Feliz Navidad - Mexico, December 2018

About six months ago Tim decided that he wanted to take the big kids to Mexico for Christmas.  He is a fantastic "travel agent" and spent a lot of time looking at flights, hotels and excursions - trying to make sure that the trip would be a great time for everyone.  Luckily he is naturally flexible because there ended up being a lot of modifications to our plans.  Erika and Andreas decided to move to Merida Mexico so we were able to all meet up in Playa del Carmen and their travel time was cut to a few hours on a bus.  Along the way Taylor got a job at Wayfair and found out that they had a policy of no time off in December so we had to cancel his ticket (Boo, we definitely missed having Taylor with us for all of the adventures).  At the last minute my schedule changed which required some additional rearranging on babysitters and hotel rooms.  But thanks to Tim's hard work, it all came together perfectly and it turned out to be one of our best vacations ever. 

We scheduled to fly into Cancun then stay in Playa del Carmen for two nights and spend the days traveling and sight seeing.  The rooms he booked were right in the middle of town and I wasn't sure how much I would like it, but it turned out to be really fun.  The kids loved being able to wander around and it was great to have a home base so we could all come and go a little more freely. 

Within about an hour of our arrival, Erika and Andreas turned up so we all dropped our bags and immediately headed out explore and find food.  The city park was awesome and gave us our first taste of all of the Christmas decorations and festivities we would experience on the trip.

Hanukkah was equally represented in some parts 

My gluten free app led us to a Venezuelan restaurant that was incredible.  The food was great, but even better, we especially loved the drinks.  They were different types of juices and all fresh made.

Our hotel wasn't deluxe, but seemed to be fine for the little time we would be there.  The rooms ended up being ok during the day, but at night they were way too close to 5th Avenue and we could all feel and hear the music from the discos all night.  After spending most of the night tossing and turning, we all wondered if we should have just given up and gone to join the party.

Tim and the kids were excited for his first sunrise of the trip

I got up early and went running down the main street in Playa.  Luckily I had enough time to r get to the area that has my favorite street art.  I saw all my old favorites and found a few new ones

I have taken several pictures of this mural over the years,

I'm a little sad to see the tree is slowly covering the faces

Brycen made a new friend at the meet up spot for our first tour

The first stop on our tour was Tulum.  We have been there before, several times for some of us, but the beauty is always stunning and it is one of my very favorite places.  We had a pretty good guide this time, but as always, most of what he told us was quite different than what I had ever heard before.  Some of his information was pretty gruesome and described the sacrifice of slaves and women - pretty different from a former guide who was very adamant that there were no human sacrifices.  We listened for a bit and then wandered off to explore on our own.

I had not ever seen the mask on the corner of this building.

After we left the guide, Tim and the kids ran down to the beach to take advantage of the beautiful surf while I wandered around and took more pictures of the ruins. 

After finishing at Tulum, we went to lunch at a Mayan village, and then went on to the ruins of Coba.   We love the ruins and especially love that we can ride bikes through the jungle and explore.  We all made it to the top of the largest pyramid - some of us looked better doing it than other.  It is freaky getting to the top, but going back down was even worse and I was definitely the slowest one.

We finished the day by climbing about 30-40 feet down a spiral staircase until we made it to an enormous cenote.  We swam and played in the water, and Erika even learned how to dive.

We finally made it back to the bus and then hotel,

Tired, but oh so happy

On our second morning in Playa del Carmen we woke up really early and checked out of our hotel but left our luggage  to be stored for the day (I think we were all seriously praying that the luggage would still be there when we returned).  We met our tour director for the day downtown and got on another bus, this time headed for Xel-ha.  This park is definitely one of our favorite destinations and we recommend it to everyone who goes to Mexico.  When we arrived it was fun to see that they had everything decorated and ready for Christmas.

We got there right as the park was opening and it was pretty cool and overcast so we took a little extra time for pictures before heading to the water. 

  

After eating breakfast we rushed to the new lighthouse waterslide because we were worried there would be a really long line.  Turned out that the only thing that slowed us down was how long it took to climb the hundreds of the stairs to the top.  It was raining as we climbed but luckily the winds stayed calm so we were still able to ride the slide.  It is a brand new attraction and I loved it - the slide isn't very fast so I could actually just enjoy the ride.  I think the boys probably wished it was faster. 

We spent the rest of the day in the lazy river, snorkeling, eating, and wandering in the forests.  There were a few serious rain storms, but they passed pretty quickly and we ended up having a fantastic day

 

The boys super loved the rope swing

After two days of excursions, we loaded all of our bags into a taxi and headed to the Iberostar resort where we were all looking forward to the relaxing portion of our adventure.