Tulum

Somehow, we managed to drag ourselves away from the paradise of Akumal a few times while in Mexico, but only where there was really good reason. Tulum,  a well known Mayan ruin,  provided one of those reasons. Thanks to a helpful guidebook tip, we made sure to rise early for arrival by 8:00 a.m., when it opened.  Good thing we did too -- once the tour buses from Cancun pour in around 10:00, it is difficult to get a shot in edgewise, and the ruin itself is not big enough to provide room for all those people.  An added bonus is that all the hawkers and tchotchke shops were closed when we headed in, sparing us untold sales pitches. (More on that later.)

Happily we had the run of the place for about forty-five minutes, joined mostly by the current inhabitants -- Iguanas.

They were everywhere.  The boys spotted 57 before we managed to leave. Each of the pictures below has an Iguana in it -- some more obvious than others.

It entertained Keegan endlessly, and led to one of the funnier stories we heard while in Mexico.  A local guide told us that there were many theories about how to tell a female Iguana from a male Iguana -- one was darker than the other, one had more spikes than the other, one was bigger than the other -- but none of them proved true in all cases.

He said the only surefire way had been told to him by his grandfather, and had been passed down from the Maya for generations. In order to really tell, you have to wait and watch them for a time.

Eventually, the Iguana will move its head in a repeated, distinctive pattern -- the males will bob their head up and down, as if nodding YES, and the females will always bob their head side to side, like they were saying NO. He said it with a grand twinkle in his eye, but swore that it was true.  We laughed pretty hard.

Overall, we did have the ruins to ourselves for a time (Iguanas excepted of course) and as the photos below will attest, it was a glorious, blue sky morning.

If you look closely at the photo above, you can see turtle tracks in the sand. Unlike the beach on the south side, this beach to the north of Tulum's famed castle is reserved exclusively for sun-bathers with shells firmly attached.

Eventually, the crowds did begin to arrive, but not before Kathleen and Keegan had the beach south of the castle virtually to themselves for a time. You can see them in the lower right hand corner of the photograph below.

Eventually, we all joined them, and the boys had a great time in the surf.

That pretty much put an end to touring though, as soaking wet shorts are no fun to walk in, so we climbed the stairs, and bid farewell to a beautiful place.

On our way out, the many shops and tour vendors were open, pressing us as we left to buy this and that. As Kate and I walked out, a very nice young man earnestly pitched us on taking a trip to Dos Ojos Cenote, two limestone sinkholes filled with fresh water where you can snorkel. In trying to seal the deal he told us he would even show us the part of the cenote where, in an underwater cave, fathers would sacrifice their 14 year old daughters to appease the gods of the underworld.  Unable to resist, I looked squarely at Kate and said, "Perfect, where do we sign up?”  One sore shoulder later, it was clear our next excursion would not be to Dos Ojos. Instead, we ended up at the ruins of Coba, which will be our next post.

We Found Paradise In Mexico, And Its Name is Akumal

We had never been to the Cancun area before last month. Truthfully, we were never really excited by the long lines of towering hotels, or an Americanized Mexico experience, replete with spring breakers.  Little did we know that it was all just a smokescreen, a cleverly blinding decoy, hiding one of the great places on the planet -- Akumal Mexico.

Two perfect, adjoining half-moon bays, less than 20 miles from Tulum, where the Mexican government brilliantly refuses to allow buildings over two stories high.  White sand beaches, protected by a kaleidoscope of fish-filled reefs, containing a placid bay so accommodating that giant sea turtles call it home, happily swimming away with the snorkelers that come to see them.  If that is not enough, the reefs hold the remains of a sunken spanish galleon, its cannon still clearly identifiable, though encrusted within the reef. Warm sun beats down in February at a steady 80 degree clip.  The water temperature is just a bit lower -- enough to cool you off, but warm enough to bask in all day long.

Finding it hard to believe that such a place exists? So did I, but trust me, I have been there, and it exists. I have the pictures to prove it :-).

The first thing you notice about Akumal is the birds -- at least, it was the first thing we noticed.  You see, there is a price to pay for finding paradise, and for us, it was a long slog to get there.  Maybe if we hadn't travelled on Valentines' day, which just happened to be the Friday before President's day weekend, security and customs lines wouldn't have been quite so long. And maybe if I had chosen another rental car company, I would not have found myself listening to Gerardo pitching me a time-share opportunity for forty-five minutes while they "checked on" my car.  In any event, despite a 7:00 am flight from Salt Lake, with a stop-over in Houston, we did not start the hour and a half drive from Cancun to Akumal until sunset, arriving exhausted well after dark.

