Mexico. The Yucatan. Beauty.

Last year, during Thanksgiving, I traveled with my family and Maria, a German girl my family was hosting, to Mexico to the Yucatan peninsula.  We spent one night in Cancun and spent the rest of the two weeks in beautiful paradise.  We stayed in four places all over the Yucatan.  We got to spend time in the ocean and in cities inland, and we got to see Chitzen Itza, recently named one of the 7 wonders of the world! 

Most of the hotels we stayed in made cute designs with our towels everyday.

Below is a Cenote, which is an underground water tunnel/cave.  There are 3,000 in the Yucatan alone.  We swam in about ten during our trip and they were each mind blowing in their own way.  In this Centote I had the opportunity to hold a turtle!  This was probably illegal, but the rules in Mexico are a little sketchy,  so naturally nobody had a problem with it.  There are bright freshwater fish in all the Cenotes which we chased around for hours.

Beach time!

A beautiful path made of a dissected tree placed through a tropical swamp.

Preparations for Christmas in Mexico are huge!

Dad...WTF is going on with the electrical wires? ... It's Mexico.

Climbing up the side of a Mayan ruin.

A girl no older than five worked for her family outside the entrance of a Cenote selling small knitted things.

Another Cenonte, this one was located in a cave.  There was a small hole at the top where light poured through.  We swam around with dark black fish in the warmish water. 

Chitzen Itza: A new member of the 7 Wonders of the World!  Stunning!

The Yucatan Peninsula is largely populated with Mayans who are beautiful but generally very very short.  Being 5'9, I was twice the size of many of the men and women.

One of our hotels.  This place was beautiful, complete with a huge porch on the upper level with chairs and hammocks all around, a small pool, a gorgeous courtyard and fountain, which the building was built around, and the best part, a lovely breakfast every morning with fresh fruit, cereal, a croissant, fresh orange juice, milk, and yogurt.  At night the small group of guests would get together on the porch for cocktails and stories about our days activities, our vacations and our reasons for traveling.  The particular town was very popular with the gay community.  A gay couple owned the hotel and another gay couple just left their lives in the US to start a new life in this town.  They were staying in the hotel while they remolded their brand new house.  They had great stories to tell about the house buying and remodeling process in Mexico (which is very different then the US).

We went out on a boat to see thousands of flamingos!

The girls: Maria, Mom, Me