HOKIECAT - If only I had an opposable thumb...

Cancun Vacation 2006 Photo Album

We went to Cancun for our 10th wedding anniversary.

We stayed at the JW Marriott which was still recovering from damage from Hurricane Wilma. Here is a picture of the front of our hotel. The Marriott was nice and is probably a great hotel when all of the amenities are functional and there isn't scaffolding hanging off the front of the hotel.

Here is the view from our room. The water is so clear and a perfect blue. Awesome. The pool below (a secondary one not the infinity pool) was open. As you can see, there was still a good amount of landscaping that needed to be fixed.

Mike and Cathy at the Hard Rock Cancun. Check off the box for another restaurant visited.

Mike on a bench in the tourist shopping district near the Hard Rock. We never did get to eat at that Hooters in the background. Notice one red knee and one white knee. Somebody had issues applying his sunscreen.

We visited Chichen Itza on our anniversay. We took a private van tour and the guide, Chico, was excellent. Here we are in front of the big pyramid in new Chichen. You can no longer climb the pyramid (as of 2006). The Mexican government decided to stop the climbing to prevent damage. This coincidentally happened just after an 80-year old lady from San Diego fell down the steps and died earlier this year. Coincidence or litigation prevention?

Carvings on the stones at "new" Chichen.

Mike and Cathy and the view from the 2nd level of the "Observatory" at old Chichen.

And here is the Observatory from a distance.

After visiting Chichen Itza, our tour van stopped for a buffet meal. The entertainment at the meal was dancers who danced with hats on their head, then bottles on their head, and then trays filled with bottles.

The next day we visited Tulum and Xel'Ha. We booked the all-inclusive tour from the hotel and I'd highly recommend this tour as well. Tulum is nice but much smaller than Chichen Itza. Xel-Ha is a lot of fun to snorkel and float in the water. Plus the all-inclusive means all you can eat and drink at the park. The buffet was very good and so were the Pina Coladas.



Here we are in front of the main temple at Tulum. Tulum is actually newer than Chichen but it doesn't really look it. The salty sea air has definitely taken its toll. Plus the construction is from a later period when the Mayan civilization was in decline so the quality isn't there. What do you do when you just can't get good slave labor?

Tulum temple up on the cliffs as seen from the left side.

Here is a snorkeling picture from Xel-Ha. The snorkeling was pretty good (nothing like Hawaii). Mike used the new waterproof digital camera (Pentax W10) to take the snorkeling pictures as well as the Tulum pictures. The Pentax's waterproof features are very cool but its image quality is not up to the standards of our Canon A610. The Pentax took some very nice underwater photos and also some out of focus ones. The AF sensor had some issues with fast moving fish.

Hundreds of tiny fish.

A fish and a ray. It took a while to be able to spot the rays lying on the bottom.

More fish pictures. These little guys were very good about swimming up to and around you.

More fish pictures. These big guys were also very good about swimming up to and around you. Cathy learned it is hard to scream and snorkel when a couple dozen decided to closely swim by her.

More fish.

This isn't the best picture but we didn't see too many of these blue guys.

A Cancun sunset to complete our photo album.