Great Mexican Vacation!

As promised, quick notes on our Mexican vacation. This time we went south of Cancun to Riviera Maya and stayed at a pretty good resort Gran Bahia Principe Akumal. It's a pretty big place (basically, three co-located resorts: Akumal, Tulum, and Coba) with a golf course, white sand beaches, and plenty of restaurants, bars, swimming pools, and entertainment options. Here are a few shots of the facilities:

  

  

Of course, Caribbean Sea and its beaches are the main attraction:

Wild life, like iguanas and lemurs, birds and tropical fish, is everywhere, yet it is fairly unobtrusive:

There are plenty of activities in the area. First, we went to swim with the dolphins:

And then onto a great tour of Mayan ruins at Coba:

Of course, scaling the grand pyramid was one of the highlights of the trip (double the fun for me, as I am afraid of heights):

Here's Mayan observatory (maybe the famous calendar that inspires end-of-the-world controversy was developed here? not to worry, it's just a beginning of the next major cycle):

Infamous Mayan ball game was played here:

This smaller structure is a part of administrative buildings complex:

After spending the first half of the day at the ruins spending some time on the water was refreshing (though I was a bit nervous since last time I was on a small boat like this was about 20 years ago):

More high-flying fun (for acrophobia prone me) - zip lining:

And finally, the last great highlight of the trip - a quick cleansing ceremony (and picture taking) with the local Mayan shaman:

Followed by the trip down below - into the "Mouth of the Frog" cenote :

All in all - awesome vacation!