Honeymoon – Final four days at the Secrets Capri

The Secrets Capri was the perfect end to the perfect honeymoon. Five days and four nights of all-inclusive luxury. Gourmet restaurants. Heated pool with swim-up bar. Beautifully appointed rooms. Immaculate beaches. Entertaining shows at night (not West End quality, but better than the average cruise ship).

We spent an awesome day at the their exclusive spa. It started with an hour of “hydrotherapy circuit.” 10 minutes in a steam room followed by a bucket of cold water over the head. (Literally – a wooden bucket on a shelf with a pull-chain.) Then 10 minutes in a sauna, and another dunk of cold water. Then into a large hot tub with jacuzzi jets at different heights and angles to loosen up muscles from head to toe. It was all in preparation for our one-hour couples massage followed by a private hot tub. Marta topped it off with a pedicure and manicure. I never had a spa day before, but I definitely get it now.

I think I planned out the honeymoon perfectly. First we did all of the strenuous adventures: the Mayan ruins of Coba and Chichen Itza, swimming in cenotes and underwater caves, and going out in the Playa del Carmen nightlife. Then we went to Cozumel for the water activities: Dolphin Discovery and snorkeling at Palancar reef & Chankanaab park, and starting to wind down with days at the beach, a motorcycle tour around the island, and margaritas at Wet Wendy’s. Then finally to Secrets Capri for total rest & relaxation.

Thanks to everyone who helped make it possible!
–Mitch & Marta

Honeymoon – Swimming with the Fishes (Snorkel trips)

(Yes, I know I spelled “snorkeling” wrong in the title. Strangely, my spell-check software has it wrong, with 2 l’s instead of 1.)

Besides snorkeling off the beaches, we went on 2 open-sea snorkel tours.

The first was the “Mystic Snorkel Tour” in Cozumel. It’s a small operation run by a Swiss diver, Rosi Flury, who charters the boat, crew, and provides all the gear you need (including wetsuits, highly recommended).  There were about 12 other people with us and it was a small boat, so the ride was a bit cramped. Rosi was a good guide and pointed out the best parts of the reefs, but you had to be a strong swimmer to keep up with her. The first reef was shallow and inland, so it wasn’t so hard. The 2nd and 3rd reefs were further into open sea with bigger waves & currents, which made it more challenging. I had a great time (and it was good exercise too), but I felt bad for the novices.

The second trip was off the coast of the Secrets Capri resort in Playa del Carmen. One of the catamaran guides told us about it and took us out. The reefs here were smaller in area, but the corals were much, much larger and more lush. The Palancar reefs at Cozumel looked worn down, maybe because of  all the tourists or because they haven’t recovered from the big hurricaines in ‘05 and ‘07.  The ones off of the Secrets Capri felt like more private, wild, complete ecosystems. There also weren’t as many fish, but the ones that were there were different and more exotic-looking than in Cozumel. (How many sergeant majors and striped grunts do you really need to see?) 

Snorkeling remains one of my all-time favorite activities. Someday I hope to live in a place where I could do it every weekend. The only downside was that I didn’t get to use my new digital underwater camera housing, because the camera lens got jammed a day before the trip and there wasn’t enough time to get it repaired. That’s okay, it gives me a good excuse to book another snorkel trip this summer.

Most interesting thing I learned: Squid swim in a horizontal line, side-by-side and evenly spaced apart from each other. Very unlike the schools of fish which swim in ‘cloud’ or ‘follow the leader’ patterns. It’s like watching an underwater marching band.

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Honeymoon – Cozumel – Exploring the island

I’m trying something new. Instead of a long list of pictures & text, I created a slideshow video.  The idea was to keep the blog posts short but still show as many (or even more) pictures. Like it better? Or do you like the longer posts with more details? Add a comment to this post and let me know. –Mitch

Honeymoon – Cozumel – Dolphin Discovery

On Day 5 we took the ferry from Playa del Carmen to the island of Cozumel, 12 miles off the mainland. We stayed at the Coral Princess hotel to the north of the main city of San Miguel.

