BAH Visits the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

Cozumel -- Playa del Carmen -- Tulum -- Cancun -- Chichen Itza

I really didn't take many pictures while in Cancun, because, frankly, I just wasn't impressed with the place.  We'd left behind the quaint markets of the Mexicans and stepped into ... Hell, I dunno, Fort Lauderdale or San Diego.  The beaches were gorgeous and the hotels were nice, but it was no longer an adventure ...  UNTIL ... we were sitting out by the pool on a veranda overlooking the beach on our last night there.  I saw something crawling across the sand below and thought it looked like a drunk.  Then I realized what it was.  It was a sea tortoise.  Los Tortugas!  She had obviously crawled up from the sea to lay her eggs (I'm pretty sure that's the only time they leave the ocean) and was on her way back out to the surf.  I went down to the beach and sent Betty back up to the room for the camera (hey, she can run faster than I can).

The turtle was absolutely gorgeous.  She was huge, easily measuring four feet across.  What a struggle it was for her, hauling all that weight across the sand on flippers that were meant for the sea.  She would crawl about five feet and then stop to rest for several minutes.  I wanted to help her, but knew it would terrify her to be dragged across the sand by "Senor Whiskers."  (Not to mention that they're a protected species, and if caught I might get locked away in some Mexican prison!)  It took her about 30 minutes to make her way back down the beach.  During this time, lots of other people walked down the beach, but they were totally oblivious to her.  (I've noted that no matter where I go, most people are oblivious to the beauty of nature around them.)  Betty and I stayed with her the whole time, lighting up the beach with the flash of the camera.

Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience ...

...that I'll never forget.  This alone was worth the price of the trip.

From Cancun, we venture inland to Chichen Itza. On the way, we saw how most of the people of the Yucatan live -- generally in squalor.  The house above is typical.  Note the dog.  Everyone had a dog.  They generally looked like they were starving.

We stopped off and saw one of the local cenotes.  These are natural limestone sinkholes that link to underground rivers.  They are generally hundreds of feet below the surface, with water that's 70 to 130 feet deep.  There are no surface rivers in the Yucatan.  Every drop of water (and remember that it rains in the central peninsula 300 days out of the year) sinks into the limestone and collects underground in these cenotes.  The Mayans built their cities (such as Chichen Itza, which means "Mouth of the Well of the Itza") around these natural wells.  There was also a small cenote in Tulum.  You can see people swimming in this one (I would have jumped in to cool off if I'd had my bathing suit with me).  Jumping from the walls looked like great fun.

A shot from the bottom.  The plants growing around these things are amazing.  There's no soil.  Every plant growing on the rim either drops its roots a hundred feet down to the water or siphons from its neighbor.  There's a tree on the rim in the center of the photo.  You can see its roots stretched all the way down the wall to the water below.  The tree is supporting a palm/banana-leaf plant of some sort and, if you saw it up close, a hundred smaller succulent-like plants -- all living like parasites from the tree.

Betty and me at the cenote.  There's that little bottle of $4 water.