We woke up early on Tuesday, about 9:00, and went strait to the buffet for breakfast. They had an omelet station, fruit, pancakes, french toast, sausage bacon, and all kinds of other stuff. After breakfast, we spent the first half of the day on the beach. Kristin laid out while I played in the water. I went snorkeling and then kayaked about 200 yards out to the middle of nowhere and back. I was surprised at how many fish i saw while i was out snorkeling. I saw around 8 different types of fish... up to about 18 inches long. I even saw a big white stingray!
Later we took a 10 minute walk into Playa Del Carmen. It was a really nice walk. we passed a few small ruins, and several NICE houses. We found Senior Frogs and sat in some swings at the bar and had a drink while looking out to the ocean. We were right in front of the ferry dock and saw boats going too and from Cozumel. We walked around the downtown area and got swarmed with people in front of their shops trying to get us to buy stuff. We quickly learned to look strait ahead and ignore them when they yelled to us. There was a guying drawing caricatures, so we decided to get one made of us. It turned out GREAT...we both got a big laugh at my beard (i hadn't shaved in a few days). We ate dinner back at the hotel, and sat in the outdoor sports bar with about 8 Canadians we met. They all asked if we had been sick yet. We kinda laughed it off and told them we were fine. We headed to bed around 1:00.I woke up in the middle of the night and had to RUN to the
bathroom. I should have known something was up when nearly EVERYBODY in the hotel was asking us if we were sick yet. I spent the rest of the morning in and out of the bathroom, until it was time to go to the spider monkey sanctuary. I felt better while we were there...probably because i was too distracted to think about feeling bad. We went to a family's house who had about 18 spider monkeys. we got in the cage and fed them raisins while they climbed all over us. It was really neat...I have always wanted a pet monkey and this made me want one even more!! We piled 15 people into a public shuttle van (that was meant for 12 people) and went back to Playa. We both started feeling bad again on the way home and spent the rest of the day in bed watching TV.We had to wake up around 7 the next morning to get ready for our ATV ride through the jungle.
We had just enough time to eat breakfast and catch another shuttle van out to the middle of nowhere. We hopped on a 4-wheeler and rode through the jungle on little dirt roads. after about an hour and a half we made it to a cenoten (underground river). We climbed into this HUGE underground cave and made our way back to a river. It was pitch black inside, and we couldn't have made it without our helmets with spotlights on them. The water was crystal clear and VERY cold. We swam around for a while, and then rode back to the starting point. The roads we were on were covered in white dust, and it was hard to see through all of the dust that was kicked up by the 4-wheelers in front of us. We got covered in white dust, and had to dig it out of our eyes, ears, and nose!!! We got back around 1:00 went out to the beach. We tried to stay, but we both still felt pretty sick to our stomachs and had to head back to the room before too long. Again, we just laid around the rest of the day and watched TV.