This was the view from our room.

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The next day we went to Chankanaab park, to do our Dolphin Discovery tour.

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First we had to change into our bathing suit. Doesn’t Marta look super-hot? She made that bikini herself.

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The dolphins were awesome. The were like big, leathery puppies, knowing lots of tricks and craving attention.

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First we did the handshake and the kiss.

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Next we did the boogie-board push. The dolphin swims behind you, puts his nose to your foot and tests to make sure that they’re straight, and then he pushes you forward by your feet. They’re very powerful so you go quite fast, lifting the board almost out of the water.

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Then came the fin pull. You hold your arm out and the dolphin swims under so that you can grab onto his fin. Then he pulls you along for the ride, again very fast.

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The show ended with the dolphins flipping and swimming next to you for petting.

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We spent the rest of the afternoon at Chankanaab, snorkeling in their small shallow reef and looking at the lizards.

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Honeymoon – Spelunking at Rio Secreto

On Day 4 we went to Rio Secreto, a half-day adventure from AllTournative tours.

The Yucatan peninsula is build upon a layer of soft limestone and underground reservoirs. Over thousands of years, the rain seeped through the ground and dissolved the soft rock below, creating underground voids that grew larger and larger and eventually became large sinkholes or wells. The Mayans call them “cenotes.” Sometimes the ceiling gets too thin and collapses, creating an open-water cenotel like we saw in Chichen Itza and Ik-Kil. Sometimes the cenote is deep enough or the ceiling is strong enough to remain underground, like we saw in the Mayan village near Coba.

“Rio Secreto” is a series of interconnected cenotes which are completely underground. It’s very new. The story is that it was discovered a few years ago when the landowner was
hunting an iguana. It crawled into a hole and when the landowner looked down he saw water below. He widened the hole and discovered an entry to a labyrinth of underground water systems. The site has been open to the public for less than a year, so it’s still very pristine. Many of the paths are still unexplored.

We dressed up in wetsuits, strapped on a helmet with a built-in light, and were ready to go.

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We waded through water for most of the route because the ceiling was low or there were no paths through the stalagtites & stalagmites. From cenote to cenote we could feel a small current pull us along. We were officially spelunking!

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At one point we sat quietly, turned off our lights, and just listened to the water dripping from the ceiling. It was completely blackness, even though it was the middle of the day. I wouldn’t want to get lost in here, alone and without a light source.

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The stalagtites and stalamites were awesome. Some were colorful, with yellows and oranges and even some purple. We were able to hold a broken one — they’re quite heavy, and hollow inside where the water travels.  It’s a very magical place, unlike anything I’d done before. Quite extraordinary.

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Honeymoon – Mayan Encounter – Coba

On Day 3 we took an all-day adventure trip called “Mayan Encounter” (from the company AllTournative, very highly recommended).

It started with a journey to Coba, a much older and larger Mayan city than Chichen Itza. At its peak in 500-900 it was home to about 50,000 people and covered an area of 80 square km. Unlike Chichen, the architecture in Coba is more Mayan than Toltec. Also unlike Chichen, this site hasn’t been cleared very much. It’s so large that they only had enough money to clear the largest & most popular sites. There are several hundred (possibly thousands) of buildings which are still hidden among the jungle.

At Coba, you feel like you’re in the middle of an Indiana Jones movie. We rented old rusty bicycles, going from site to site on dry dirt paths. If you go wandering through the jungle you’re likely to trip over ruins that haven’t been touched for a thousand years.

The central feature of Coba is the Nohoch Mul pyramid. At 42 metres (140 ft), it’s almost twice as tall as El Castillo in Chichen Itza. The stairs are much rougher and only 1 side of it has been excavated, but they still let you climb it.

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The stairs are very narrow, so it’s easier to climb up on all fours.

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The summit of the temple is well over the trees. As you gaze out, you can see many of the buildings which haven’t been excavated yet, peeking out through the top of jungle. Looking for miles around, you can start to imagine how large the city was.

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Only the most holy men were allowed to come up here. But there we were!

