Thursday, February 21, 2013

Hola, Lovers!

Continuing the tradition from last year of a warm weather winter vacation...me and 8 of me peeps headed to beautiful sunny MEXICO!

It was beautiful and it was sunny (at least in the morning) but the water was fucking FREEZING. We still had an amazing time, but I didn't do more than dip a toe in the ocean because my Mama taught me that hypothermia is bad news bears. Even the pool was almost too cold to stand. But I was perfectly content spending the days on our ocean-view beach beds.

Beach beds by day...



And beach beds by night!



My days consisted of workouts in the morning (sure, it's a vacation, but that buffet was dangerous), followed by yoga by the beach, and then lots and lots of lounging. Books were read, playlists listened to....actually, that's pretty much all I did. Until nightime, and then we had had some yummy food in the on-site restaurants and danced for hours to various house bands at the Saturday evening night club on the resort.

Chilling on the beach.



The beach at sunset.



In the nightclub (with the glow body paint).



There was only one day when I left the resort--I'm sure to some people that's considered lame, but I was perfectly happy to just spend my days chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool.  But there was one thing in the Yucatan that I couldn't miss....

On our last full day in Mexico, we took a day long trip that included stops at a giant sinkhole and the ancient Mayan city, Chichen Itza.

Chichen Itza was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya civilization. It is located in the Yucatan and was a major focal point in the Mayan civilization from 600–1200 AD. Chichen Itza was one of the largest Maya cities and it was likely to have been one of the mythical great cities, or Tollans, referred to in later Mesoamerican literature. The land under the monuments was privately owned until 29 March 2010, when it was purchased by the state of Yucatán.

Dominating Chichen Itza is the Temple of Kukulkan (a Maya feathered serpent deity similar to the Aztec Quetzalcoatl), usually referred to as El Castillo ("the castle"). This step pyramid stands about 98 ft high and consists of a series of nine square terraces, each approximately 8 ft high, with a 20 ft high temple upon the summit (called the Temple of the Red Jagquar--seriously). Each side has 90 steps, but begin with the number 0--which the Mayans invented. Cool, right?

Sinkhole!




Group shot in front of El Castillo!




No comments: