Studio 909 is taking applications for its third annual Yucatan excursion.  We will be leaving from the Eastern Iowa Airport Cedar Rapids (CID) in the early morning of March 2nd.  We will arrive in Cancun about 1:30 in the afternoon, and be taken to our first hotel by private van. We will stay three nights at the Imperial Perals de Cancun an all inclusive hotel with all the food, drink, and various beach stuff provided in your hotel rate.  The hotel is at the edge of the hotel zone is a little bit less raucous than the big hotels in the center of Cancun.  It is usually occupied by wintering Canadians, UKers, and smug Americans like us.

The picture to the left is the hotel as the sun set last March.  This place is a great place to decompress from the trip and forget winter.  Don't expect in-room wireless, but do expect large rooms, a small fridge, weird Mexican TV, sea breezes, good food, lots of fresh seafood, and all the beverage you want.

We should arrive just before snack-time, and should be able to settle down at the beach before having a snack at the palapa (thatched roof) restaurant.  Since this is Quintana Roo, dinner is later, like most civilized places.

The first day we explore the various water sports kayaking, sailing, paddling, and begin to acclimate to the tropical sun.  If you have never stayed anytime on a white sand beach in the tropics - let's say right now you can burn through a t-shirt or in the shade so we will have like 10,000 SPF sunscreen.

Also, time to break out the cameras and explore the beach and the sea.

The photo to the right is the palapa restaurant that is actually built over the water.  4 meals a day are available there as well as a full service bar free to us.  The meals generally are buffet style with quite a bit of variety.

So if you can see yourself sitting on the beach watching the sea birds, smelling the breeze and wondering what was winter anyway, then you need to come on the Great Excursion.


 In the sky is a Frigate bird, also called a Pirate bird in some parts of the Caribbean - they have wing spans of over 6 feet and can ride a breeze for what seems like hours without ever flapping a wing.

After we fill up a few memory cards worth of beach, we'll go over to Puerto Juarez and take the Ferry over to Isla Mujeres.  We'll spend three days on the island and do all the island things.  We'll have a couple of golf carts to get around and we'll cover the whole island and much of what there is to see.  Yours Truly has been going there off and on for forty years, and we could never cover what there is to do in three days.

We'll do a bit of snorkeling and boating as well as covering the town with our cameras.

The downtown is way fun and we will have ample time to spend there.
















































































We'll go back to Cancun and do a bit of looking at its environs, and then we'll be off to the Maya ruins of Chichen Itza.  We'll have a bus, food, folkloric dancing, a chance to swim in a cenote - you'll have to see it to believe it, a guide, and looking at the ruins.

A few more pictures






Details coming tomorrow
 

37 days and counting down!!!