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Getting down is harder than getting up. We side-stepped it, using the rope to help keep our balance.

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We did it!!!

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Coba had its own ball court, similar to the one in Chichen but smaller and with sloped walls.

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There were several large “stelae” — stone tables with hieroglyphics describing the rulers, their military victories, and other accomplishments. A Mayan newspaper of sorts.

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The “Crossroads Temple.”

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Outside of Coba were some street vendors selling Mayan food. That’s where we made a delicious discovery: Marquesitas. Flat, crepe-like pancakes rolled up and filled with cheese or sweet condensed milk.

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Next on our trip, we went to visit a real Mayan village. A lot of people think that the Mayan civilization is extinct, but far from it. Much of the contemporary rural population of the Yucatán Peninsula, Chiapas (both in Mexico), Guatemala and Belize is Maya by descent and primary language.

Near the village was another cenote, very rough and overgrown. First we streamed across it on a zip line. Very Indiana Jones. Marta did it like a pro.

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I pushed off into a spin and ended up zipping across backwards.

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Next we rappelled down the sheer cliffs about 25 feet.

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We went Kayaking across one of the streams that feeds water to the interior of the Yukutan.

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And finally we went to an underground cenote called the “frog’s mouth.” This was the first cenote we had been in that was completely underground.

It was a little cold, so the easiest way in was to jump.

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We had a fun time with our group of fellow adventurers.

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Next up: Day 4: More underground cenotes.

Honeymoon – Chichen Itza

This was voted one of the new seven wonders of the world. It’s easy to see why.

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Chichen Itza was a major Mayan city in the 11th-13th centuries, supporting about 35,000 people. The myths claim that the exiled god-king Kukulcan (a.k.a. Quetzalcoatl) settled here when the Toltecs invaded (or possibly became allies with) the Mayans who originally lived here.  In 1221 the Mayans revolted against their rulers and Chichen started to decline.  But it wasn’t until the Spanish Conquistadors conquered the Mayans in the 16th century that the city fell into ruin, when people stopped coming here even on their pilgrimage route. It was rediscovered in the 1920s, overgrown with jungle. Several major archaeological projects cleared the area and restored what was left, turning it into the major tourist site that it is today.

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The main temple, El Castillo or the Temple of Kukulcan, is actually a shell of Toltec design built over an earlier Mayan-style temple from about AD 800. From this view you can see how the older, rougher steps underneath were covered by larger, smoother stones.

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These are the serpent heads at the bottom of the stairs, and they’re the source of an interesting optical illusion. On the days of the equinox twice a year, the sun hits them straight-on so that their shadows appear to “climb” up the stairs to the top as the sun rises.

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The Mayans had a sophisticated knowledge of science, astronomy, and engineering. The temple sides face exactly North/East/South/West. There are 18 terraces corresponding to the Mayan 18-month calendar, 52 panels on each face to represent the 52 years in the Mayan sacred cycle, and the total number of stairs on all 4 sides is 365, one for each day of the year. The stairs rise at an exact 45-degree angle.

But why did they build it so small?

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(It’s actually 24 meters / 79 feet high. Not the biggest Mayan pyramid, but it’s still very impressive and the most well-preserved.)

This is the Temple of the Warriors, and the start of the “Groupo de las mil columnas” (1,000 columns)

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Mayan tic-tac-toe, anyone?

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Speaking of games, this is the great ballcourt, a spectator sport for the Mayans.

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No-one knows the rules for certain, but it was most likely a cross between volleyball & basketball: two teams on opposite sides sending a rubber ball back & forth using only their hips and forearms, not letting the ball bounce more than once, and
earning points by hitting the opponent’s wall or by sending the ball through the stone rings high up on the walls. Not easy. And the balls were heavy — solid rubber weighing around 4kg (9lbs). There are reports of players who were bruised so badly or hit so hard that they died from the injury.

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These were the grandstands, “box seats” for the royalty.

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The walls still have carvings which depict the sport. The penalty for losing… could be death. Some games were used as part of human sacrifice rituals.

