Ahhhh, Mexico...

Hola blog world! We have been down here now for 2 weeks to the day. It has been an amazing experience so far. Living in a house with six different people has been an experience all on its own. We joke that we are on the “Real World” and its Real World Puerto Aventuras. Katie’s daughter Mo was down here for the week and introduced us to some of her local friends: Joey aka Pinkey and Gullermo. It awesome that we are already starting to meet people here.

This week we did a lot! It started off with another trip to the beach. We have found that that is one of our biggest past times. Michelle snorkeled, Mo, Mercedes, Lydell, Jill and Mike swam around in the nice blue waters. Later Mike discovered (being the whitest boy on the trip) sun screen is your best friend. Sadly that day Raquel was not with us at the beach, she twisted her ankle getting into our pool, and did we mention it looks over the marina? We later learned that it was the beautifulness of Puerto and its people that distracted here. She is recouping now and determined to get better (cant keep her down!)

We also met Dr. Don Hart, archeologist and anthropologist. He worked for National Geographic for many years and now gives lectures about his experiences of finding and exploring the Mayan ruins in the jungles of Central and Southern North America. He invited us into his home which in itself is an archeological find. He has native wooden timbers on the ceilings of his living room, art work all over. Over his sofa he had the etchings that he did of a Mayan King. One of the coolest things that we learned about Mayan hierarchy is that when they are in art they always seem the arch the hands over (wrist pointing up and fingers pointing down) in front of their chests (kind of a kiss my hand poise) As a group we could not get enough of Dr. Don’s stories (we were there for almost 3 hours).

Most of our days here are spent exploring Puerto Aventuras. This small town is amazing, it’s a gated city that is self contained. Think of a gated condo community, but then at convenience stores, shops, restaurants, bar and even their own hired security.

This last Thursday we went to Tulum. Just south of Puerto Aventuras by about 30 minutes. Tulum was the true gated city. it’s a small village that had a stone wall all around it that could only be entered from the small entrance at the front or by ocean. Dr. Don gave us our tour of Tulum. He knows so much about the history and people of the area and loves to share his knowledge about it.

While we there we learned that Tulum was one of many trading grounds for chocolate and corn. We (students) also got to be archeologists, we went exploring for terracotta and obsidian (volcanic glass). The terracotta is thought to be from women who would brake and bowl and just throw it out. The obsidian is from men who would make arrow heads from this sharp glass.
One of the best pictures we took was of all us students and the good doc in front of the biggest pyramid doing the Mayan King/ God poise.

After the tour Dr. Don took use out for lunch at Ana Y Jose. It was amazing, eating great food with great people overlooking the crystal blue waters and blue sky’s. It just seemed to go on forever. After lunch we went and played in the ocean like little kids, all 10 of us were fully clothed and we just ran, jumped and frolicked in the water.