The approach to Akumal, first from the highway, then at the archway.

These are pictures of our "bungalow" accommodations and the surrounding area. Note the towel arrangement on the left-hand bed in the last picture. This is how we first saw our room. One of the local cats adopted our window for one picture.

Akumal Bay. The picture on the right, top row of this section shows the morning ritual of the gardeners raking the sea grass from the beach, where it has accumulated during the past 24 hours. In the center of the left picture in the bottom row is a sailing yacht out of Rotterdam, Holland. In the center picture is part of the Lol Ha restaurant, and on the right is a new rental house called the "Taj Kumal", probably the most expensive accommodations on Akumal Bay.

One of our favorite places is the Casa Cenote, located about 15 km south of Akumal. Look for the sign in the first picture, then turn towards the ocean. You'll come to a sharp left at a large gated complex. Turn there and keep going until you see the cenote on your left and the Casa Cenote complex on your right. The cenote itself goes under the road and the restaurant to end up mixing with the waters of Tankah Bay. If you're daring, walk into the bay in front of the restaurant to a hole in the bay floor. Go into the hole head first and you can move to another hole a few feet away and emerge into the bay again. The area is a sort of swiss cheese of openings into the cenote and the water here (right by the openings) is almost totally fresh, even though it appears to be, and is the Caribbean. This is a wonderful place to spend an hour or three with lunch and several cervezas. When we first went here there was no electricity. Sad to say the wires have arrived, but the food is still great and your cerveza could even be slightly frozen when you get it!

We found a place way down at the end of nowhere (so it seemed) called Ana y Jose's Restaurant and Cabanas. Take the left turn at Tulum and go to the beach area. Turn right there and advance slowly around the potholes until you can hardly stand it any more. They have a very nice facility, far from the madding crowd. It's not really good for snorkeling, as there doesn't appear to be any reef. But it really gets you away from the rat-race.

At Tulum one of the attractions might be called the "Flying Mayas" or "Crazy Mayas". It's a very interesting demonstration of an old practice which has been updated with a modern pole. I missed filming this on our first trip to Tulum in 1998 so made a point of catching it this year.

We made a fairly sizable journey to Chichen Itza in the state of Yucatan one day, by way of Tulum, Coba, and Valladolid, which is a frontier city with a popluation of over 65,000. Valladolid merits some further study in the future, but here we present some views of Chichen Itza. We began with a climb to the top of "El Castillo", the largest pyramid at the site. Views here include a panorama from one side of El Castillo, also known as Kukulkan's Temple, a single shot from the opposite side as well as one of each of us on our way back down and also a few shots of some of the columns in the "Group of The Thousand Columns". This archaeological site is among the most important of the Mayan culture. Two other major sites exist in the area, Tulum and Coba, but Chichen Itza is by far the largest and most thoroughly excavated of the three. There is a lot more to see at Chichen Itza, including a light show in the evenings, but this is the best of the pictures we have right now.

Aktun Chen is a nature park a few km south of Akumal. In addition the area has a cave with its own cenote and a wildlife zoo. The three views here are, left to right, inside the cave, a parrot chewing on my shoe, and a couple of local spider monkeys, one of which later joined us in our car when we opened the window without watching who was lurking in the area. Click on the monkey, below, for that story. And learn more about Aktun Chen by clicking on the parrot (below). But be sure to come back!

Our usual trip to Yalku Cenote yielded these two shots. The first is of the most common fish in this pond, while the second is of one of the small stingrays a bit nearer the ocean. Apologies for the lack of quality in the stingray picture, but it was swimming near the bottom, about 10 to 15 feet down from the camera.

Here are a couple of shots from the city of Puerto Morelos, the first city south of Cancun. On the left is a lighthouse and on the right is the interior of their local cathedral. We stopped here on the way back to Cancun for our flight home. Sad to say, that's all for now. We'll be back for more pictures (not to mention cervezas) in March, 2003.