Rasmania 101: Away from it all!

Happy Birthday to Finn and Hyeji this week!

Spring break was exactly that this year--a break. We had a great time in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Roy and I have been to Cancun twice before, but we've always stayed on the hotel strip; then, when it came time to do extra activities we had to head to the area where we stayed this time. During the week we had a couple of days to completely relax, swim in the ocean and in the pool, and read. The rest of the time we stayed active and busy. Below is a picture of Roy, Caitlyn and I on our first excursion--Chichen Itza. We've never been there before--the other two times in Cancun we opted out of the long bus ride to get there--and it was a long bus ride. I had envisioned this long tour on an old run down bus with a broken air conditioner--another reason we'd never gone. The bus was actually really nice and the air inside was cool (thank goodness). Chichen Itza is a Mayan ruin and one of the 7 wonders of the world. It was pretty cool to see the pyramid built as a Temple for Quetzalcoatl (there are other names used for him but this is the one we recognize). There were many other ruins and it was interesting to hear their version of the history there. As awesome as it was, it was also very hot there. The heat combined with the long bus ride makes this a once in a lifetime for me. I don't think I'll ever go there again, but it's great to say I've been there and I'm glad I went.

Pyramid at Chicen Itza

There were a lot of these little guys hanging around. Like us, they came
in all different shapes and sizes. We learned to identify the males vs. the
females. This is taken at one of the ruins.

Below are pictures of the three of us at the Occidental Grand Xcaret Resort. Roy was getting in a quick moment of romance. There wasn't too much of that sort of thing since Caitlyn was there--and she was taking the picture, of course.

The resort had a buffet dinner--or if you preferred, you could
choose one of about 5 restaurants. This picture is in the Italian
restaurant--our least favorite that we tried, but still pretty good.

On another day we went to Tulum (another ruin, but much smaller). We've been there before and on our previous visit we asked for a Mormon guide. We were able to get one and the tour was very interesting. Since that visit, they have now blocked off the buildings and you can't get up close to them as we were able to do previously. Due to graffiti, etc. they had to put ropes around everything. We were still able to see the Mayan hand prints on the walls of some of the buildings--symbolizing getting close to deity (that's what we were told this time, though we had to ask. I don't remember what the Mormon guide told us). There were red hand prints and black ones. The red signified royalty, and the black was purely religious. We were with a tour group this time, but we asked our guide if we could get a Mormon guide instead. He apparently checked and said it was the Mormon guide's day off. I had heard there were several brothers that did it, so who knows... This guide was very basic and was done with his spiel pretty quickly. The guide we had at Chichen Itza took an hour to give us his presentation, but he should've taken only 40 minutes or less. I turned to Roy and said, "Phil would be getting pretty impatient right about now."

Tulum

Listening to the guide at Tulum

After a couple of hours at Tulum, our tour continued at a park called Xel ha. The food at this park was included with your entry ticket so we were able to have lunch before we got in the water. We had a blast there. The underground river felt heavenly after the heat at Tulum. At the end of the river were some rope courses, a zip line, cliff jumping and a few other things. We didn't try the cliff jumping, or the slides. We snorkeled there and took pictures with an underwater camera (these have not been developed yet). I am pretty fearless while snorkeling, usually, but at one point I looked down and I had 3 huge fish swimming right underneath me. I panicked and let out a scream, but then realized it was no big deal. It just startled me. If we ever go to Playa Del Carmen again, we will stay at Xel ha for a whole day. Even though you had to pay extra for a lot of the attractions there, there was plenty to do in the water without doing any of the extras. We almost paid extra to have fish therapy, but we didn't have enough time (Fish Therapy: you immerse your feet in a tank of water and little fish eat the dead skin off!)
One of the highlights of our trip was a dolphin/manatee encounter. Roy wanted Caitlyn to have the opportunity, but he decided he'd just take pictures while we swam. There were a couple of French girls from London that were in our group, and one was very afraid--not of the dolphin, but of the little fish swimming around in the dolphin pool. It was kind of funny.

I'm pretty sure that we could never do this in the US.

The manatee were pretty cool. We got to feed them lettuce. I'd hold up the leaf and they'd put their flippers on my thigh and use it to leverage themselves higher to get the lettuce. I really had to brace myself. I think they about knocked Caitlyn over.

mother and babies. We were able to feed the larger babies, but
there was at least one that was still nursing.

At Tulum

I had a few favorite things at the buffet. Papaya
(the pineapple and melons were good, too),
Ceviche (fish, cut small, with tomatoes, onion and cilantro,
marinated in lime juice. Fish, and jicama!

Nowhere else would Caitlyn ever wear the same swim cover-up.
We both liked the same one and figured we'd wear it at different times,
but she decided it was okay because no one there would ever
see her again.

Note the guest in the middle

Xcaret is a park that was connected to our resort. There were a lot of animals on exhibit--an aquarium, an aviary, and a butterfly sanctuary. There were also several underground rivers that you could float through. At the end of the day, they have a couple of shows. Here are some characters from the show that highlights Mexican history.

This is a depiction of The Mayans playing a game on a large field.
There were 7 players on each team. After a winner was determined,
the captain of the losing team was sacrificed to the God's.
Then there were 13...

Some of the dancers. Actually, in the front picture it's only one dancer,
the rest are puppets.

We were really glad to get home Friday night so we'd be ready for general conference. What a great time to come home--two days to listen to prophets and apostles while recovering from playing hard all week. I loved all of the talks. I was very touched by Elder Nelson's talk in the priesthood session. What a hard thing to do everything you could do as a physician, only to lose two sisters after their surgery's. That story really touched my heart. We are so incredibly blessed to have leaders that can help us find direction in our lives. I've got to re-listen to Elder Uchtdorf's talk. I was kind of dozing off by then, but I have a feeling that talk was meant just for me.

We were able to have Dan's family and Adrienne's family come to dinner on Sunday evening. Ori was sick, so Nick came over for just a short time. Grandpa Roy always loves to see his grand kids. He cooked a pork butt and some shrimp so we could choose what we wanted on our tacos. I made a salad (like one that we had eaten for lunch after our dolphin adventure. I asked them what was in it and they freely told me). It was delicious--Jicama, pineapple, cucumber, orange slices, lime juice with the option of "Tajin," kind of a seasoning salt with just a bit of a kick to it.

Here are a few family pictures from the week: