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| Yucatan Trip Journal Carly Schuler After a long day of traveling, I finally arrived at my final destination, Cancun, Mexico. Shortly after arriving people in my group started slowly showing up. First to arrive was Josh, Laird and I were next, Grace and Sapna showed up shortly after, while Brad was the last to land that day. David and Lauren were there waiting in their Broadreach t-shirts and big smiles. David was eager for us all to try some dry mango, while Lauren preferred a ball of seeds that slightly reassembled birdseed. We soon found out that Jared, our final member or the group, would fly in tomorrow to Cozumel, our home for the next six days. Our days in Cozumel were nothing short of action-packed. Only our second day of the trip and we were already back to blowing bubbles. The water was crystal clear, vivid blue, and had an impossibly long range of visibility. We were greeted by tons of tiny fish, lazy sea turtles, and even a giant free-swimming green moray eel. Drift diving really was all it's cracked up to be. When we were back on the boat we were all lucky enough to see a large sailfish jump out as if to say a quick "hello." During out days, when we were not diving, we began our EFR training. We got to tour a hyperbaric chamber and practice our skills on each other. Nights were always an adventure. We would try a different local restaurant each night and enjoy entertainment of anything from a mariachi band to a fellow rather known to us as "the La-Bomba guy." We enjoyed seeing people live their everyday lifestyles from people sitting outside and socializing to people loving life and dancing like there is no tomorrow. Our final night in Cozumel, we sat by the huge fountain and watched it change vibrant colors right before our eyes as we revisited out great memories of the first few days together. The next day we had an early rise to take the ferry back to the mainland and meet our taxi driver who would take us to Holbox. Arriving at the Holbox dock, we found we had more time on our hands then we had thought so we passed the time by playing games Lauren had come up with. Dinosaur rock-paper-scissors always does the trick to cure boredom. Our ferry finally arrived and we enjoyed the short ride over. We soon realized upon our arrival that the only taxis on this island were golf carts. This result concluded to Lauren taking our luggage on a cart, while the rest of us slowly but surly made our way to our hotel. Our reward: finally getting to spend time at a beach. We swam to cool off, mad sand castles on the shore, and drew Broadreach men in the sand. The sun finally sank beneath the horizon and we all realized that we had worked up quite an appetite for pizza. It was delicious and Brad and I entertained ourselves by holding a water bottle balancing competition. David told us what was in store for the next day, and we could hardly contain ourselves with the thought of finally getting to swim with some whale sharks. We were up bright and early, ate some empanadas, and immediately headed to our boat for the day. Before we knew it we were off to the site, and out of no where a giant manta ray appeared. Soon after this, we realized that they were EVERYWHERE. We were lucky enough to see one breach nearby, a sight that I would trade for the world. Then finally the moment that we'd all been waiting for, or as Grace would say WHALEEEE SHARKKKK! We were finally graced with our first whale sharks presence. Laird and Lauren were the first to get in the water and we all soon got to take our turn to swim with the massive and beautiful creature. We found they were faster then we'd expected, but it didn't matter because the extra push of energy was worth it. This was officially the highlight for most of us of this incredible trip. We went on a sunset cruise of the island and then finally called it a day. Our taxi picked us up and we drove to Ek-Balam, a small Mayan village in which we were some of the first tourists ever. We enjoyed ice pops while the mayor told us about their village. Each night we had the privilege to enjoy different traditional Mayan foods. My personal favorites included the chicken, tortillas, and watermelon juice. An exciting part of our stay was having Mayan dance lesson. It was so great to experience their forms of self expression. Also during our stay we were able to explore the Ek-Balam (star jaguar in Mayan) ruins. These are still new enough that we were able to explore inside and climb up them making it a much more "hands-on" experience. My personal favorite experience that we had on this trip was the community service, painting the health care center that we did in this village. Many little kids from the village came to help us out and we ended up having a great time playing. Although we had a great language barrier between us, we were able to communicate by hand-games, laughs, smiles, and paint wars. We even got Sapna the nickname of "Mooch" out of all our fun times with them. The