High Adventure

Thursday December 18th-Akumal Bay

Gary, Tyler & Tanner headed out early for their first dive of the day. They went to the second largest reef in the world and went 90 feet down! It was a pretty rough ride on the boat coming back so Tanner wasn't up for another one. Gary and Tyler went on a cave dive in a cenote (a sinkhole filled with fresh water) and saw lots of stellactites and rock formations and even some bats! Their guide told them to be sure to clean the bat poop out of their ears whn they were done!

Susan, Tarin and Trever pretty much hung out at the beach in Akumal Bay where the dive shop was and got a lesson in european sun bathing. The kids got some laughs out of it and Trever, an experience he'll not long forget. After their dive we all went to lunch at a very rustic spot named Lucy's. Very good shrimp tacos and ice cream!

Friday December 19th-Coba Ruins

Headed out early to catch the collectivo south to the bus terminal at Tulum. We were hoping to get the bus out to Coba at 9:10 but they were full so we waited for the 10:25. Spent some time wandering the streets and the local markets. Stopped at a tortilla factory where we bought a HUGE stack of fresh, hot tortillas for $1 and gobbled those down.

Their public bus system is so nice here. The bus to Coba was air conditioned and had Spiderman playing in spanish of course. It was about a 45 minute ride. Got to the ruins and rented some bikes as we had heard that it was a really long walk into the ruins. The kids loved it, riding bikes in the jungle and stopping whenever we wanted to explore. It wasn't as hot and humid as we expected for being in the jungle and no bugs!

We finally made it to the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan Peninsula and we were shocked by the size of it and that we were going to climb it! As you can see, it is one steep climb and by the time you finally make it up there you realize that somehow you've got to get down. It was blazing hot at the top, we took some pictures and went inside the little room at the top.

We thought we'd be here with many more Americans or english speaking people but we've really been in the minority when it comes to the language. LOTS of Europeans vacation here. We're finally catching onto the money exchange thing. Gary accidently gave the driver today a huge tip without even realizing it. He later said no wonder the guy gave him a big smile!

Tomorrow we leave for Cancun. We're going to get up early again and go snorkeling at Yal-Ku lagoon which is supposed to be a great spot. Today while Gary was snorkeling out in the bay, he saw stingrays, lots of turtles, and tons of fish. Our shuttle comes at 1 and I've told the kids that Cancun is a lot different than here. Here Riviera Maya you get much more of an authentic Mexican experience and lots less people. The trade off for that will be a more comfortable bed at the condo!

Tanner: is awake now, this week is pretty much awesome so far. It is super hot outside but at least i know at the end of the day i can watch my spanish spongebob and fairly odd parents. my main goal for this trip is not to be whte when i comehome like before. so today i just layed outside an d slept. today was fun thiugh cause we went to some mayan ruins and we got to climb the temple thingy, it was really tall but it was super fun to climb. it was hot at the top but it still took forever for my ice to melt. It is wierd being in mexico, it's getting hard to tell the difference between english and spanish now, everyone talks too fast, even in spongebob. they don't even make it sound like him so it's not very fun to watch. but today my parents told me that we needed to eat all of the food byy tomorrow so that was a great thing to hear. the food in mexico is awesome and we got some salsa, it's real too!!!

Trever: When me and mom were down at the beach, dad came back from snorkeling and I found some people making pottery. I wanted to paint a lizard and it was 60 pesos or $5. When I came back to the room I found a huge hermit crab and brought it inside our room. His name is Charles and is 4 inches.

Tarin: yesterday we went to the beach and we saw lots of naked people and made a somewhat of a sandcastle. But we saw some people making a sandcastle that look like a pyrimid with a moat that looked so cool! so we took a picture near it and pretended it was ours! LOL So, today we went to Coba and climbed then pyrimid things and we got to ride these cheap bikes everywhere there, it was fun. The buses we rode in to get there were so comfortable!! They were like heaven.jk they had air conditioner, reclining seats, tv's and lights in the ceiling. Afterwards we went to a tortilla place/shack and we bought a ton of hot tortillas for 11 pesos! Yummy!! My dad made yummy smoothies with all the things we had left in the fridge like watermelon, grapes, bananas, icecream and yogurt!! Today was very adventurous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!