XPLoR

11/25-11/27

Well unfortunately my phone (which takes 95% of my pictures) is now dead. I think it got wet at some point of our trip and now it's completely useless. So since Sunday-Tuesday were not super trip days I didn't manage to get any pics other than one from pool side on my underwater camera..

We played Bingo.. Shane won a bag, headband, and cup! Woot Woot! Other than that we just relaxed in the sun, did a little dining around the city, and just took it easy.

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11/28

Just south of Playa Del Carmen there is an awesome natural park called Xplor. Basically they used natural caves to build the park around and provide activities to enjoy it while still preserving it (zip lines, jeep rides, underwater river floating, underwater river rafting)! It was a blast!

On the way!

Little cavemen explaining our adventure

Walking up up up to our next zip line!

Long way down!!!!

Here we go! (I have so many great videos from this day, but will have to wait until I get home to do anything with them! The video camera on this works great)

Cave life

Fun little dino they have you walk by

On our way through a cave in a Jeep

I always let Shane drive. I prefer to enjoy the scenery.. 

helmets on at all times!

Getting ready for some river floating. First they prep you with a waterfall.. colddd waterfall!!

After a fun day! The park took really fun awesome pictures of us throughout the day that I am still debating if I should buy.. but they charge you an arm and a leg so since I like my appendages my pictures will have to do! haha

11/29

TODAY IS OUR LAST FULL DAY IN CANCUN!

We have to pack and then enjoy our last night in this beautiful place.

I am going to miss it but really looking forward to our trip to Florida to see my family!

:)

Bacalar/Xel-Ha/Tulum

11/22
Happy Thanksgiving.. Missing America today! We drove to Bacalar to see the Lake of Seven Colors. Shane wasn't feeling very good all day because he has a cold so it probably wasn't the best day to go. We took a boat ride around the lake and over a very deep cenote for an hour, grabbed lunch, and headed home to Tulum for some rest.

Our beautiful boat ride made the trip worth it

Trees that had fallen into the Cenote. They were all around the edges.

Two friends we saw on the way out of town

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11/23
Checked out of Hotel Latino (our hotel in town- Tulum) early and headed to take one last peak at the beach since we planned on heading home after Xel-Ha. Well..... instead we ended up booking a room in a tower on the beach at CoCo Tulum. Ooops :) Still, the right choice because I think one more night in Tulum on the beach was a must. We couldn't check in because it was early so we headed out to spend the day at Xel-Ha Aquatic Park!

2012

Here where it all began this is what the people believe.. 

just for those who think the world is going to end...

This guy was pretty cute

They reminded me of Dory and Marlin.. hehe

Leading the Way

We love to snorkel

Found a ray

Rainbow colored fish

Fun in the sun!

Manatee! I kept wanting to call him Snootie!

Heading into a cave

Stumbled onto this guy by some mangroves. He scared the crap out of me with his nasty teeth. I even called Shane over to look at him! We ended up both swimming away for our lives after we watched him chomp down on another pretty big fish! We swam fast... 

When we got back to the hotel it was already dark so we grabbed some coffee and walked the beach then headed up to our room to sleep. The doors were open all night and you could hear the waves crashing against the shore. Absolutely breathtaking and picture perfect!  I swear I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was dreaming. Needless to say I loved it!

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11/24

Woke up to this...

Took a swim

Took a picture of our balcony from the stairs

I was a little sad because it was a cloudy day but we made the best of it and caught what rays we could, took a little swim, and then just hung on our balcony enjoying the view until we had to check out. Now we are back in Cancun to enjoy our last few days here...

Tulum/Coba Ruins

11/20

Packed up and headed to Tulum for a few nights. We couldn't check in to our hotel till afternoon so we started off the day with some ruins. It was a very cloudy day so I was hoping that would mean it would be less crowded at the ruins, but unfortunately that was not the case. We still managed to avoid the mass groups of people and enjoy the ruins.

Looking out over some of the ruins

Tulum

Tulum

Shane has a touching problem..

Long Arm

There were so many iguanas. We think they are reincarnated Mayans!

After the ruins we headed out to the beach to check out the sights. All of the beaches in Mexico are public, so although the beach is lined with hotels you can walk through any of them as long as you let them know you just want beach access... We just found this out, and I don't know if they are AS lenient in Cancun. Anyways, we walked through a nice cabana resort and onto the beach. The beaches have a 3 story limit rule on all the hotels, so it's not ruined by large resorts everywhere. The beach itself was gorgeous with beautiful sand that has a tint of red in it. Like I said before it was a cloudy day so even though the water was warm we decided to go swimming on a sunnier say and just took a walk.

Well.. I sunk.. 

Shane Swung

and then we walked.... 

After checking into our hotel we found a cute little bar in town and hung out there for a while. We are actually going back tonight for a live reggae show tonight which should be fun 

I liked the skeleton dog peeing on the bathroom sign.

11/21

We woke up and headed out for breakfast. Since everything is in walking distance in town we just walked to the nearest restaurant and ate. After breakfast we hopped into the car and headed for Coba. We decided to rent bikes inside the ruins because they are all pretty far apart and we figured we could save some time walking and get a little workout. Little did I know climbing a pyramid was a workout on it's on. The big pyramid was exactly that...BIG. The climb up was rough but the view and feeling of being on top of a ruin was surely worth it. I saw a little sleeping bat at the top of the ruins in the doorway.  The way down was not my favorite activity considering I have GREAT luck with stairs and there were so many of them. I managed to eventually work my way to the bottom and Shane and I had a victory high five for being back on the ground.

I love tunnels, but I was afraid to walk into this one because I saw a wasp hive. So I went in and ducked down to avoid any enemies. 

I walked all the way around to snap a picture of Shane at the other end. 

I saw even scarier evil wasps in this one... 

Finally!!! Ruins we can climb!!!

Biking to our next stop

Nohoch Mul pyramid! 120 steps to the top.

Hanging out at the top of a pyramid. You know. The usual. 

Taking in the view.

Cute little bat friend.

Coba

OKAY... Now we have to go down.. I am not good at walking down so it was mostly backward crawl or butt scoot. 

Shane prepping for the journey down

We made it!!! In one piece. And I didn't roll down!

Another thing I really liked about Coba were the stones with hieroglyphs on them.

Resting from our bike journey. People are so nice and offer to take pictures for us so I give in every time :) 

Hieroglyphics

 After we left Coba we headed out to grand cenote. I think we have been a bit spoiled with cenotes because the first two I saw were pretty amazing. This one was not as pretty on the outside, but underwater was another story. Unfortunately none of my pictures really came out because I was moving around too much!! Basically it's a cenote for scuba divers, so we saw very little of what there actually is to see. There are caves underwater that you can explore, but we could only see a little ways in before it was all underwater and way to dark. When I stayed in the darkest area for long enough my eyes would adjust enough to actually see more of the underwater caves.... scary and awesome all at the same time.

 Grand Cenote

From the outside

 Swimming into the darkness.. Turned around to snap a picture of the cenote

Scuba divers headed out for a tour into the caves. I was jealous. 

The only picture I managed to take of Shane in the cenote.. hehe

Well.. That sums up the last two days. Shane is taking a little siesta so I figured I would blog. Have to get him up so we can get ready for our Reggae show tonight. More updates soon.