Postscript

The kids miss the cat.  There were several around the property in Akumal, but one made itself at home.

Matthew and the cat in Akumal he named Guest

I forgot to mention how much Peter enjoyed his dinner at La Buena Vida on Monday night.  He ordered fish, and the grouper arrived at the table on a plate intact, with dorsal fins erect, just dead and cooked.  I made the waiter turn the stunned eyes and gaping mouth away from me!  Disgusting, I think.  Peter loved picking it apart.

We enjoyed our last morning on the beach on Tuesday, taking one last swim with the fish and the turtles on the reef.  The flights home were uneventful, and we arrived back to our lovely abode around midnight.  Akumal may be a tropical paradise, but home in California is still beautiful as well.

Laguna Yal-Ku and More Relaxation in Akumal

This morning we went to Laguna Yal-ku, at the end of the road north of Akumal, just a few miles away, where we snorkeled for a couple of hours.  The head of the lagoon is fed by fresh water from underground.  The visibility there was great and continued to be fabulous as we swam along the rocky ledges and mangrove roots on the edges of the water where numerous fish delighted us.  As we made our way toward the sea, the intermixing of salt water with fresh water was evident by the way light was refracted beneath the surface.  The fresh water is also colder than the salt water coming in with the tides, so the water temperature rose as we swam through the labyrinth of islands in the dog-legged lagoon toward the ocean reefs.  Of course, in terms of fish, we saw many of the usual suspects as well as a spotted pufferfish.  Matthew also spotted a barracuda.  

Sherri snorkeling at Yal-ku

And that was the extent of our excursions today.  We hung out at the casita, walked on the beach, snorkeled here and read books.  Our vacation life is very slow-paced.  We went back to La Buena Vida for happy hour and dinner.  It's a great location by the water and I love digging my toes in the sand.  There was live music this evening and a small wedding on the beach.  There are a few small shops across the street, so we purchased a few items there for gifts.  

Matthew and Petre at La Buena Vida

Now, quite early (8:30 p.m.), we are relaxing in the casita for the night.  It is our last night here.  We leave at 1 p.m. from Akumal tomorrow, which gives us time for beach walks and snorkeling one more time.

Just Another Lazy Day in Paradise

Today, Peter and I celebrated our 23rd anniversary.  He woke up before I did and walked to the supermarket (small grocery) and bought a postcard depicting a turtle and the turquoise Caribbean sea, on which he inscribed his undying love for me.  I had thought about our anniversary before we left home, so I had purchased a card in advance and brought it with me.  And that reveals to you one aspect of our blissful marriage.

Peter made fried eggs and toast for breakfast, accompanied by scruptious local tropical fruit:  mango, papaya and watermelon.  And then the day stretched before us.  I was ready to snorkel with the turtles before anyone else, so I went on my own.  The best place to find lots of turtles is about a quarter mile south along the beach from our lovely casita (We wished we owned it!), so I walked there to swim.  Whenever I found a turtle munching on the sea grass, I just hovered nearby for a while to watch its behavior.  All the green turtles I have watched here occasionally swim up to the surface for air.  They bob their heads up once and then resubmerge for a few seconds and then stretch their necks to get their heads above water a second time before returning to the bottom.  (A quick Internet search has not revealed why they come up twice.)  I saw about two dozen turtles in the time I was snorkeling along this part of the beach.  Sometimes the turtles were alone.  The largest group I saw was four.  A couple of the turtles I observed had one or two long, snaky, yellow remoras (sucker fish that feed on parasites on their hosts) on their backs or sides.  When one of these turtles rose off the bottom to surface, the remoras moved from its back to its belly and then stayed there when the turtle returned to munch grasses.  I also observed another group of squid, a large spotted trunkfish (easy to spot with its flat bottom and sloping sides forming a triangular prism), two stingrays and hundreds of tropical fish.

I returned to the casita to connect up with Matthew and Peter but they had already left to swim at the turtle beach, and we had missed each other.  So, I went out to dive on the reef in front of our place on my own.  I found the large group of blue tangs again; they must be a tight community.  Among the colorful corals--including staghorn, purple fan, brain, giant anemone, starlet, finger, pillar--swam numerous other types of fishes, but outstanding were the queen angelfish and another spotted trunkfish.  I spotted two more rays, one almost completed concealed by covering itself with white sand and dangerously close to shore where families were casually playing in the water.

I stopped snorkeling for a while, grabbed my book and returned to the beach lounge chairs and umbrellas, where I enjoyed immensely the view and the butterflies darting around, constantly in motion, while I finished my novel.   The water beckoned however, so I went out one last time today to swim with the tropical fish.  I really can't get enough of it!

The view from my beach lounger, with two butterflies

The view from my beach lounger of the trees in front Las Casitas (and another butterfly)

After a shower and a snack for me, Peter, Katya and I walked the very short distance into town and looked around the shops.  The jewelry is all overpriced, even when bargained down to the lowest possible level, so we bought none.  Katya got a large woven tablecloth with Maya images in various shades of vibrant blue.  Playing the game of bargaining for the lowest price is just trying and tedious for me, so we ended our shopping jaunt.

Katya with a display in front of a shop in Akumal

When we returned to the casita, the four of us got in the car and drove north on the only road for a few minutes to have dinner at the restaurant, La Buena Vida, where we had eaten with out toes in the sand a couple nights before.  This time, however, we chose a table in a treehouse under the palm fronds from which we could still glimpse the water through the foliage, watch the birds and see the sunset.

Katya, Peter, Sherri and Matthew at our table in the treehouse

After driving back here in the car, Peter and I took a long (romantic?) walk on the beach.  We both agree (as do the kids) that everything here is perfect--the accommodations, the views, the reefs, the sealife, the food, the beach, even the people (if we discount the bully in the water and the few who are just too pushy in trying to get our business and money), and certainly the cats who roam around the place.

Matthew continues to work on Calculus as I write, Peter is available to help him (He is busy reviewing the textbook), and I don't know what Katya is doing--something on her phone.  In my opinion, too much of her time is spent online, but there is not much I can do about that.

We are looking forward to visiting a lagoon where salt water and fresh water mix and the array of fish, some of which have adapted to this unique environment, is reported to be amazing.  That will get us up early, but it will just be another relaxing day in paradise.

Ruins, Big Fish and the Pueblo

Another early start this morning had us arriving at the ruins of Tulum shortly after 8 a.m.  The weather was pleasant when we began our walk, but we were suffering from the humidity by the time we finished seeing all the ruins a couple hours later.  We didn't get a guide this time; they charge way too much and we had already learned a lot about Mayan culture and architecture at Cobá.  Tulum was one of a series of Maya fortresses and trading posts established along the coasts of Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.  Tulum was first settled around 300 B.C. but was just a village for centuries.  It became a prominent city between the 12th and the 16th centuries (the late post-classical era) when coastal trade in honey, salt, wax, animal skins, vanilla, obsidian, amber and other products became especially important to the Maya.

The architectural ruins of Tulum and other eastern coastal cities look much older than those found at Cobá and other inland areas even though the buildings were constructed more recently.  Because they used stucco on the inside and outside of the edifices, the underlying masonry did not have to be as precise, so it looks more eroded.  Tulum was still a grand, inhabited city when the Spanish arrive but soon was left empty as European diseases decimated the native population.  The many raised limestone platforms that were the bases for buildings of wood or thatch as well as the large stone edifices were overrun with coastal vegetation.

Archeologists have uncovered a number of structures, including the House of the Cenote, House of the Halach Uinic (a royal palace), the House of the Columns, the Temple of the Frescoes, the Temple of the Wind on the cliffs above the sea, the Temple of the Descending God and El Castillo, which also overlooks the Caribbean.

Detail on the Temple of the Frescoes

House of the Columns

Frieze on the House of the Frescoes

Temple of the Descending God and El Castillo

Remnants of colorful frescoes and friezes are still apparent on some of the structures, and the descending god is found on several, but, overall, lizards reign--not depictions of lizards, but live lizards that sit atop the walls, at the entrances and throughout the grass.

A lizard on the Temple of the Frescoes

A lizard commands the House of the Halach Uinic

As we walking out of the ruins area through the forest to the exit, we spotted a number of beautiful birds, including the tropical mockingbird and the spectacular Yucatan jay, striking against the green foliage with its blue and black plumage and yellow legs.

Yucatan jay at Tulum

After gulping down half of our water when we returned to the parking lot, we treated ourselves to ice cream before heading to a supermarket in Tulum.  There we bought 10 small loafs of bakery bread, half of a watermelon, papaya, two different kinds of mangos, cheese and drinks for the equivalent of US $10.

Peter relaxing with one of the friendly cats that roam around

Matthew reading on the patio

It was another lazy afternoon.  While the rest of the family napped or read or spent time on the Internet, I went snorkeling three times and rested on a lounger under a beach umbrella on the white sand--the consistency of fine flour--and read a novel.  The first time I went out in the water, I was truly amazed to come upon an enormous rainbow parrotfish.  I had never seen one that large--about three feet in length--even when doing deep dives.  I don't have underwater photography equipment, but here is a photo I copied from the Internet.  The thing is, in real life, it is really more spectacular because it shimmers in the sunlight filtered through the water, and the scales are 3-D.



I also saw a group of yellow squid with enormous white eyes and a large school of fish swimming in tight formation.  There were about 100 to 150 of them, mostly blue tang, but also surgeon fish and wrasses.  They made a colorful display against the many hues of the coral, and I loved moving with them as they zigged and zagged through the crystaline water.

Katya went out with me the second time (her first time this week), but she refused to spit in her mask to ensure that it didn't fog up, so it did.  Since she had to keep taking it off to try to clear it, she was frustrated and didn't see much.

Peter and Matthew joined me the third time, and Peter and I found the rainbow parrotfish again.  The waves were coming over the reef today, so there was a bit of surge.  Many of the fish were hiding out in the crevasses and under the coral.  We suspect that the large parrotfish had swum over with the high water from the outer reef.

We went out to dinner early away from the beachfront tourist area, to the Akumal pueblo.  Of course, most of the local people used to live close to the sea, but they were moved to the inland side of the highway up and down the Caribbean coast in the second half of the 20th century when the resorts began to develop.  The buildings in the pueblo, which is on a hill so at least it gets some breezes, are constructed of cement blocks of dubious quality.  Some have stucco but most do not.  As we walked along a couple of blocks, we could see inside many of the houses.  They were sparsely and cheaply furnished, usually with just a table and chairs and hammocks.  The doors were open, we suspect, for ventilation.  We had wanted to find a local restaurant, but we ended up at a gringo-Mexican place catering mostly to long-term expats who do not have the means to live on the other side of the highway.  The food seemed authentic, though, and we enjoyed it.  As we walked the block back to the car, we noticed that the social life of the pueblo seemed to consist of lounging around the fronts of the houses and small shops.  The majority of those on the street were male.  As we were approaching our car, a big pick-up truck stopped, and more than a dozen of them loaded into the cab and the back with a cooler and a large container of water, probably headed to an accessible beach.  Technically, all the beaches are public, but access to them is often blocked by sprawling all-inclusive resorts with security guards.

Peter and Matthew have just left to have a drink at the restaurant where we had dinner and drinks last night.  I believe that Katya and I will not stay up much longer (although she did have a siesta today).