Cancun Vacation

Once Joanna had tax season wrapped up, we took a well deserved escape to Cancun for a week, far and away the longest we’ve ever left the kids. Fortunately they were in the capable hands of Aunt Beth. We had an incredible time snorkeling, visiting the Mayan ruins, eating good food, and laying on the beach.

Out the window of our hotel was the biggest flag and flagpole I’ve ever seen. I took a picture of it while flying, but against the sky without any size reference to compare to, it wasn’t that impressive. Luckily, the army guys took it down for a few days and then came back to hang it up early one morning. Check out how many dudes it takes to carry this thing

And here it is getting run up the pole


While I didn’t catch any good pictures of the fish while snorkeling, I did get a shot of a bunch of shipwrecks stuck on the reef we were swimming around…casualties of a couple recent hurricanes



We decided that although the water seemed slightly chillier than Hawaii, the sea life was more spectacular and diverse. Besides the colorful fish, we saw an octopus, lobsters, barracuda, and lots of different types of coral.

The Mayan ruins were awesome. We drove our rental car out to Tulum and did a self guided tour there…its up on a cliff above the ocean, with a spectacular beach down below… and enjoyed some time in the water since the sun was blindingly hot that day



We also went to Chichen Itza, and had the guided tour on this one…decided we didn’t want to drive ourselves 3 hours out into the jungle so we took the bus. We passed through some towns that were much more traditional Mexico than touristy Cancun, including this little Mayan town that consisted mostly of a single town square where women sold traditional handicrafts



The ruins at Chichen Itza were amazing, and went on for ever. Here’s the main temple that you've probably heard of, the one thats perfectly aligned with the sun at the summer and winter solstice



Here's temple to the rain god, Chac-mool. At the very top, between the two pillars, is a statue of ol' Chac laying on his back, with a platter on his belly. That's where the officiating priest placed the freshly plucked heart of the sacrifice victim as an offering

And just down the way is the ball court, where two teams of warriors would battle it out to get a little ball through the stone hoops that are about 25 feet off the ground. No hands allowed, just feet, hips, and elbows. Our tourguide said it was unclear whether the winning or losing team captain got sacrificed. It would make for an interesting fourth quarter if you knew somebody was paying a visit to the Chacster after the clock ran out

Finally, we picked up some Luchedor masks for Zack and Abbi while we were there…they put them to good use on the trampoline back home – Nacho Libre style