The view when I wake up here is amazing. I usually like to sleep with the curtains closed at home, but there's very little light pollution at the resort, so I kept the curtains wide open to see the view of the moon on the water. Unfortunately, I haven't quite figured out how to take decent pictures of the night sky with my digital camera, but I'm working on it. Maybe by the end of vacation, I'll have it down.

This is my balcony. The hammock doesn't look like much in this picture, but it's incredibly nice to sit out and swing during the hottest part of the day. I thought that I'd retreat to either the pool or the air conditioning when it got too oppressive for me, but that hasn't been the case. I was warned that it was very hot down here before I arrived, but so far it hasn't bothered me too much. I've sweated through a couple of t-shirts, but other than that, I feel great.

My cold has mostly dissipated. The occasional cough now and then, but nothing like it was earlier this week. I think the relaxation of the past two days had a lot to do with it. Even though I haven't been here a full 48 hours, I feel well-rested. Tomorrow will change that, as the group has an all-day excursion planned that'll include hiking and fun things like rapelling and a zip line, but so far, we've been left to our own devices, and mostly what everyone has chosen to do is sit around and talk or take the occasional swim in the ocean. I've been in a couple of times now, and the water is amazing. It's almost too warm for my tastes, and I've found that wearing my $4.00 water sneakers from Target are a must (the beach is a little rockier than some places), but when you have water this blue:

...you really can't complain. When I was in Cozumel on the cruise, the water was this blue, but we weren't on the beach for very long. Diego and I took a trip to swim with stingrays and the water was crystal-clear that time, but it was only for an hour or so. To have an entire day with nothing to look at but that expanse of blue is wonderful.

The redeeming grace for me is the fact that there are a lot of shady spots. The dining structure at Kailuum is completely in the shade, and there are trees with lounge chairs directly below them that get no sun at all. My balcony is hot but covered, so the sun hasn't gotten to my skin yet. I know that everyone at home is going to tease me about coming home as white as when I left, but that's fine with me. Lots of sunscreen and hanging out in the shade are just fine by me.

Some people wanted to go snorkling today. I knew that I'd probably pop an eardrum with the cold still lingering, so I opted out. It turned out that they could only take a certain number of us today, so some of us signed up for Sunday. Given that I have to leave the hotel at an obscene hour on Monday morning, I may bag out on the snorkling Sunday as well, and just hang out at the beach for one more day.

We gathered after breakfast in the dining area and talked until lunchtime. Breakfast and dinner are included in the resort price, but lunch isn't. Most people decided to walk over to Capitan Lafitte to grab something to eat. The food there is excellent, and incredibly inexpensive. It takes some getting used to; translating the prices from pesos to dollars (roughly 10:1), but after awhile, you realize that prices are pretty inexpensive around here.

After lunch, I took a quick swim in the ocean and then sacked out on the hammock, reading the latest Laurell K. Hamilton book (perfect summer reading). The view from my balcony is wonderful.

A couple of hours later, I met up with the folks who wanted to go shopping and eat at Playa del Carmen, the closest town to here. "Closest," in this case, means about a 15 minute drive down the highway. The resort is really remote, and me, who can't stand to be more than 10 minutes away from a shopping plaza, is perfectly fine with that.

There are a lot of wares on sale in Playa del Carmen, most of which I resisted. I took more pictures along the way, but a lot of them have pictures of Suspects in them, and I didn't ask permission to post their pictures on my site, so I'll keep those on my hard drive until I know it's okay to let everyone see them. They may ask for approval rights, which I understand, as I'm not sure the pictures that have me in them are going to be 'net worthy.

The colors in Playa del Carmen are bright, and everything is geared towards the tourists. Vendors call out to you; do you want your hair braided? Do you want to take a tour somewhere? We have the best silver and gold; come inside! For the most part, I resisted, until we ran across a "Chocolate Cafe," where I saw a drink that contained white chocolate and coconut milk mixed with ice. It tasted like a frozen liquid Mounds bar, which doesn't sound as delicious as this was.

We traveled down 5th Avenue, stopping at this shop or that as people bought souveniers, jewelry, hats, and some extra bug spray.

Our final destination was an Argentinian restaurant that Beth, Jeremy and Lyn recommended. I don't remember what the name of it was, but we called it the "House of Meat." It featured a "small grill" dinner that contained sausage, empenadas, pork roast, and steak. Mo called it a "carnival of meat," and she wasn't kidding. It was a tremendous amount of food for Jared and I to share, but we got our money's worth. All that food, enough for four full entrees, cost less than 20 US dollars. You can't get that full on food that good back in Boston.

Filled with meat, we rolled our way back to the taxis, where Mo, Ian and I joked about being in The Amazing Race against the other two cabs. Our driver was the most aggressive, and passed the other two cabs on the long, pot-holed, bumpy drive to the resort. We won! No fabulous vacation included, except the one we're currently still on.

After the lights and bustle of Playa del Carmen, I found the resort to be very quiet and dark. It took awhile for my eyes to adjust, but soon enough we were all gathered under the dining structure chatting again. A slight breeze kept us cool, but it died down eventually, and the mosquitos were all over, so people decided to call it an early night.

As I walked back up the steps to my room, I saw a couple of the little lizards that are all over the place at night. I like them; they skitter around and are hard to spot if you're moving, but if you sit still long enough, you can get a picture of them. These two seemed to be in an intimate conversation before I scared them off with the flash:

I came back to my room, took a quick shower, and now here I am, updating for folks who won't be able to read this until I come back to the U.S. No matter; it's a good way to relax and remind myself of the good time I'm having.

I just went outside and managed to take one decent shot of the moon through the palm tree next to my balcony. It needed a little lightening up in Photoshop, but I like the way it turned out. I'll leave you with that as I settle down into my hammock to unwind a little bit more before getting to sleep.