Hotel San Felipe Akumal

... water fountians of different shapes and sizes along the way. It ended in a large park dedicated to the steel industry. Sounds ugly, but there were more free museums, and it was actually pretty (except for the large furnace stacks). <br><br>Heading back to the bus stop, and thinking we perhaps should have booked an earlier bus out of town, we started poking around looking for a resturant for dinner. Oddly enough, all the ...

... of back alley in downtown Monterrey. It has a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom with AC! All for US$10 per night! Sometimes even though we seem to be taken care of - there's just no peace. Monterrey is a BEAUTIFUL city, although very Americanized. After two more meetings were set up for this weekend, we knew we had to cancel and keep moving. It was confirmed by MANY. The people were not happy, but oh well. On to Tampico!

... to get here. When we arrived, there was a Mexican woman cleaning the base. I have to admit, when I saw how "Americanized" it was - you know, with air conditioning, electricity, wireless internet access, I was a bit dissappointed. We went to sleep and woke up on Sunday morning feelin fully rested. Rob was nervous about preaching in Spanish and had only a couple of hours to be ready. So we spent our time praying an preparing ...

... Plenty of Irish ballads and music pumping from the car helped along with Packies singing! We stayed with friends of my uncles' called the Garzas for two nights. They also showed us around the city and surrounding areas, brought us out for dinner and generally gave us an amazing time! We went to the beautiful lake town of Santiago where Ever has a summer house and ...

... and is in one of the safest neighborhoods in all of urban Mexico. And the landlady, who speaks perfect English, is super nice. She has been essential to me adjusting to everything around here - she took me grocery shopping, let me borrow an extra cell phone of hers, and so forth... That's about all I have for now. I wanted to let you know that I will miss you all dearly and hope that you can come visit me in Monterrey! Cuídate!

... in the fading light of day, back to our room, and out of our wet bathing suits, into pretty clothes again. Dinner was a Fiesta Mexicana theme, with pork tacos and quesadillas starring on the menu tonight. Somehow, it felt a little more classy, with the waiters really trying their best to serve everyone. Needless to say, we didn't bite. Mario was happy, he got to eat churros for dessert. We did get suckered into buying cheezy retro ...

... pour toucher le fond pour pouvoir se propulser a la surface et respirer. Et tous les touristes et un des volontaires les plus costauds a cote d'elle la regardant sans l'aider. J'ai du sauter a leau pour le faire. 2eme plus difficile chose, maintenir la tortue immobile sur le bateau. Pour cela s'assoir dessus est tenir les nageoirs avant de toutes ses forces. Apres quelques secondes de rodeo normalement elle se calme. Bref a la fin de la session on est completement epuise ...

... which can only be done between 10am-12pm. It wasn't sunny all day, but off and on it was nice. We grabbed a kayak and set out into the bay. Chris was ready to snorkel and I was not. We thought maybe if he spotted a turtle then I would work up the nerve to jump in when that occurred. I'm just not a big fan of being a major intruder in somebody else's environment. It's their world and they can treat me however they want in their ocean...Well anyway, he didn't see a turtle that ...

On the whole, today was a very lazy day. Sunny and still weather in the morning. We had a leisurely breakfast, then Paul and I went for groceries. More reading upon our return. Paul went snorkeling while the kids played on the beach. I wandered over to Bob and Joyce's to sit in the shade and chat. After lunch, Paul and I went to the farmers' market in Akumal, then drove a few km down the road to Bahia Principe. A ...

... road &#8211; especially as it started pouring, we were finished at the beach &#8211; and found a massive complex of buildings &#8211; an all-inclusive hotel. Huge. They had &#8220;their&#8221; beach roped off and even floats in the water delineating &#8220;their&#8221; space. Terrifying. We fled quickly. But the fence around this was the same as the fence around the mysterious compound so we speculated the hotel had seized everything along ...