South of the border

We just got back from our week in Mexico. From my perspective it was amazing, relaxing, hot, sunny, restful, and totally fun. From Adam's perspective it was hot, humid, sunburning, relaxing, and mostly fun. We stayed in Villa Zama, a house on Tankah Bay outside of Tulum, Mexico on the Yucatan, south of Cancun. Becky, Kevin, Jill, and Julie were our traveling partners. We were all in a need of a much deserved vacation after a long year of dealing with kids. Poor Paul and Jerry had to stay home and keep things going in Bham. We missed them though! Becky was our tour guide, interpreter, travel agent, and much much more.

Our first night at the house provided a show of rainbows, sunsets, and an amazing lighting show.

There was a coral reef along the whole coast. We ventured out in our snorkel gear to check it out. I had never really been snorkeling so I thought it was pretty cool but for those were were experienced, they said they had seen better. Still it was cool to go right out our front door! We saw a ray and some pretty cool looking fish.

It also didn't take us long to find the local fish taco joint, "Urge Taquito" and eat large amounts of super good, cheap fish taco's and ceveche.

The next few photos show what Adam enjoyed the most about the trip. Games (Whiffle ball), reading in the hammock, and yes, more games. Kevin was a good match for all three of these activities for Adam.

Yes, they even broke out the sarongs!

This is the view I enjoyed most about the trip. Lying in the sun on my lounge chair reading, napping, and talking with the girls.

Villa Zama!

A short kayak adventure. Kevin was somehow luck enough to see turtles on two of his kayak outings, while the rest of us saw none.

Again, more bathing beauties! It was nice to not have anywhere to go, anything to do, and not feel guilty about it at all!

We went snorkeling in the Cenote in Akumal. It was AMAZING! The fish that have adapted to this estuary were pretty damn cool. The rock formations from the freshwater cenote were pretty cool too.

Another taco stand!

Consuelo, our amazing care taker (along with Erasto), made us two excellent traditional Mexican meals. Night one included, garlic shrimp, salad, tortilla soup, guacamole, salsa, and fresh tortillas! Yum! Night two included a traditional chicken Mole! Oh my, it was sooo good! She made it with several different kind of dried peppers, nuts of all kinds, raisins, animal crackers, tomatoes, garlic, sesame seeds, some more things, and of course, chocolate! It was so yummy!

Jill taking a try at making fresh corn torillas!

A full moon over the water. No wonder we were so crazy!

We went inland of a hot, humid tour of the ancient Mayan Ruins, Coba. Here is a picture of a ball court where they played a crazy ball game where the goal was to get a 5lb ball into the hoop only using your hips, elbows, and knees. It could take days to complete. The first team to get a goal, won.

An Estella in front of a temple.

The tree's in the jungle were amazing. Things grow out of the trees. See the little red flower/plant near the top? No monkey's though :-(

We then rented really old, cranky, falling apart bikes for a dollar and rode inland some more to see the biggest ruin. Not like our tour last summer but still fun in an odd way!

The ladies; Becky, Julie, Jill, and me! It was so fun to go on vacation with friends. We had some good girl late night talks out under the palapa's at our beach house.

This is the temple that we climbed to the top of. It was super steep!

Adam and Kevin imitating the gods depicted on the temple.

Julie practicing the Tree pose on-top of the temple. Ingela would be proud of our morning yoga routines on the deck and at the top of the Mayan temples!

Group shot!

Jill couldn't pass up on ordering a coco loco! And it was loco! Almost a mono loco but not quite the one we were hoping to see!

The Tulum ruins are set above the amazing blue waters of the Caribbean. We decided it would have been a good place to be a Mayan princess.

The ruins had their regular inhabitants. The iguana's were everywhere!

Ahhhh!

We then found this great beach were we payed to rent lounge chairs in the shade or the sun and have drinks brought to us if we wanted. We played in the surf here for quite some time. Somewhere on this beach are my favorite green sunglasses. Maybe someone else is enjoying them as much as I did! Oh well...

We opted to sit at the bar on swings instead of order from our chairs. The $7 ice creams were worth it!

So were the super cheap mangoes, pineapple, and coconut sold by the kids walking up and down the beach. They were sooo yummy!

On our second to last night, we missed a turtle coming up onto our beach. Our beach was the only one that had been visited and we missed it! Oh well. It was cool to see the tracks.

It was a great restful vacation with friends. We decided we might have to make it a yearly ritual. But this little place was pretty special.