Friday, February 29, 2008

These snorkels better come in handy...

So we have decided to get off Isla Mujeres and move to another island...Right now we are in Cozumel, we got here a few hours ago. Isla Mujeres was a great little beach island, but after a day of not so great weather there is not much to do there. Forget about trying to go for another bike ride in those high winds...But I must say, the color of the ocean water around Isla Mujeres is so beautiful! It is this clear turqouise that you can see right down to the the bottom through. Then you see the gradients of every color ocean blue you can imagine, it's so pretty. I haven't seen water this beautiful in a long time....
We had minor holdup that made us stay in Cancun for one night, last night. We actually stayed at the same hostel that we first stayed in, so the familiar surroundings were nice. I was supposed to be having a Citibank ATM card mailed to me from the US. There was a debacle in getting it to me on time before we left, so this was the only solution. Sketchy, huh? It was sort of difficult to figure out where to send it, but we decided on Cancun, a bigger city that we thought may be the easiest and safest place to send it...After getting an address of where the Citibank branch was, I set off in a taxi to find it, while Adrian waited at the internet place with all our stuff. It wasn't a good start when the cab driver just drove me around in a circle and dropped me off at a completely different bank, one where I could've just walked to! I was starting to notice there were no Citibanks....I first tried Scotia bank....Then BanaMex, which I realized is the Mexican Citibank. The problem was, after trying several branches of Banamex, none of the addresses matched the one I was supposed to find, but I was in the right area. I was basically running back and forth for 2 hours, with several people just sending me every which way, thinking more and more that there was no way I would get this card. I went back to find Adrian, and since it was nearing closing time for the banks, our only option was to stay overnight and look in the morning. After checking into the hostel, we went looking for it again, and Adrian's expert Spanish helped us realize that the bank at that address did not exist anymore!! It was now a hardware store....Oh crap! We retired from our search, yet later when I check the UPS tracking, found that it was delivered somewhere, but we had no idea, to some guy name Javie at some unfamiliar address . So first thing this morning we went back to the main BanaMex branch with this information, one that I had already been to, and the nice bank lady said "Oh, I know him, he works right upstairs." Could this really be this easy now, after all my retarded searching yesterday?
Bingo! It was finally delivered to this office, and a receptionist signed for it. At 9.30, I had my card, much to my disbelief! And just to make sure it worked, I promptly got some money out of the ATM with it...geez, I think I am starting to babble on like Adrian in his journals...
Before leaving Cancun this morning, I bought some snorkels for us at Walmart, thinking that they would be useful to us in the next couple of weeks, and then we won't have to rent them anywhere. I hopped on the bus to Walmart, and picked up a pair cheaper then we would find them at any beach town. Last night I had already gone to Walmart on the bus, but I couldn't find the return bus and resorted to taking a taxi back to the hostel. I am excited to say that I found the return bus this morning, only costing 80 cents for the round trip instead of the two dollar taxi...I think yesterday's bus driver just went the wrong route, because it turns out I was just waiting on the wrong side of the Walmart for a bus that wouldn't go by there...Well, that seems to be all the excitement for now. Tomorrow we are planning on putting those new snorkels to use here in Cozumel. We are meeting up with a friend of Adrian's who is stopping here on a cruise and will snorkel with him and friends...

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

It is ok to relax, still

I´m sitting in Isla Mujeres trying to stay out of the wind, sandstorm that is outside. It´s a little chilly today, for when I woke up and dressed to get some breakfast, my tank top and shorts were actually not enough! I have changed into pants and a light sweatshirt, so I am glad that I packed them. Since it´s so windy and crappy out today, and there is not much else to do on the island, (we already beached it, biked it, walked it-it´s pretty small)I am doing a lot of reading...which is nice. I enjoy reading, but it´s not often that you have so much time to do it, without feeling guilty that you should be doing other things. I am even reading a book about a woman traveling in Italy and she is struggling with the idea of relaxing, and not doing anything but enjoying yourself, so it is very fitting. If you get a chance, I recommend the book, called Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I have decided to make it my mission to read good quality books on this journey, and I should include the old classics as well, if I can get my hands on them. There is an adorable bookstore-cafe in the block near our hostel called MaƱana. I have already exchanged one book there and found it such an adorable place to get a delicious licuado (smoothie) and chill and read.
As I mentioned, yesterday we biked around the island. It was great to see, but ridiculously hard to ride on a shitty mountain bike with no gears. The tiniest of hills seemed mammoth, and it didn´t help we were riding into a headwind! We got to the Punta Sur of the island (south point) and they had the smallest ruin there, well, the last 5 feet of a ruin that was previously there. Then they went and put all these weird art sculptures on the point right next to the ruin. It was so strange, and it did ruin the view, not to mention you had to pay to look at them-which we didn´t. The return ride was easier, and we finally found a beach you could swim in, for the beaches around the point were unswimmable. Last night we listened to a great salsa, bongo, jazz band play at the hostel....That´s the updates for now. Tomorrow we will head back to Tulum I think. Ciao!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