So what does that have to do with noticing birds, you ask?  Well, in Akumal, they begin to sing well before the sun comes up.  That might seem like a bad thing when you are tired after a long day of travel, but the sounds were so varied, so different, so tropical, that upon waking you knew, before even opening your eyes, that you had been transported somewhere exotic, green, warm and wonderful.  Then, you step out onto the balcony, and see this:

So of course you head straight down to the beach to see where you are, and where you will spend the next 6 days.

You can see our balcony from this spot, the upper window on the right, and the chairs where we would plant ourselves as often as possible in the week to come. Safe to say I have woken up in better places . . . NOT.

The place we stayed was called Las Casitas Akumal (the "little houses" of Akumal, entry-way above)--two bedroom, full kitchen, big living room places, whose only downfall was mattresses whose picture is in the dictionary next to the word "firm." Putting that aside, you would be hard pressed to find any fault in this place.

Five steps out the back sliding door of your unit, you are greeted by this:

which steps down to a path like this:

which leads past casitas that look like this:

and ends up with views like this:

If you snorkel, which we did every single day as often as we could, this is where the magic really begins. Straight out from these cannon, about a third of the way to the boats, lies the remains of a spanish galleon, its cannon scattered amongst the coral by waves and time, crewed now only by fish having every color and shape imaginable.  Just under the yellow and turquoise boat in the distance, we found a sting-ray who makes the shadow of that boat his regular home.  And to the left of the last boat out, sea turtles munch contentedly on underwater sea grass all the day long. I wish I had underwater housing for my camera, but since I don't, I'll have to leave all of that to your imagination.

When we weren't in the water, it was all sandcastles and casual reading, with the sounds of a gentle breeze through palm fronds, lapping waves and laughing children accompanying scenes like these:

We even had a full moon while there, showing that this little place is spectacular even in the heart of the night.

Akumal town itself is small, a great mix of ex-pats, locals and tourists, who all eat at the same half-dozen restaurants, all within walking distance, and most of which have pretty good food.  As an added bonus, the local library has a couple of nice walls that can be used as the backdrop for family pictures :-).

It is no wonder that the family in the casita two doors down (whose son instantly became best friends with ours) had been back for 10 years straight, or that the family next door (also with a son our boys' age) was on its eighth visit.

With superhuman effort, we did manage to tear ourselves away for adventures in Tulum, Coba, Valladolid, Chichen Itza and Ek Balam, which we'll post about later, but next time, we may not leave at all.

Anyone care to join us?  In case you need more convincing, I'll close this post with the farewell sunset from our last night there.

Paradise indeed, now lost in the pressing blur of life, but it will never be forgotten.

Hidden Utah

The moon that we had so enjoyed the night before greeted us as we left our hotel room the following morning.  Something about that pale blue against orange rock says home to me like few things I know.

That said, I must confess that I have never really explored the part of Utah south of Moab and east of Lake Powell.  One day does not an exploration make, but it was enough to know that failure was a huge mistake.

We left Monument Valley in the morning, and headed for a little place nearby called Valley of the Gods.  It is not Monument Valley, but is quite picturesque for a place not even set aside as a state park.

It has broad vistas like these, a roughly 30 mile dirt road that is easy to drive, boulders to climb, lizards to chase, and a quiet that is all to rare.

Fall was in evidence even here, in this dry desert, among the tough old cottonwoods that somehow find water in the dry washes that run through this place. Life is so fragile yet so resilient in the desert -- it is part of what makes it a special place.

From there, we headed over to a nearby state park, called the Goosenecks of the San Juan.

The winding depths of the canyon speak to a remarkable permanence in a place like this. How long that water has flowed, slowly and implacably carrying away the tiny weaknesses in rock and dirt to the sea of Cortez and perhaps beyond, leaving these magnificent oxbow bends a testimony to millennia of labor.

The backdrop to both this place and the Valley of the Gods is the thousand plus foot escarpments of Cedar Mesa, which runs for hundreds of miles through these windblown table lands.  It was there that we headed next.

Little did we know that our road, Utah route 261, would convert from asphalt to dirt and take us right up the face of those cliffs, but it did. We made it, and here is the proof:

The picture below should give you a sense of scale -- see if you can pick out the blue pickup truck.

The views were more than a match for the easier than expected climb up what is known as Moki-Dugway, but they had nothing on our next destination, a place I had not heard of before: Muley Point.

It was hazy when we visited, smog from as far away as LA and as close as the four corners power plant obscuring the view. Still, what a view it is. Here you are not only up the thousand plus feet of Cedar Mesa, but gazing out over the two thousand foot depths of the San Juan River canyon, the far side of which contains all of Monument Valley.  I have been to the Grand Canyon many times, and if this view does not surpass that magnificent place, it certainly belongs there.  One day I shall come to spend the night here under the stars, and wake to see the view before the sun reacts with pollution to create obscuring smog. I am sure it will be nothing short of spectacular at sunrise.

On this day though, hazy or not, it provided a fitting end to a fantastic trip.