children took great pleasure in painting on us until we were completely blue. I know I will never forget the smiles on the kids' faces, and how happy we made them that day. Our next destination was Xcalak, but first we stopped at Chichen Itza to experience the massive Mayan ruins that make Yucatan so famous. We explored and awed at the massive structures and bouts some t-shirts and trinkets to remind us of our visit. Counting on our drive it took us approximately 8 hours to get to Xcalak due to some technical difficulty barriers in the road that we had been unaware of. Regardless we arrived and were immediately astonished at the beauty of this place. It literally completed the definition of paradise with its white sand, palm tress, grass huts, teal ocean, blue cloudless sky, making it officially the most gorgeous place I had been to in my life. We did tons of diving during our stay and even got to dive with four bottlenose dolphins twice that day! For me this was one of the most exciting parts of the trip by far! We played numerous games of pickup volleyball with the employees, played games that Lauren came up with, took a picture of everyone in a handstand, and even go to take a boat ride to the shores of Belize. We found a starfish and David gave us a marine biology lesson while we took pictures. He also took the liberty to educate us about the mangroves which I'm sure none of us will ever forget why they are important to the environment and different facts about their ecology. Xcalak was FINALLY the place where we had got to play birdie on a perch and needless to say Brad and I won that battle much to everyone else's dismay. While we were there Laird and Sapna finished their Rescue diver course and we gave Josh an outstanding birthday party. Yay! Our stay in Xcalak was never to be forgotten. Bright and early the next day, we were loading our bags again to head of to Tulum, in which we would be staying at Cesiak, an ecological lodge nearby. Right after we arrived, we began a beach clean up to help nesting turtles to have a safe environment to lay their eggs. We were all surprised to see how much trash the beach collected, and left with a proud feeling that we had really helped contribute. Before dinner, we had a few minutes to unpack our stuff in our tents. These tents were high above the ground on a deck-like structure and allowed of a phenomenal view of the beach. It did how ever take some getting used to adjust to walking a short distance to get to the bathrooms. When we gathered for dinner, David gave us the lecture about the next to following days. Cenote diving! We had all been waiting the entire trip for this unique experience, and we all excitedly went to bed anticipating blowing more bubbles tomorrow. We arrived at the dive shop, loaded our gear, and then continued on a short distance to the Cenotes. Our guides explained what we were to do and not to do, and before we knew it we were in the water bobbing up and down waiting to descend. After everyone was ready we finally went under. The water was a shocking chill but we soon adapted. The water was clearer then I could have ever imagined and the formations were incredible. All around us hung stalactites and stalagmites glanced up from underneath us. We were surrounded by nature at its best and ended our dive in a whole new state of mind. None of us had expected this experience to be so thrilling. We ate some lunch and went for a second dive and headed back to our lodge. We enjoyed a saltwater shower and then went on a kayaking tour through some mangroves and bird islands. We headed back to the lodge and had our dinner. It was full of many glows but unsurprisingly there were no glums after our action-packed day. Everyone headed back to their tents for the night but we were woken up in the middle of the night to see a sight that most people are never fortunate enough to see. We walked down the beach a little ways and say a mother loggerhead turtle laying her eggs. Researchers were collecting data and explained to us about eggs hatching. We stayed a while and witnessed her make her way back into the ocean, and float off disappearing into the dark ocean. We staggered back to our tents and fell back asleep. Our last day of the trip, we accomplished two more amazing cenote dives and we yet again amazed by the stunning formations. We spent an hour or two packing our last items and celebrated a last birthday celebration of the trip. We ate our last dinner, did ending ceremonies, and made bracelets/anklets of rope for memories. We spent our last night turtle watching and were lucky enough to see one last turtle nesting. At 3:00 a.m. we boarded our taxi and headed to the airport. One by one we said goodbye and headed to our flights. None of us would ever forget our outstanding trip and the memories that would last a life time. We know that we're just parting for the time being and that our paths will cross sometime in the future again. “the La-Bomba guy.†|
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