More good times

So at the moment we are in Isla Mujeres, an island off the coast of Yucatan, extremely close to Cancun. It is a tiny little island that many people only do day trips here from Cancun. We got here after an afternoon of travelling, do it was great to see another cool hostel setup. The place has a huge hacienda type common area, a beach bar-it's pretty cool. Unfortunately I had a few too many drinks with very cheap liquor which did not sit well with my today...So I didn't mind lounging most of my day away in the hammock recovering. We did make it down to the beach this afternoon to enjoy the beautiful water. I like going to the beach a little later anyway so it is not as hot. Even though I am getting a tan, noone likes to be scorched! Today I noticed the faint likes of the tell-tale flip flop lines on my feet and got very excited....I'm sure you understand :)
Today I also finished a ginormous book I had been reading-The Chronicles of Narnia (I can hear CD in my mind doing her fave SNL rap about it now). SS bought this book for m birthday a year or two ago and never takled it until now. And it was a big decision to lug that huge book around with me, I mean it takes up a lot of space and it is heavy! Nevertheless, I thought of how good I would feel when I finished it and could exchange it for a much smaller size book...And I just finished it about 1 hour ago. A pretty good book...Now I remember why I liked it as a kid and why I named 5 different hamsters in a row Aslan (the main lion character)! I recommend it, and if anyone wants to come pick it up in Mexico, you can have my copy:) While I was reading it today, a lizard fell from the thached roof above me right onto the page I was reading! So of course I yelled and dropped the book...Then I was worried that I squished the lizard in the pages-that size book could do some serious damage....No worries, he got away-but I was a little worried that more creatures would fall on my head (I also forgot to mention that a seagul pooped on me 2 days ago!).
And I have another thought to add to my list of complaints about bathrooms here...The Mexican people don't seem to think that shower curtains or stalls would be a very sensible thing to have in our bathrrom. It's just the toilet, sink, and an area to shower in, that is not at all separated from the rest of the bathroom. You take a shower and everything get soaked! You need to actually take the precious roll of toilet paper out of the bathroom so it doesn't get soaked while you shower!! Also, the floor gets flooded. There is no point in using a bathmat, as that gets soaked, so you think just wearing flip flops in there will help. Until the little dirt on our flip flops then make mudprints everywhere. It's really annoying... And it makes no sense to me...I will not get used to that...
One more random note. Postcards are being phased out of existence. I have just walked around this little beach town, and I thought I would have so many to chose from, in almost every store. Not so much....I could only find a few, and they were kind of ugly to begin with. But I will send some along, as soon as I find some stamps!! Baby steps here people...Ok we are off to ride our bikes around Isla Mujeres.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Change of Plans