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Outside the ballcourt was the Platform of the Skulls, a “tzompantl” monument commonly used for the public display of human skulls from sacrifices and war captives.

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Also used for sacrifies was the “Sacred Cenote,” large natural well. During periods of drought they gave human offerings to please the rain god Chaak. (Originally it was thought that only material or animal sacrifices were made here, until the archaeologists found the skeletons at the bottom of the well.)

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Other than the main temple, my favorite site was the observatory nicknamed “El Caracol” (“the snail” because of the spiral staircase inside). The openings, windows & doors were aligned to astronomical events around the path of Venus.

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Marta stands in front of a government office building nicknamed Las Monjas (“The Nuns”) because the Spanish thought that it resembled their convents back in Spain.

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This is a small temple/church (“La Iglesia”). Look closely at the hooks — they’re the the noses of the rain god Chaac which surround the building.

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After a hot day in the sun (there’s no shade because all of the trees have been cleared away), we took a side trip to the Ik-Kil Cenote, a beautiful site where Mayan kings took their courtesans to relax and meditate about nature.

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The pictures don’t do it justice. It’s stunningly beautiful. The cenote is 82 feet deep and an almost perfectly circular 196 feet wide. The water is 130 feet deep so it’s possible for divers to jump all the way from the top (some local Mayans dive it to earn tips). A streaming waterfall and long green vines dip down into the water, which is a clear blue-green. The large well is completely opened up to the sky allowing the full sun to warm the water. The pool has lots of little black catfish swimming near the surface, but no larger fish that we could see.

It was like swimming in our own private “blue lagoon.”

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Here’s a pretty flower that we found around Ik-Kil and Chichen Itza. Anyone know what it is?

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We had rented a car to drive to/from Chichen Itza. Driving in Mexico was fun, but also a bit scary. There are lots of stray dogs, very hot and sad-looking.

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We also nearly killed someone on a carrier bicycle. It was dark by the time we left Ik-Kil, and there are no streetlights on the highway. Because it’s cooler to travel at night, many locals ride their bicycles on the highways — in the middle of the road, and sometimes in the opposite direction.  (Of course we didn’t know this because we didn’t read the “driving tips” in our guide books until after we returned.)

So this guy was cycling straight toward us, up a slight hill. I didn’t see him until we crested the hill going about 65mph and were right on top of him. My cat-like reflexes took over and we barely missed him. It felt like I drank 10 cups of espresso in 2 seconds, my heart was pounding so fast.

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Next up… our Mayan Adventure trip to Coba.

Honeymoon – Playa del Carmen – Playa Maya

Friday. Six days after the wedding. We boarded the plane at Heathrow. I had my vacation hat on. We were ready.

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Away we flew, first to JFK and then on to Cancun airport.

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I had reserved a rental car at the airport, but when we arrived they were all out of cars! Luckily another rental agent had one extra. We drove an hour south of Cancun, to our hotel in Playa Del Carmen.

The Playa Maya hotel. It’s right on the beach — in fact, you have to walk on the beach to get to the front door. (They have a porter to carry your bags so that you don’t have to drag them across the sand.)

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I can’t say enough good things about Playa Maya. Their service was excellent, and the beach-side restaurant served some of the best pancakes we’ve ever had. Perfect way to start the day, relaxing on the beach after breakfast, enjoying the sun & the ocean views

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This is the beach in front of Playa Maya. Most of the Playa del Carmen beaches were like this.

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The hotel is right in the heart of Playa del Carmen, 1 block off of the main tourist strip, 5th avenue (La Quinta Avenida).

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This being Mexico, there was a bit of an “anything goes” attitude — combining a drug store & a delicatessen? Why not? Especially when they can sell Prozac and Viagra without a prescription.

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Marta’s namesake, ice-cream style.

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Best frackin’ brownies on Earth, from Ah Cacao restaurant.

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Marta enjoying a fresh mojito (rum, sugar, lime & mint).

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Me enjoying a Michelada (beer & lime juice with salt on the rim).

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And back to the hotel, where the Playa Maya maids always surprised with new “towel art” every night.

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