Feb. 26. Mary Lois left today to return to snowy Victoria.....:-) We had a final dinner at the Casa del Pescador, preceded by an infamous margarita from Valorie at David Lau's. On ML's departure day we had lunch at the Los Palmas, coffee at Paradise Pier and a last fond look at our beautiful turquoise sea and white sand beach before she left.
Another road trip for Mary Lois! We drove 4 hours to Merida, an ancient colonial city with the oldest church in the Americas (sadly, built by the Spanish on top of the Mayan ruin they tore down to build it). We had a great time exploring the town square and then watching not one but 2 Mardi Gras parades - one at night and one during the day. Stayed in a couple of great hotels - Las Arecas, charming with just 6 rooms, and the Hotel Colon, built in 1920 in true Mexican style with beautiful tile everywhere and a great pool. We ate out in 2 lovely restaurants in the evenings. The parade photos are too many to put here, so please copy and paste this link into your url to see the whole parade and more of Merida!
Feb. 22. The annual Mardi Gras arrived in town tonight! There were pickup trucks full of lovely dancing teenage boys, a huge group of women and children made up to the hilt and dancing to the beat of wild loud music - even little angels!
The floats were incredible - loud lovely music, lots of balloons, and one in the shape of a boat that I didn't quite get to in time......! The Mardi Gras celebrations were loud, fun and full of fun!
Feb. 20. A night at the bookstore is always interesting. Tonight there were 3 honking Harley Davidsons parked in front of the store, lending a certain atmosphere....?
Saturday Feb. 21, probably in honour of Mardis Gras, a whole group of local teenagers suddenly decended on the town square and planted dozens of new trees and shrubs all around the playground.
Also in the town square, a doctor and a couple of nurses were doing free vaccinations (of what we don't know) to kids and teenagers. Good to see public medicine being dispensed to the People!!
Feb. 19. So after a morning of snorkeling, we then went 180 degrees and took in the glitz and craziness of the hotel zone at Cancun. This statue - I call her a Mayan goddess with serious attitude - greets you as you move down the zone!!! 
After a drive of the Zone, a stop at the east beach, and a walkabout of our wonderful timeshare, Casa Maya, we had lunch at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. A fun place where we had good marg's, great food, constant musice from Jimmy, and a charming waiter!
Feb 19. Charlie Brown is the best snorkeling guide in PM so that is who we contracted with to take Mary Lois snorkeling on our wonderful reef. ML even got to steer the boat home to the dock! There is PM spread out in all its glory, complete with both our leaning and our conventional lighthouse!
On a perfect day we caught the 8:30 am passenger ferry and headed to the Island of Women, Isla Mujeres, so named as it was known as a powerful fertility location during Mayan history.
Feb 13 - A quiet day spent in and around the pool, eating, drinking (that is iced tea, by the way!!!) and sleeping, followed by dinner out at El Faro, overlooking the town square.
Had lunch with ML, Brenda and JP (Jean Pierre) at John Gray's Mother in Law's Restaurant (yes, that is really the name), went swimming afterwards and enjoyed the sun and sand. Finally got ML into this warm Caribbean sea! On the way home we stopped at the walkway into the mangrove, always a lovely view, especially at sunset!
Sorry, this will be out of order, but wanted to give you a glimpse of the ruin Ek Balam, which is one of the most recently discovered and uncovered ruins in the Yucatan. As always, there are more pics than the blog will allow me to post, so see more at
