Mexico as a Family

We’ve been on the road a bit since the last post! Here’s what we’ve been up to. We took a collectivo down to Tulum, beautiful white ruins of a Pre-Columbian city on a cliff facing the Caribbean Sea. Tulum means walls; there are walls along the sides of the city that don’t face the ocean to protect it from attack. Tulum was a port city. The Maya would take boats along the coast to trade obsidian, a volcanic rock that is so sharp it is still used in eye surgery today. When we finished our five nights in Playa del Carmen, we rolled our suitcases a half mile up to the collective stand to get a taxi (cheaper there) to Coba, a 90-minute ride. In Coba, we stayed at this beautiful hotel a 10-minute walk to the ruins facing a lake. The hotel looked like it had been a convent or monastery at one time. There were all of these alcoves where you would expect to see a statue of the Virgin Mary and our room had what looked like a holy water font, where you would dip your fingers in to bless yo...

We're in Playa del Carmen! Mostly because I had Marriott points that turned into 5 free nights at a place with a kitchen and a pool. :P We aren't in the center of Playa del Carmen, we're a little south on a busy road, but there is a grocery store with a paleta shop inside (popsicle shop - but so much better than our popsicles. Think kiwi, strawberry, pineapple, with real fruit) that's walkable by our standards. And along the walk we found iguanas sunning themselves! These are not the size of people's pet iguanas - they're the size of my forearm or bigger.  On our first day, before the room was ready, after getting popsicles, we walked to a neat jungle park where there was outdoor art and singers.            The following day I (L) was really sick. I tried to hang at El Parque Fundadores  (the beach with the famous Porta Maya sculpture) and Quinta Avenida (the main strip with the beachy shops, like a fancy boardwalk, but had to take a taxi bac...