The Tommerdahls: Cancun!

Paul and I took a 5 day trip to Cancun last weekend! It was fantastic! Here are some pictures.

We arrived Thursday afternoon. Here is a view from the plane.

Our Pool

View from the hotel

View from our room

Our Room

Our first lunch was on the beach and was delicious!

We spent the first afternoon walking the beach...which stretched for miles and miles! Heaven for me!

Then we cleaned up for apps at the hotel, which they provided every night form 5-7. They were delicious!

Headed out for dinner!

We enjoyed walking all over the area to see what was around and settled on a Mextreme for dinner - and it had the most amazing shrimp fajitas I had all trip!

On Friday morning we headed out early (5:45 shuttle pick up!) for the 2.5 hour drive to Chichen Itza, a fantastic area filled with Mayan ruins.

An hour into the drive we made an uplanned stop at Mr. Carnitas when our shuttle hit a dog, broke the radiator and made the van leak oil! We waited an hour for a replacement shuttle and then were on our way again! But, it was fun to watch the family who owned this roadside restaurant do their early morning preps as we waited!

It was cool in the morning but quickly warmed up! The Mayan ruins were amazing!

We learned that the Mayans knew about everything from the earth's 23 degree tilt to lunar cycle, venus cycle, and more as they calculated their own calendar system. They created this temple to not only have great acoustics so you could hear the person speaking, but the echo also made the sound of their bird when you clapped in the right spot due to the angles/echos of the steps. It was CRAZY!

The built this structure to exactly align with the sun and moon during the equinox points of the year.

They created this temple completely based on their calendar system (how it was oriented facing the four directions, how many steps it had, etc) and also made it so that on the equinox the shadow of the sun made a perfect shadow along the edge of the steps to create the snakes body that attached to this stone head.

Commemorating human sacrifices.

We had a fantastic buffet at the Mayan Ruin Site and then headed to see one of the beautiful Cenotes (sink hole) that are all over this part of Mexico.

When we got back, we cleaned up for dinner and enjoyed this restaurant where servers balance drinks on their heads!

The live music was soo fun - check out this video!
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Look at this server balancing three margaritas on his head as he delivers it to a table!!!!

On Saturday we took a ferry to Isla Mujeres to explore. The island is roughly 4 miles long and is a 20 minute ferry from our part of the hotel strip.

The island has a beautiful coast of which we walked as much as we could!

This was the north side of the island - gorgeous beaches!!!

We had lunch at this little restaurant overlooking the water.

Then we proceeded to walk the rest of the afternoon exploring the entire island! This area was the southern tip and had sculptures.

This was our favorite sculpture - it was called Freedom but we renamed it the Waffle ;)

Off the southern side you could walk down and hike on a rocky path near the water.

Here we are standing at the eastern most tip of Mexico, the first area to see the sun!

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Lots of people built rock towers here...so we had fun too!

We took the ferry back to our hotel around sunset.

And got cleaned up for dinner.

On the way back it started to rain and Paul got silly cross country skiing by the hotel ;)
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On Sunday, we went ziplining! It was soooo much fun! There were 10 zips in a row across the jungle followed by a swim in a cenote where you could zip or jump in. We did both.

Paul Video:

Kelly Video:

Then we went back to our hotel to enjoy the sun for the afternoon.

The beach was actually full of adventure this day as we saw a lifeguard rescue a man pulled out by an undertow in the ocean. It was actually really scary.