Two weeks ago, I got back from Mexico. I finally have all my pictures together. Here goes.

I went to Mexico to visit my friend Jaime, who's living in Merida, on the Yucatan peninsula, for five months on a semester abroad. I mentioned previously that I have a personal goal of visiting one new country every year, so visiting her was my excuse to add Mexico to my list of countries visited.

After a long day of travel, including two flights and a four-hour bus ride, I arrived in Merida, Yucatan in the middle of the night, which is apparently not the middle of the night in Mexico. Jaime and her friend David came to pick me up after just finishing dinner a a local restaurant. Just finishing dinner. At 2:00 in the morning. Insane. Although, I was pretty ready for some dinner by the time I got there.

  

We spent the first few days of my trip in Merida. Holy hot. I knew it would be hot - Jaime had given me fair warning - but I was not mentally (and apparently emotionally prepared) for the stifling heat that is Merida. We tried going running one day at about 11:00 in the morning and I actually felt like I was going to faint. We didn't run much after that...

The first day we hung out in her apartment for a while (I caught up on some sleep and nursed myself back to health after the treacherous run attempt that morning) then went to the temple in Merida that evening. The temple there is one of the small ones President Hinckley built in the early 2000s, and it looks exactly like my home temple in Louisville, KY. The landscaping at this temple, however, was significantly more beautiful with exotic palm trees, lush green bushes, and colorful tropical flowers.

That night we walked around downtown, looking at some of the old buildings. I love this old Spanish colonial style.

It was Semana Santa (Holy Week) which is the week leading up to Easter, so the cathedral was pretty busy.

The next day we went out to a place called Cuzama, where we were going to visit three different cenotes. Cenotes are kinda hard to describe because I don't think there's a direct translation in English. They're sinkholes that have water in them so they're like natural underground swimming holes. Like a cave with water in it with a giant hole in the ceiling. They're obviously quite popular in that area since it's summer year-round and from what I understand, very few people have air conditioning. Read: sweltering heat all year long.

We took a bus out there which brought back all kinds of wonderful memories of Argentina. When we got on it was standing room only, which is fine. I like to stand up on the bus. But they apparently don't care about anyone on the bus because they keep allowing people on, even when there's no longer standing room. So you're skin to skin with other hot, sweaty people since there is, of course, no air conditioning on the bus. It really doesn't bother me. I kinda like it. You know, because of the memories. This time, though, I was back-to-back with a larger lady who was taking up more than her fair share of the aisle space and my back was a bit curved. Not very comfortable. As we went along, people got off which made it more bearable and towards the end we were going to score a couple of seats until these (obviously well-mannered) little boys swooped in and stole them from us before the people who were sitting there had even stood up. Scrappy little buggers.

Anyway, we finally made it there and boarded this little...umm...taxi. I don't know what it's called. It's a motorcycle with a bench on the front for you to sit on.

He took us out to the cenotes where we learned that there was a four-hour wait to get on the mule-drawn cart that takes you to the cenotes. And there was no shade to wait under. No, thank you. So instead he took us over to the next town, Homun, which had another cenote that was less crowded. The cool water was a welcome reprieve from the suffocating heat.

There's the hole in the ceiling.

At this particular cenote, you lower yourself down through a hole on a (usually wet) flight of stairs with a rope. Nope, not scary at all.

The next day we went to Chichen Itza, a very famous archaeological site. On the way there we traveled through some little Mayan towns which had sweet huts.

The pyramids there were impressive. This pyramid I think was a temple and has a snake head at the bottom which I guess symbolizes a Mayan belief that a white god descended from heaven and visited them. Hmm...sound familiar?

We're wearing those hats because it was, of course, ridiculously hot. So frustratingly hot that I wanted to cry.

It was amazing to see what they could do without modern machinery. Their workmanship is really very impressive.

This is another cenote, which is inside the park. It's apparently sacred, though, and they'd make sacrifices here. No swimmers allowed, which was fine with me since the water was greenish-brown.

Jaime's friends Rocio and David came with us to Chichen and Valladolid, the city we went to that night.

Did I mention it was hot? We found shade whenever possible.

After we saw the ruins, we went down the road a little bit to another cenote (this one we were allowed to swim in). I really wasn't feeling good by this time - headache, nausea, lightheadedness (that's a real word. I looked it up). I'm not kidding. It was that hot. I didn't even want to get in the water, but it really did help.

They had a ledge set up in this one that you could jump off. It looked pretty high, but when we got up there the lifeguard said it was only like fifteen feet or something. There were a few girls we were watching that stood up there for probably twenty minutes trying to get themselves to jump. Pansies. If you look closely you can see me jumping. Jaime's on the other side of me.

This cenote had roots that ran all the way from the hole in the ceiling to the water. The pictures don't even do it justice. It was gorgeous!

