Of a Flight Back Home

The trip back home was tir­ing. It always is. I some­times dream of fly­ing door-to-door but it’s not going to hap­pen as long as we live in Ottawa. Our air­port sucks: it is barely big­ger than a Wal-Mart and it has very few direct inter­na­tional flights. We always have to trans­fer in the U.S. or in Toronto.

Welcome Winter

We are head­ing home. The trip is over. Win­ter is start­ing… for us. Am I sad to leave? Always. A lit­tle bit. But to be hon­est, I don’t mind it that much.

Playa Del Carmen

Playa Del Car­men is a circus.

Walk in the main street and dodge restau­rants, tours and hotels offers. Decline to hold the baby tiger or the lit­tle iguana for the pic­ture. Walk straight, ignore peo­ple, because even a polite “no gra­cias” won’t be enough.

Isla Cozumel, The (Ghost) Town

Like I said yes­ter­day, we are a bit out of our ele­ment here. Cozumel mostly caters to the “all inclu­sive” crowd and peo­ple tend to stay in their hotels where they lounge by the pool, drink and sleep.

Reverse Culture Shock in Isla Cozumel

For our last few days, we had the chance to book a nice hotel in Isla Cozumel, Mex­ico biggest island. We knew it was going to be a touris­tic place: the Cancún-Playa Del Carmen-Cozumel is a hot spot for North Amer­i­cans, espe­cially dur­ing the winter.

Beach Bumming in Tulum

For our last few days in Mex­ico, we decided to be beach-bum. An easy deci­sion to make con­sid­er­ing how great the coast­line is in Quin­tana Roo, and how cold it will be when we go back to Canada.

Valladolid, Cenote and More Ruinas

In a way, Val­ladolid reminded me of Are­quipa. A city stuck between tra­di­tion and moder­nity, a noble and proud place with a rich his­tory. Sun-drenched colour­ful walls, women wear­ing the tra­di­tional Yucatán dress, a zócalo cen­ter to the life of the peo­ple… in many aspects, Val­ladolid is your tra­di­tional Mex­i­can city.

Back to the Maya World: Chichén Itzá

Chichén Itzá is prob­a­bly the most famous and most vis­ited Maya arche­o­log­i­cal site. The main tem­ple is one of the icons of Mex­ico and it never fails to impress. We’ve been there three times and I’m still in awe!