June 24 - Friday
Today we went on another road adventure. We still had our car from the day before, so we got an earlier start. Our first stop was Muyil, a smaller Mayan site. It's a bit further south than Coba, but along the coast. There are a few pyramids there, and yes, we climbed them. There were also a lot of bugs trying to eat us!

We left Muyil around 10 am or so, and head back north towards Cancun. We decided to stop at Hidden Worlds Cenotes, which we had seen a sign for on our way south. Hidden Worlds is basically a snorkel & scuba dive center. There are a series of cenotes (underground rivers) all throughout the Yucatan Peninsula. We went on a guided snorkeling tour of two of the cenotes at Hidden World. This was my favorite part of our whole trip! The water was nice and cool - we wore wetsuits. The water was crystal clear, and the caves formed by the river were full of stalagmites and stalactites. It was really amazing.

After leaving Hidden Worlds, we stopped at the Xel-Ha Archaeological Site. This was another small Mayan site, and is right across the highway from the entrance to the Xel-Ha ecological park which we went to during our last trip. There were more pyramids, which we again climbed. Between the stairs up to our hotel room and all of our pyramid climbing, my legs were getting pretty sore!

Our last stop for the day was Aktun Chen, which is a strange combination of zoo and cave tour. We got there maybe ten minutes before the last tour of the day left. They had several endangered animals - mostly snakes but also a small feline that was just a little bigger than a housecat but looked like a leopard. After looking at the animals, we went through the caves. I think we walked about two miles on the cave tour. All of the formations were really beautiful.

Then we finally headed back to the hotel. It was a really long day! We only had a little bit of time to rest and change for dinner, which was out on the sand that night. It was "Mexican Fiesta" night, so there was a ton of great Mexican food. There was dancing again too, a folklorico ballet group did a variety of dances from different Mexican states. They were really good, and it was fun to watch.

June 25 - Saturday
We headed north-west from Cancun to Ek Balam, another Mayan ruin. This is a really great site, and not a lot of tourists go there. There are a lot of buildings, including a pyramid temple with a ton of surviving carvings. They are just amazing. I would say this is my favorite Mayan site.

After leaving Ek Balam, we decided to head north to the coast. We drove to the town of Rio Lagartos, which is right on the edge of a flamingo preserve. We went on a boat tour of the lagoon, and saw a few groups of flamingos. It was still a little early for their breeding season, when thousands of birds come to nest in the lagoon. On our way back to shore we stopped at a sandbar for a "mayan mud" experience. The mud there was full of sulfur, and is used as a kind of mask. So, we piled the mud on and got back into the boat, letting it dry during our trip back to shore. We stopped to wash the mud off, but didn't really do such a great job of getting it all off. I guess we should have worn our bathing suits and gone swimming! Oh well.

It was interesting being back at the hotel for dinner, because most of the people from the week before had left, and there were all new faces to look at.

June 26 - Sunday
This was a pretty laid-back day. We drove to Playa del Carmen, which was only a little stressful because we got pretty close to running out of gas! But we didn't have any cash on us, and the gas stations only take pesos, and we couldn't find an ATM anywhere. Well, we made it to Playa, found a parking spot close to the pedestrian street, and headed to the ATM.

We wandered down the pedestrian street, stopping in a few stores along the way. My mosquito bites were killing me, they itched so much. So we stopped at a drugstore and I got some cream to put on. It worked fairly well - at least I didn't itch as much as without it! It rained off and on while we wandered, but finally seemed to stop about the time we got to the beach. We decided to go over to Cozumel, and headed to the ferry terminal. The boat was nice, almost like airplane seats but larger. I think both J and I fell asleep on the trip over there!

The bad part, when we got to Cozumel it was pouring rain. It was almost as bad as when we first got to Cancun. We huddled in the ferry terminal area for a while, and then made a run for the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. This was actually our first meal not provided by our hotel!

After it stopped raining we wandered around Cozumel a bit, before deciding that it was really not our thing. It was just about the same as Playa del Carmen, except on an island. Maybe if the weather had been better we would have enjoyed it more. While we waited for the ferry back to Playa del Carmen, we saw a $1 souvenir table. Jackpot! J wanted to get souvenirs for the people in her department at work, and I bought myself a few things.

Back in Playa, we decided to wander down the beach away from the pedestrian mall area. We ended up wandering through a residential & hotel area. We kept seeing people wearing Sunset uniforms, so we tried to find the hotel (Fishermen's Village), but never quite managed. I think we didn't go far enough, but our feet were getting tired and we still had to walk all the way back to the car, so we turned around.

We made it to a gas station, and headed back to the hotel. This was our last day with the car, and it was kind of sad to return it!

June 27 - Monday
This was a day of rain. It poured the entire day, so we stayed pretty much camped out in our room and watched movies on HBO all day! It rained so much that they cancelled room service, so we did have to venture out for lunch and dinner. I think the people working at the hotel were surprised that we weren't headed out on another adventure - Elsy had gotten used to asking us where we were going when we picked up our sack lunches every morning!

I'll continue the last bit later....