We went back to Chichen that night for a light and sound show that they do on the ruins. By light and sound they mean colored lights on the ruins with a narration of the history of the people. It was interesting for the first few minutes until I realized the lights really didn't change and there was nothing to watch. And the female narrator said Chichen Itza really dramatically and that got kinda boring. So Jaime and I just started making jokes that were really funny at the time but now I can't remember them. Shoot.

We went on to Valladolid that night, which was an adorable little colonial city. We checked into our hostel then visitied an Oaxaca (another area of Mexico) festival that was going on in the square. We tried some bread, which was delicious, and some slushy ice cream stuff. The flavor? Rose petal. No joke. It was actually pretty good.

As far as I can tell, based on the Latin countries I've visited, most cities have a main square with a church on one side. Valladolid was no exception.

We walked around a bit then had dinner at a delicious Mexican restaurant called Conato. David was so obsessed with these pitchers that he bought one. They don't usually sell them but he wanted it so bad they sold it to him.

 

The hostel we stayed at that night was beautiful, though the beauty only came in the morning. Jaime, Rocio, and I slept in a female dorm with a couple other girls, one of which was apparently mentally unstable because she wouldn't let anyone turn the fan on and freaked out any time someone would open the window. It was a sauna in there. I've never been so happy to get up in the morning.

We had breakfast there and were able to enjoy the scenery, having left crazy no-fan girl behind.

We went to church then visited some other places in town, including a convent that was built in the 1500s.

We said goodbye to Rocio and David, then Jaime and I continued east to the coastal city of Tulum. It was stormy that night but the beach was still beautiful.

We stayed at a hostel that night with a roommate who didn't think fans were evil, which was a vast improvement. In fact, we each had a fan to ourselves. I even slept with a sheet on me! The next morning we got up and went to the ruins on the beach. I think this was my favorite place that we visited. The ancient ruins against the backdrop of the ocean was stunning.

Meanwhile, I looked stunning against a backdrop of a giant iguana. Giant wild iguana. Check out that sweet tan line on my shoulder.

Right? Beautiful.

I loved this place. The park wasn't huge, the scenery was gorgeous, and we got there early enough to beat the crowds. Way better than Chichen Itza, though the ruins were much smaller.

Here Jaime informed me that she would read the marker to me in French, meaning the language there in the middle. Which is Mayan.

After visiting the ruins, we boarded a bus and headed to Playa del Carmen. I love hostels and I love seeing ruins and other cultural things. But do you know what else I love? Hotels. Any kind, really, but especially nice hotels. I think I've written about this before, but it's kind of an obsession. I love them. In Playa del Carmen an all-inclusive resort awaited us. I was so excited. We made it to the downtown then had to get out to the hotel zone to find our hotel. A taxi was out-of-control expensive, so being the frugal travelers we are, we found a bus that would take us for a fraction of the price.

He dropped us off on the highway at what seemed to be the entrance of our resort. We got off and started walking through the entrance. Then we walked for what seemed like two miles in the blistering sun with all of our baggage. All we had were backpacks, but they were not light. And they were not cool.

Thirty minutes later, we finally arrived.

The eighty mile walk was worth it. (Ok, we went running later and it was only a mile.) We got checked in (and got a free upgrade!) and found our room. It was beautiful and wonderful and I never wanted to leave.

It even included some very stylish robes and slippers.

The resort had several pools, beach access, a couple of buffets, a few restaurants, unlimited drinks (plenty of virgin pina coladas, banana coladas, and miami vices), and nightly entertainment (we only saw a fire show, which was pretty cool). Everything was included. I think my favorite part was being able to eat whenever I wanted without having to even wait for it to be prepared.

I think the beach is beautiful but to be honest, I'm a pool girl. The beach is just sandy and salty and dirty. I prefer to swim in crystal clear chlorinated water. A beachside pool sounds ideal to me.

Pools do not have little anteater friends, though. The beach does.

After checking out, you better believe we stuck around for a few more drinks (don't worry, all non-alcoholic) and lunch.

I'll probably always be a hostel kind of traveler because it's all I can usually afford, but it was really hard to leave this place. I miss it every day, and I've been home for two weeks. I would live in a hotel if I could.

That afternoon we went up to Cancun and visited Isla Mujeres. We had to take a ferry out there, which I was a little nervous about since I get motion sickness pretty easily. I did ok, though, and on the way back we got to sit on the deck outside which helped.

I told Jaime to improve her posture. This is the result.

I read an article about posing in photography and one of the rules it said was "if it bends, bend it." It doesn't look that great when everything is bent at the same time.

There are some things to see on the other end of the island but we got there too late and they were closed, so we just walked around and looked in some of the shops. I really want to start a nativity collection, getting one from each country that I visit. I don't know if they sell them all over the world but most of the countries I've visited have them. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one that I wanted for a price that I wanted. There were some options, though, even though one guy told me he had the only one on the island. Shopowners aren't so honest, it turns out.

I think this is about the time Jaime was trying to convince me to stand up on the bow of the ship and pose. I didn't.

I flew out the next day, and even though I was very sad to leave Jaime, I was really happy to return to my own bed and a washer and dryer.