Costa Maya

Can I say that this might have actually been my favorite day?  It was so beautiful.  Blake now wants to buy a house in Mexico.  For reals.

After getting some catcalls from the locals, we made it to our tour bus!

They drove us way out to a ranch somewhere with chickens roaming all over and then we hopped on this super sweet tandem bike!  And we started our tour.

This was Juan, one of our awesome guides.  He was super nice and had a great sense of humor.

I think this was the allspice plant.  He pointed out a few different plants that get transformed into powdery substances we use in our kitchens every day.

This is not one of those plants.  I can't remember what it was called, but those spikes mean serious business.  And apparently, when you cut this type of tree, red liquid comes out--like blood.  This was very symbolic in the Mayan culture.  It had something to do with souls making the passage from earth to heaven.

This was another symbol--this one of rebirth.  It's a "cenote".  You go down the hole on the left, swim across (it wasn't very far--but it was FREEZING!) and when you come out the other side, you are reborn.

Here Blake is pontificating on being able to be reborn so easily.

And then we rode back to the ranch and the bus drove us out to an amazingly beautiful beach.  Almost all of the beaches were covered in trash.  I mean really covered.  It was really sad.  But a few were obviously private and were kept clean.

Including the one we were dropped off at.

Still, we had to aim the camera carefully to avoid the trash on the beaches right next to us.  But look how gorgeous this view was!

And since foot pictures are a thing right now, we had to jump on the bandwagon.

Face pictures are still a thing too, right?

Ah, I loved this view!  I miss it!

This was our other guide, Israel.  He collected all of these coconuts and proceeded to cut them and slice them open so we could all enjoy some fresh coconut water with lunch.  So delicious!

See?

And that's my plate of amazing lunch!  Fajitas and quesadillas.  So good!

But I couldn't wait to get on the paddle boards.  Again, we had a wind problem and they didn't want to let us out.  But eventually I convinced them that I'm a strong swimmer and they wouldn't have to come out and rescue me.

I did eventually make it up on my feet, but Blake had a battle with the wind and was lucky to not lose the camera entirely, so he didn't get any photos of that amazing feat.  It was my first time paddle boarding and I loved it!  Then Blake and I just splashed around and had a very mature water fight while the other (boring) couples laid on the beach and watched us having more fun than them.

We had a some time to kill when we got back from our excursion, so we made our way to another beach.  We braved climbing over those sharp rocks and got in the water again.  This is where we really should have had our snorkeling gear.  There were some rays and I think someone saw a sea turtle or something.  It was beautiful.  We started swimming out, but someone freaked out about sharks and we had to swim back.  I'll give you a hint--I'm not really afraid of sharks that close to the shore and Blake's whole family has a very strong fear of sharks.  I'm not sure why, but they find it very compelling.

Did I mention that I loved this day?  Because I did.

And then there was this chocolate night.  Chocolate everything.  I would have enjoyed it a billion times more if it had been a few nights earlier--before I had stuffed myself silly for days.  This picture doesn't do it justice, but there were some really amazing chocolate sculptures.

And this cute little guy.