I know last time I wrote I think I mentioned that we would head to another site of ruins at Coba. We completely changed our minds and went north instead (it´s always fun to go to unplanned places like this). We were checking out the map & debating it...and we picked out a town on the Northern coast of the Yucatan called Rio Lagartos. It was in a Bioreserve, and that was the only thing we knew about it. We made it there and the town was this adorable sleepy little town on the ocean, or rather, a lagoon...I think. There are uninhabited mangrove islands surrounding the seaside town. We found a place that gives boat tours along the river that divides the two pieces of land. And we made a couple of new friends, Mark and Jo, a couple from England that did the tour with us (which also brought the cost down for us!). The guide took us through the river and we saw a ton of amazing birds, cranes, pelicans, storks, crocidiles, and a huge pink flamingo colony. There were manmade salt flats that attracted the flamingoes at one end of the river-and there were hundreds of them just hanging out in these shallow salt ponds! It was pretty cool...The amount of flamingoes in the ponds also caused the water to turn pinkish...From there our guide took us to another section of the salt flats that we could swim in, and because of the high salt concentration, we would be bouyant. It was so cool!! We called it the Mexican Dead Sea...You would just lean back slowly, and with no effort at all you were floating around. You could flip your body over in one motion, and still be floating!! It was a pretty funny feeling. In the same area, they have this well known section of clay underneath the surface of the sand that people harvested to make skin creams with. So, needless to say, we spread it all over ourselves and had our own little natural spa session. I mean, we covered ourselves in this gray clay-you´ll just have to see the pictures. I´m sure you can imagine how silly you can get throwing and putting mud all over yourselves! But after this stuff dried, it was pretty difficult to get off :) It was such a fun day! We saw so many cool birds, and who doesn´t love being on a boat?
We hung out with our new friends, and persuaded them to then come to Isla Holbox with us, which is where I am right now. It´s a little island off the northern coast as well, but west of Rio Lagartos. I had read a little article about the island and heard a few good things, but also we really didn´t know too much about it. Apparently practically the whole island was wiped out by a hurricane 2 years ago, and you can definetly see a lot of rebuilding going on. But again, it´s a great little island! It´s so small and underdeveloped that they don´t allow cars on the island. People get around by golfcarts! It´s a funny site at first, all these golf carts driving on the sand roads all over town. Today we rented one for a couple of hours to further explore the beaches. It was great to drive to areas where there was nothing but sand and beautiful water...The ocean had these great sandbars off the shore that you could swim out to and just hang there. It´s a very relaxing, chill town with not much going on. We´re enjoying it! The couple we brought with us is also enjoying it, after the first couple of hours being here they had already decided to stay a third night. I´m not even sure what our next plan is. Maybe we will leave tomorrow, maybe Sunday.
I just got back from the beach where I did a little yoga...I was trying to get away from people but that can´t be avoided on a nice beach. I´m sure I looked a little crazy, but I don´t know anyone! It was good to stretch my muscles a little but I have to work on the logisitics a little, I got so much sand on myself, which is fine usually but I had already showered :( Oh well....
At the moment I am probably just babbling on, but I can´t get to my email! Not sure what´s going on. The internet is working, but I just can´t get to the login page. Driving me crazy!

Monday, February 18, 2008

Mayan Ruins!

Today we went to Chichen Itza, another site of ancient Mayan ruins. It was not on the beach like beautiful Tulum but it´s so much bigger! The central pyramid is really amazing to look at. And I had even been here before, when I was about 12. I was impressed then & again today. But you could not climb on any of the ruins, which I definetly did as a youngster. It was insane too, the steps were so little and close together with nothing to hold onto-it was actually really scary! It would have made a big difference to be able to climb them today, but it was still cool to look at. We really lucked out in being able to do that before. AC and I enjoyed it, it´s so amazing to be around such history...How did they build such impressive buildings?!
We are staying in this town of Vallalodid tonight, we came here because it was close to the ruins. I have never seen such a little town with so many shoe stores! Seriously...I wasn´t too thrilled about this town during the day but it has transformed at night (that still doesn´t make it sound great, though). It looks so much cuter,but maybe just because we walked another block and found a very cute park that was bustling even at night.
I must mention this one gross tidbit...they don´t have toilet seats on the toilets!!! ugh...I hope this isn´t the only town I encounter this in, but I am afraid it might not be. Toilet seats cannot be that expensive...One highlight though, we got a great lunch of a quarter of a chicken, tortillas and rice for only $1.30. Now that´s my kind of budget, tasty meal!
Tomorrow we will most likely head to Coba, a smaller site of Mayan ruins to check that out.
I love getting emails and pics from home. I know I haven´t been gone long at all but I still love it. I know for a fact that it will be a necessity for me as the time goes on, just to stay connected back home. I just got some funny pictures of my neices and nephews sliding down an ice mound in Massachusetts and it just made me crack up. It made my night :) Keep them coming!

Sunday, February 17, 2008

So it begins!

Hey everyone!!! I´m back...It´s been a few days I haven´t written, so I guess that means the excitement level has picked up here on the road :) We are now in Playa del Carmen, a beach town 1 hour south of Cancun. It´s such a great little town, with a great village with a walkway lined with cute shops, great bars, and of course, right on the beach. We got into town Friday and immediately went to meet up with a friend of AC´s who happened to be in Playa for the weekend. We met them on the beach, & hung out with them & their friends. It was nice to be relaxing on the beach for the first time! Took our first swim of the trip...Someone tried to tell me the water was cold, but it really was no comparison for New England ocean temps :) Went out that night with a bunch of those people, and people from the hostel (which is very cool by the way, the rooms are arranged around this big open area with couches and hammocks for people to hang out it, very funky!) Yesterday, (Saturday) we went to Tulum, a site of ancient Mayan ruins. It was very cool. Cool looking buildings, amazingly located on a cliff above a gorgeous beach. You will see my pictures of it very shortly. We walked around trying to avoid the millions of iguanas lurking there and took in the scenery, and then went swimming. It was great! What a place for ancient ruins! I´m sure the Mayans also enjoyed being right on the beach!
So today it´s Sunday and we thought we would relax in Playa and get back to our computer updates all done. It´s been fun so far, but at times a little frustrating for me and my sub-par Spanish. I just need to speak it, that´s all! No time to be frustrated about it, the only way I won´t be is when I practice and get good at it. I don´t want to rely on AC for translations all the time, it´s too easy to do that. The other funny, but major things to get used to is the toilet paper situation...You can NOT put your tp in the toilet...which is hard to train yourself to do after 31 years of doing so....I guess the drains here can´t handle it, but I certainly don´t want to be the one breaking the toilets anywhere. Let´s hope that doesn´t happen! and the food...I have been having too many little tacos here, which I´m not sold on yet...Maybe it´s the strange cheeses...I´m looking forward to making a grilled cheese sandwich later! I think tomorrow we will head to Chichen Itza, and hopefully to come cool cenotes. More updates later!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Just relaxing so far.

It´s true, we really haven´t been doing much of anything yet. AC & I have been doing a lot of napping so far. I think after finally getting here we realized we were so tired from the days leading up to leaving. We did actually go for a run today, if you could call it a run. A 14 minute jog is considered very lame from most running perspectives, including mine! But it was hot, and the roads are bad...and noone runs around here! You never see it, but even if people thought we were weird, I didn´t notice it. Probably because we stuck to the side roads. Well, baby steps for the running...Next I will have to find an empty keg around here to do crazy workouts with (CD make sure you tell your sensai!). Next up will be at least a 16 minute run, and at a cooler time of day. Tomorrow we will head to Playa del Carmen and to various Mayan ruins over the weekend. The next posts will be more exciting, I swear!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Warm weather!!

So we made it to Cancun....Just a slight snafu...AC´s first flight was cancelled and it messed up our elaborate plan to meet at the airport. So I made it to the city, slept at different hostels and we found eachother this morning. Turns out we were only a couple blocks away from eachother. I was so excited to see him so was rather bummed that happened last night. Well, now we are here! The weather is great so far, much nicer than the snow,ice, rain combo I hear happened back home!
Now I must go on an excursion to find some Origins face wash (SS will laugh)...It was confiscated at Logan, along with my toothpaste!!! It was in a plastic baggie too. Ruined my hour at the airport. If I can find my facewash anywhere, my chance is here in Cancun where it is so touristy. I won´t die without it, but it sure would be nice to find some ;)

My spanish is so rusty...And I didn´t even look at the conversion rate or get money at the airport! All is good now. Off to explore!

Monday, February 11, 2008

I can't sleep!

Ok, here's my official first blog. Kinda exciting! I've read friends' blogs & been so intruiged, it's a great way to try to understand a little bit of what that person is going through and what they are thinking...
It's late right now, and I'm not very tired- just excited about starting my trip tomorrow. I meet AC in Mexico & start from there. It's been a rough couple of days, a little frazzling trying to wrap things up before leaving...and saying goodbye is never easy...I might be the worst at that part. But now I am sitting here looking at my backpack. I'm a little surprised that I seem to fit everything I think I want into it (well, plus a small daypack). I keep thinking that I have overpacked, and that might be true, but I am a little bit of a novice at it. But a revelation came to me, and I impressed myself that I have packed this little amount for an undetermined amount of time on the road...I packed away a lot of things, and gave away a lot of things getting ready for this journey, and now I am looking at that backpack in a new light. My new little friend :) I hope it treats me well!