More Mexico

Ok, remember how I said we have SOOO many pictures...we do, so I apologize to all of you who this is too many pictures for.

On the day away from the resort we did SOOOOO much.  We started off the day with a trip to Tulum to see some Mayan ruins.  From what I understand Chichenitza is way bigger and grander, but having never seen Mayan ruins before, Tulum was pretty big and grand.  

I love the detail you can still see on some parts of this structure.

Lucky for us Tulum is next to the beach.  It was SOOOOO hot that day so we went for a nice swim in the middle of our tour to cool off.  (and yes...the water in Mexico really is that beautiful color.
Proof that we were all on vacation together...again, the water really is that color.
The steps leading up to this place (which was obviously the most important building in Tulum) were so steep and so long.
After we toured Tulum we stopped to get som "comida typica" (typical food) and it was really really good.  Here is a picture of my beef tacos.
This is all of us with our yummy comida typica from some place called Frosties which was recommended by the man who soon became our snorkeling tour guide.  On our way out of Tulum we hired Gabrielle to take us snorkeling in 3 different places.  He brought the gear and hopped in our funny tiny rental car with us and showed us how to get to the places.  He took us to a cenote which is like a natural limestone water cave.  The cenote we went to was called dos ojos cenote and was really really cool and beautiful.  He showed us around the whole place and it was incredible.  Next he took us to a particular stretch of beach where we swam out in the ocean a ways and swam with giant sea turtles.  I think we probably saw between 7 and 12 different sea turtles and they were so big and cool.  Last we went to a little non-commercialized lagoon.  There were several different kinds of fish in the lagoon including a whole bunch of Dori fish (you know the blue one from Finding Nemo).  The weather was good to us and only poured rain like crazy between each of our destinations and didn't rain as we were snorkeling.
Here is our funny rental car.  It was pretty tight with the 4 of us and Gabrielle.  Also, for the first half of our trip we couldn't figure out how to get the car into reverse, so every time we needed to back up Mel, Jared, and I would hop out and push it back.  Luckily, Gabrielle (our Mayan guide who never has owned a car and lives in a palapa) taught us how to put the car in reverse.
On our last evening we went to downtown Playa Del Carmen and walked around and did some shopping.  It is a pretty neat place.
This was one of the many cool looking buildings.
While we were here I picked up some of this to help my poor body through the comida typica that we had after Tulum.
And here is a small sampling of just how beautiful the whole resort was where we stayed.  Jared is also holding a non-alcoholic specialty fruity drink.
For those of you who made it this far thank you for your patience, we really loved our trip.  I do have to put out a warning that there were a suprising number of people without tops on the beach, so if you go, just be warned.  Hopefully I am not displaying any of them in the background of any pictures, I promise I was very careful not to get any.