It´s my birthday!

Playa del Carmen Oct 19-Mary-We have been enjoying more sun, and low season is great here in Mexico. There are fewer people around, but the weather is what I would have expected in high season. It rained for about 5 minutes yesterday, but aside from that it has been all sun.
I guess if you have been to Mexico, you know about the aggressive time share salespeople on the street. Anyway, we got sucked into a presentation at the Grand Mayan Resort (not too difficult to talk us into it, as you know how we love a great scam)! Jorge set us up with lots of freebies, a golf cart rental for the day on Isla Mujeres, blankets?!, entrance to the ruins we are going to later in the week, transportation to our next destination, a bottle of champagne in exchange for a 90 minute presentation. It sounded too good to be true, and we couldn´t quite believe it when they handed over the US$ reimbursement at the end of the pitch. It was nothing like the timeshare horror stories I have heard in the past. They were very professional and weren´t mean when we said no (yup...we said no). They fed us a great brunch and gave us airconditioned van service to our destination today...quite the luxury for our budget!

Isla Mujeres Oct 18 Steve- What a day! Wait I have to back up. So we chose our little hostel because it was cheap and it had a nice balcony over looking a nice pedestrian street. What we didn´t know was that the nice pedestrian street turned into party central at night complete with karaoke bars and restaurant playing 90s american rock at high volumes. Oh well, I guess that´s why we packed ear plugs.
Today we got the golf cart promised by the timeshare huckster. Having transportation on this island makes everything so accessible.
We stopped at a turtle conservatory where they breed and raise turtles before releasing them to the wild. What I thought was really cool was the seahorse.

The owner of our hostel recommended we stop at a resort with beautiful swimming pools just off a beach and overlooking Cancun.

The highlight of the day was the snorkelling. I don´t think I´ve ever actually gone before. It was great. The water was clear and there was a lot of fish. I have to admit though it´s a little intimidating when you are surrounded by 50 Nemos who are looking at you with their mouths open. When the word piranha came to mind I decided to explore somewhere else.
We stopped in the non-touristy village for lunch and found a little restaurant (more like the guys kitchen with a few little tables) where we were given a spanish lesson over a very tasty lunch.



The only not so great part of the day was the seemingly spontaneous honking that our golf cart would do on occasion. This was particularly embarrasing when passing construction workers or when another vehicle was just in front. We received many strange looks and never did figure out why it did that.



Good times