier in the week that the temp was 79 degrees f. At it's warmest, the Atlantic in Maine only reaches the low 60's so we were pretty stoked about the warmth of the Caribbean. We all strode into the surf-and right back out-it was COLD and there was a strong undertow and rips. Apparently there had been a northerly on-shore wind for a few days and it had shifted the currents.  The blustery breezes also helped to keep the pools on the cooler side as well.

There were palm trees and tropical birds everywhere. All I could think of was "Welcome to Fantasy Island".  At night we slept  with the sliders open after lingering on the balcony where we enjoyed the warm evening and the radiant heat from the tile that had been sun baked during the day.

Before diner we had met with a booking agent provided by the travel company.  We decided on two days of Mexican tourist adventure. The first was a trip to Cozumel and an immersion in The Atlantis, a submarine that takes passengers down to the Meso American reef, the second largest coral reef in the world, and to the Yucatan trench. There is the possibility of seeing sharks and sea turtles on these excursions, so we were pretty excited.  The second experience we committed to was a tour to Chichen Itza that included a swim in a cenote and a side trip to a colonial city.

We were asleep before 10 pm. More than fifteen hundred miles from home having started the day in winter and now we were slumbering in paradise. How we were able to sleep beats me. It's pretty amazing when you think about traveling 7 miles up in the sky, going over 500 mph,  crossing the Tropic of Cancer, being welcomed in a foreign country-all in less time than you normally spend at your job every day.

Arriving in Cancun

Playa Del Carmen

The Intrepid Traveler

from our balcony

casa sweet casa

Riu Palace Maya Riviera

heading back to our room

First Impressions of Mexico

• the light-gauzy, yet clear
• the air-sweetly scented, slightly damp, warm with a near constant breeze
• the sounds- mostly birds, seemingly everywhere, loud, raucous, tropical
• the sky-cerulean blue or huge billows of puff near the shore
• the water-clear and the color of Sapphire gin near the beach becoming progressively darker until nearly a navy off shore

our beach

• the people (except for at the airport) exceedingly friendly especially with children.  The vendors-persistent
• the ground -solid and rocky
• the language-lyrical
• vegetation-lush, thick, exotic

Animals We Saw

• Coati
• Yucatan Woodpecker
• Social Flycatcher
• Iguana
• Gecko
• Orange Yellow Sulphur Butterfly
• Tamandua
• Agouti

Agouti

• Pelicans
• Woodstork
• Osprey
• countless fish
• spider monkey
• lion cub

What We Drank

many, many strawberry diaquiris

many, many pina coladas

marquerita

Dos Equus

milk

Coco Cola  or Pepsi Light

bottled agua

Aspirations Derived from this trip

• travel more (Bonaire, Virgin Islands, Key West, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Sweden , Norway, Iceland, England, Churchill, Labrador, Italy...Africa?)
• learn Spanish

Into the Mud

We are in March.  March is a precursor to many things, chief among them mud season. I am not a big fan of mud season.  The end of winter and beginning of spring actually gives me seasonal affective disorder.  This year March is also a precursor to my fiftieth birthday.  Again, not something I am particularly eying with great joy. I am making a grand attempt to think of it as a milestone, I mean  a century ago a lot of people didn't make it to fifty, but for me it really will have to be the end of believing I am not middle-aged.  Not that I have a Peter Pan complex, but I do have a five year old and I love-LOVE-being ALIVE, and would like to continue to do so with a high quality of mental and physical ability ( a little more health with my financial wealth wouldn't be bad either).  So it is with all of these things in mind that I have entered my first mud obstacle/fitness challenge.  On April 28th, I will be competing with three teams from my office at  the Into the Mud Challenge in Gorham, ME.  A 2.5 mile mud obstacle course.  For me it is a big middle finger to middle age and exposure therapy for my aversion to mud and a way to slide into spring with something other on my mind than the end of winter.

Wish me luck.

     The heft of it in my hand was surprising.  I had heard about The Werewolf Tooth for several weeks leading up to this moment of it resting in my hand.  When the discovery of it  had first been described to me, I envisioned a large and aged canine tooth. But the reality of it was more jagged molar. The business part of the thing looking like a topographical map of a distant alien world  in the far reaches of space or at the bottom of Earth's oceans. The part imagined to be the incisor- actually the root of the tooth.  The color was a storm gray basalt.  The surface smooth like a wind formed ice pond.
     The tribe of four year olds all knew the myth of the tooth. It had been excavated in the back yard of the school one late fall afternoon and was immediately recognized for the treasure that it was.  As luck would have it right after Thanksgiving, my wife and I had visited the surprisingly bustling International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, so I too, was savvy to the value of this great discovery.  Forty five years separate me from my daughter and her classmates, but the wonder and excitement, vision and creativity of the unknown knows no age limits-if we are lucky.

By No Means an Exhaustive List of Things that Make 2013 Hopeful

A lot of people make lists of "The Best of..." at the turn of the year.  I've decided to try to take a  more optimistic look ahead and name some things that presently lead me to feel hopeful for 2013.

• The Apocalypse didn't happen (OK, I guess that one is a little bit retrospective)
• Politically- Obama, Hillary, and Jimmy Carter and the Council of Elders
• My discovery, thanks to an election day purchase by my loved one,  of Crown Royal Black
• Early detection
• Senior Basketball (aka geezer ball)
• Old dogs getting second winds
• People's professional generosity and willingness to share what they know and have experienced
• Finding Bigfoot (Animal Planet)
• fireplace inserts
• Marriage Equality

... to be continued...